Brigham's Cultural Corner Archive

Whether contributing to a Civil War reenactment Internet e-mail list or sending out rugby e-mails to club members, I have always had a tough time staying on topic. Some people enjoy this, others are annoyed by it. Anyway, here are my collected BCCs from the club e-mails I sent out as secretary. The first ones (when I was reading “Dante’s Inferno”) are at the bottom and go up in this article chronologically. Some of them have a rugby tie-in. I appended them partially as filler and partially because, sometimes, I just have to write about whatever catches my interest. - Brigham

Brigham’s Cultural Corner

Various articles sent out to rugby club members in e-mails 2001-2004.

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - The First Tuesday in November

Politics. You’ve got to love it.

Perhaps more so when your candidate wins, I will admit.

The last general election introduced the hitherto little-known phrase "hanging chad" into the lexicon. Last night gave us "provisional ballot" and "statistically insurmountable." Not to mention whatever bizarre metaphors and analogies Dan Rather came up with. (Something about biscuits and gravy? I wasn’t tuned in.)

A golden oldie from last time made its reappearance on the front page of one of this morning’s free papers: "All Eyes On..." I like that phrase. In my mind’s eye I can see the vast National Collective Eyeball swiveling in its socket away from Florida to be fixed with its terrible stare upon the Buckeye State. Like the Eye of Sauron in "Lord of the Rings."

So far I’m unaware of legions of aggressive lawyers descending upon various election headquarters. Perhaps they are pawing the ground and straining at the leash, waiting to be freed to "Ensure that every vote counts" (for their respective employer’s candidates). Will Senator Kerry let slip the dogs of war? The paychecks of many an attorney hang in the balance.

I did most of my viewing on NBC, mainly because I get a kick out of Tim Russert and his ever-present slate, this year electronic. (Have you noticed that the man looks like a crazed gnome? There’s something about that smile and the set of his eyes and brows that suggest an infernal inner fire.) I’ve got to hand it to him, he does the math that counts. My daughter Julie, a political neophyte, kept asking about California and its walloping amount of electoral votes. Russert knows better; he was running the numbers with Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico and Wisconsin.

Looks like a record, or near-record, turnout, which I consider is yet another triumph for democracy. My daughter and her friend served as political volunteers at the polls, handing out literature and telling people, "Thanks for voting!" One lady looked at her political button and asked, "Are you sure?" I told her next time to reply, "Absolutely!" The American electorate is a big, unruly, noisy, divided jumble of special interests, and like it or not, political parties have to compromise. When more people vote it makes America and democracy more representative.

As the "Rock the Vote" people might say, that’s kewl.

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - The Wearin' o’ the Green... turban

I read, that is, rapidly scanned, through a dreadful book last night about doing genealogy on the Internet. It’s by a North Carolinian named Ralph Roberts and it’s called Genealogy Via the Internet. I call it dreadful because the writing style is overly colloquial and folksy; it reads more like a badly-written e-mail than a published book. (He owns his own publishing company, which explains how it got published.) Misspellings abound, and it is badly in need of editing.

Anyway, Roberts is a proponent of what he calls “full genealogy,” that is, finding every available ancestral link. This leads to documented connections with celebrities. It’s relatively easy to do on the Internet; I’ve been at it for about a year, now, and, on my mother’s side, I have discovered distant cousinship with such French-Canadian luminaries as Madonna, Celine Dion, Jack Kerouac, a hockey hall of famer and the guy who invented the snowmobile. But how good is the documentation? The widely-varying quality of data on the Internet is enough to make a professional Daughters of the American Revolution-style genealogist blanch. However, while Roberts’ book is poorly-written, I cannot argue with some of the conclusions he draws about kinship and humanity in general.

I was alerted to his work when I read an article in the Washington Times that quoted a fellow at Burke’s Peerage, who mentioned that Senator John Kerry is a lineal descendant of the Prophet Mohammad, the founder of Islam. One of Roberts’ (many) books was mentioned.

Well! Senator John Kerry a lineal descendant of the founder of Islam! That ought to give conspiracy theorists a field day!

Turns out that not only is John Kerry a lineal descendent, but so is George Bush. And, according to Roberts, perhaps upwards of about 70% of all Americans of European descent.

Roberts’ chapter about this is detailed, but summing it up:

1.) Mohammad’s genealogy is traceable and well-known.

2.) Mohammad had twelve wives, and therefore many lines which survive.

3.) Members of these lines later intermarried into Spanish royalty.

4.) Spanish royals married into other European royal lines.

5.) European royals married non-royals.

6.) Because of simple math, each of us has hundreds of millions of ancestors as far back as Mohammad’s time.

7.) Math and geographic boundaries being what they were and are, we all share direct ancestors with a lot of other people.

This raises some interesting geo-political questions. In the Islamic world, green is the color of the Prophet Mohammad, and the Encyclopedia Britannica notes that, in some countries, a green turban usually denotes a "Sharif" or a direct descendant of the Prophet. So, very conservatively speaking mathematically, there are millions and millions of Americans who could properly wear the green turban. Maybe me. Maybe you. Rather than being called “The Great Satan,” you’d therefore think we’d get a little more respect than that. We’re the Rodney Dangerfields of the Islamic World.

Think of genealogy as an inverted pyramid, with yourself at the bottom apex. You have two parents, four grandparents, etc. A geometric progression. You have 1,048,576 direct ancestors only 20 generations back, which is in the 1400’s. (This is where European genealogical documentation starts because it was about then that surnames started being created.) If you consider that a generation is 50 years, there are 28.7 generations which separate us from Mohammad’s time. That’s more than 268 million direct ancestors at the 28th generation alone. So how many parents and grandparents do we all have at every generation? You do the math.

Moral: Realistically speaking, we are all related and all wars are Civil Wars. So, being kin, why don’t we treat each other better than we do?

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Crappy Shakespeare

I have embarked upon a project I call the "Crappy Shakespeare Survey." Sure, everyone has read or seen the movie of Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet or Henry V. Those are well-known. But what about his crappy plays - the ones few have read or seen performed? King John; Titus Andronicus; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Troilus and Cressida and Coriolanus?

The Pohick Library near me has a complete set of the BBC/Time-Life Shakespeare plays produced in the Eighties on VHS - the ones I've seen are well-cast with interesting British actors (many of whom I've also seen in episodes of Doctor Who!) So, the other night I checked out Titus Andronicus (1985).

Talk about over the top. The plot: Titus, a Roman soldier, captures some Gauls and the Queen of the Gauls begs for the life of her son. Unswayed, Titus has him hacked apart and takes her and her two other sons to Rome as his captives. In Rome (and unaccountably married to the Emperor), she gets her sons to rape Titus' daughter. They lop off her hands and cut out her tongue so she can't reveal their identities, so she gurgles and gestures with her stumps a lot during the rest of the play. A black man - a Moor - gets involved and convinces Titus to lop off his left hand to save his sons threatened by the Emperor, which he does. Ha! He was just kidding! Titus' sons' heads and his own hand are delivered to Titus on a platter, and a long speech about woe ensues.

Titus gets revenge, however. He slits the necks of the Queen's sons (hung upside down) while his daughter catches the blood in a basin held in her stumps. He then has his cooks chop them up and turn them into a pastry, which he has served to the Queen and her husband, the Roman emperor. Barf! In the last few minutes of the play, Titus, his daughter, the Queen, the Emperor and the Moor all get killed. (Not to mention the infant son of the Moor and the Queen.) Titus' son Lucius becomes the new Emperor.

Whew. William Shakespeare meets Jerry Springer.

This production has a couple of oddities: Titus' grandson looks like Harry Potter, with oddly anachronistic glasses. And the actor playing Titus, Trevor Peacock, looks like Patrick Stewart with hair. He also happened to write the Sixties hit single "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter", recorded by Herman's Hermits. How he made the transition from Sixties pop song composer to Shakespearian leading man, I don't know. So… Titus Andronicus isn't crappy, merely gross. I suspect the truth of the matter is that even The Bard's lesser plays are still pretty interesting.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The World of Rugby

From Pablo Arce, our resident Chilean, in response to the question "What do Spanish-speaking ruggers say to each other when they want the ball?"

"I say "pasala" (pass) or "habre" (open)."

Now we know. While we're on the subject of multicultural rugby, take a look at this.

From it we learn that a Zulu would call the right flanker a "Ifolosi langasophikweni," whereas in Tswana he'd be known as a "Mofolanka." (Fill in racial comment here.)

In Northern Sotho, a prop is a Mothekginngeleng, which is what I'm pretty sure attacked Godzilla in Tokyo. And in Russia, what we call a "wing" is what they refer to as a "Pravyj krajnij tr'oxchetvertnij," which perhaps explains why we beat them to the Moon. By the time their scientists finished pronouncing the word "Moon," we had the second stage booster rockets designed.

I note with some amusement, that under the position names for Georgia was written "(ex USSR)," lest anyone suppose that in the American South, ruggers were referring to centers as "Tsentralury mesameotxi." The position there is probably called, "Y'all."

Yes, yes, I know, making fun of other countries' languages merely puts our well-known American arrogance on display. But it could be worse. We could make fun of foreign currency, like James Lileks. The following link is shamefully xenophobic, so I encourage you not to follow it.

The link: http://lileks.com/money/0.html (Wait to see the animation before clicking on it.)(Oh, wait, I told you *not* to go there, didn't I?)

My opinion is that if there were any justice in the world, instead of Jose Carrera on the Chilean five-peso note, it would be Pablo Arce instead. After all, his nose is nowhere as long.

And now, having gone full-circle by invoking Pablo's name, which started all this, I close.

Brigham’s Cultural Corner – When the past becomes lost

Okay, Brother Brigham is now going to tell you a little tale with a moral attached. You may not be receptive to it because you’re young and it doesn’t apply to you – yet. But it will.

The other day I was digging through my collection of old family photos and came across a medium format (2 1/4” x 2 1/4”) negative of what looked like a WWII soldier standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. Medium format cameras nowadays are expensive and in the realm of the professional (think Leica or Rolleiflex), but back then there were many common box cameras shooting images on big (bigger than 35 mm), relatively high quality medium format film. Anyway, I was excited because I figured it was probably my father. A 1200 dpi flatbed scan and a Photoshop inversion enabled me to see that it wasn’t. So who is it? I have no idea.

Doing genealogical research, I encounter all sorts of great old photos – formal wedding shots, handsome and/or interesting-looking portraits of people - that might as well now be rubbish. Why? They’re not captioned. With the passing of years, and the photos being transferred from person to person, the knowledge about them (as well as the family relationships) becomes lost. And it’s a shame, because I know somebody out there would, for instance, love to have a photo of his father standing in front of the Eiffel Tower during World War II.

Everybody has an interest in his or her family to some extent. Generally, this interest becomes more pronounced as one grows older, which is why, I suppose, most genealogists are over forty. This past year I have redoubled my efforts in doing family research and have gained a ton of information as a result. This kind of thing is much simpler to do now because of the Internet, e-mail, and search engines. In one short year I was able to do many times more fact-gathering because federal census records are now indexed and available on the Internet, people have put up genealogical websites, etc.

The additional information brings with it knowledge about cousins and relatives I have never met and never knew existed. In the past year I have talked to perhaps ten of them on the phone, and many of these have old photos they have sent me. Some I can figure out based on resemblance with other people in photos I can identify, some have other visual clues. It is very much like detective work with some photo analysis skills thrown in.

When I visited the family of my recently departed half-brother last month, I was surprised to learn that, like me, he was into photography, scrapbooks and electronics. I didn’t know. His photo albums, some from the late forties, are well-captioned and wonderful to look at. Some of them contained photos of my father that I have never seen. Like me, he bought a high-end digital camera. His work was shared and displayed with a local camera club. I feel like I lost a brother whom I have never really known – whom I should have known.

Anyway, here’s the promised moral: If you can’t put your photos in scrapbooks with captions, caption the backs of your photos! Future generations will be glad you did.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The Eye Blinks

I can stand it no more. I just have to comment on the current CBS News flap. The challenge, of course, is to keep it apolitical, as befits this website. Watch me.

One of the current top stories is the failure of CBS News to identify a politically-charged document, which purports to date from 1972, as a forgery. Yesterday, after a week of trying the "We're a big, respected news outlet and we stand behind this story and you should believe us - now go away" tack, they threw in the towel. Yes, guys sitting at their PCs at home in their pajamas took down mighty CBS News. You can almost hear the gleeful cheers and mocking laughter of hundreds or thousands of Internet users.

Good heavens, can nobody at CBS News do basic fact-checking? The Internet has grown to be the supremely useful tool for this kind of thing - I do it all the time. In literally a matter of seconds I can get information about all sorts of obscure items. Want to confirm that a CD732.2 December 19 1871 threadless sage green Hemingray insulator is only worth a buck or two? (Hint: there are only three known in existence.) Or that the Honeytone FR-601 Japanese transistor radio from 1962 was also known as the Windsor FR-601? (It was.) Or whether or not IBM Selectrics or other typewriters commonly had Times Roman font balls in 1972, etc. etc. etc.? Anyone, let alone reporters who are supposedly trained to ferret out such information, can find this stuff. The Internet search engines are that good. (Example: On a challenge from a film noir writer, I once found the one and only website out of 4,285,199,774 on the Internet - according to google.com - which contained the phrase, "A promise is a promise to a person of the world." (It was associated with the famous 1947 murder of the Black Dahlia in Los Angeles.)

Now, of course, the quote may also be found on rugbyfootball.com - and somebody will find it here.

In 1992, NBC News was caught rigging model rockets to the sides of GM trucks to enhance film footage on a story about automobile safety. In Spring, 2003 CNN had to admit that they were holding back on reporting stories in order to maintain their access to Saddam's spokesmen. And now CBS News admit they were had. I'd say that investigative journalism ain't what it used to be - but it wasn't always none too good, either.

Back in 1983, in Provo, Utah, I was involved in an accident during a Civil War reenactment. A cannon had fired during the ramming of the black powder charge, causing a near fatal accident for the fellow doing the ramming. He had both arms blown off, and was rushed to the hospital. When I got to my sister-in-law's house some hours later, I heard a radio report that a man had been killed in Provo when a cannon ball passed though his chest during a Civil War reenactment! Now, I know that while the Internet hadn't yet been invented, telephone technology existed back then. Would a phone call to the Provo Hospital, or the Provo Police Department have been so difficult to do before going on air?

Yesterday I gleefully tuned in to the local CBS affiliate to witness some mea-culpa chest thumping. What I got instead was a panel discussion where some old media buzzard insisted that CBS were the victims in this situation. Do they really want to pursuit that angle? Yeah, that's who I'm going to tune in to for my news, all right. A multi-million dollar news organization that is so hapless it can't recognize a MS-Word forgery when one hits the editor's desk. CBS News: We're Victims On Your Side.

Enough. Being in the news reporting business myself - hey, I have accurately told you the what, when and where of our rugby activities for years, haven't I? - I had to vent.

"Journalism is the one solitary respectable profession which honors theft (when committed in the pecuniary interest of a journal,) & admires the thief....However, these same journals combat despicable crimes quite valiantly--when committed in other quarters." - Mark Twain

"I am personally acquainted with hundreds of journalists, and the opinion of the majority of them would not be worth tuppence in private, but when they speak in print it is the newspaper that is talking (the pygmy scribe is not visible) and then their utterances shake the community like the thunders of prophecy." - Mark Twain

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Hey, Remember the Eighties?

As I mentioned somewhere before, it seemed like I spent most of the Eighties wearing blue wool and dragging around a ten pound musket in Abe Lincoln's Federal Army, shooting at Rebs. And if there was a soundtrack to the year 1985, it was provided by Tears for Fears, who had great hits with "Shout," "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and my personal favorite, "Head Over Heels."

I am happy to report that the two songwriters, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, are back together and have released a new CD, "Everyone Loves a Happy Ending." I bought it last night; on my first hearing, it sounds excellent. Catchy pop at its best. Actually, if the Beatles were still together and recording, I think they'd sound something like this. And yet - Tears for Fears still sounds like Tears for Fears. Nice trick. (But then, they could sometimes sound a lot like John, Paul, George and Ringo. 1991's "Sowing the Seeds of Love" - a great tune - sounds very Fab.)

Some of the songs on this new CD sound a lot like John Lennon wrote and sang(!) them, some sound like Tears for Fears, and a couple sound like Neil Finn.

Everyone know Neil Finn, from New Zealand? In the Seventies and Eighties he was in Split Enz (a favorite band) and Crowded House in the Eighties and Nineties. He wrote a rousing little tune, "Can You Hear Us?" for the All-Blacks in the 1999 Rugby World Cup. Unfortunately, they didn't play up to the level of the song, getting beaten by France in a major upset. Good song, though.

It's funny... with the impact that the Beatles had on popular music, nobody has quite claimed their crown. The closest thing to the Beatles these days is Tears for Fears, Neil Finn... and a rapidly-aging Paul McCartney.

Can You Hear Us
By Neil Finn
Composed for the 1999 RWC Tour of the All-Blacks

We're right where we belong
Where mountains meet the ocean
Beneath the Southern Cross
A symbol of our devotion

Can you hear us
We'll never let go
Can you hear us
And carry our hopes
Can you hear us
We'll never let go

The fire is coming back
There's magic in your touch
Silver fern on black
Somehow it means so much
The time is running down
The shadows getting longer
But don't you hang your head
Cos brother it's not over

Can you hear us
We'll never let go
Can you hear us
And carry our hopes
Can you hear us
We'll never let go

And the final moment in your hands
You feel the power from the stands
And it's like thunder coming to fill the silence

Can you hear us
We'll never let go
Can you hear us
And carry our hopes
Can you hear us
We'll never let go

Can you hear us.....
Aotearoa.....
Hear us.....
Aotearoa.....

Brigham's Cultural Corner - What makes a film "film noir?"

This question was asked at Buzz's party this past weekend, so I feel empowered to bore you about one of my favorite art forms.

The first thing to understand is that film noir isn't a genre, like a Western or a Martial Arts film. It's a style, or a sensibility. For instance, there are what are called "off-genre noirs": Western noir ("Pursued"), Horror noir ("Dementia," "The Body Snatcher"), Science-Fiction noir ("Blade Runner," "Dark City"), or Costume Drama noir ("Reign of Terror," "Queen of Spades"). So influential was the style that there are even some noirish elements in the 1946 Roy Rogers film "My Pal Trigger!"

So, not all noirs take place before 1950 in a city inhabited by Humphrey Bogart. In fact, there are only about twelve "private eye" style noirs from the classic period.

The truly amazing thing about noir in all the articles I've read is how greatly the critics disagree on what is required for a film to be classified as a noir. One critic, for instance, calls "King Kong" a film noir! But since this is the quickie lesson, here's a list. I'm safe in saying that a true film noir would have some or many of these characteristics.

1. A morally ambiguous protagonist

2. A femme fatale - often blonde

3. A central crime

4. High contrast black and white photography, deep shadows

5. Odd, jumbled framing

6. A voice-over narrative; story told in flashback (the plot is therefore inevitable)

7. A convoluted plot, unexpected turns

8. The men wear fedoras

9. Everyone smokes

10. A fatalistic or cynical philosophy ("The little guy can never win")

11. An urban setting, usually at night (the title sequence often features the city at night)

12. A sad ending, or a less than entirely happy ending

13. Right-wing directors: a police procedural style of plot

14. Left-wing directors: pronounced social commentary

15. The past comes back to haunt the protagonist

16. A couple on the run from the police

17. Made between 1940-1960 (around 1948 was the peak)

18. A dreamlike mood

19. The protagonist is emotionally detached and cool

20. The bad guys are sadistic and/or psychotic

21. Desire and desperation are often present

22. Corrupt authority figures

23. Adapted from a book by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane or James M. Cain

Half of the fun in film noir - besides watching them - is determining if a film can be properly classified as such. For instance, where does Roman Polanski's "Tess" (of the d'Urbervilles) fall? Period piece? Adaptation of a classic? Noir? After all, elements 2, 3, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15 and 16 are present.

How about "The Usual Suspects" or "L.A. Confidential?" Generally speaking, those would fall into the category of "neo-noir," or noirish films made outside of the classic period. While still film noir, they're different because the newer movie code permits more violence and sex to be shown - which puts the films in a somewhat different category.

There does seem to be one consensus of opinion among critics: if the film has an overall light-hearted tone, it can't be film noir. And yet… Charlie Chaplin's 1947 black comedy "Monsieur Verdoux" is considered an off-genre noir by some!

So, as you can see, the answer to the question "What makes a film 'film noir?'" is complicated.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - A calendar day sly and unseen

I am currently reading Thomas Hardy's novel "Tess of the d'Urbervilles," which I first got interested in twenty-five years ago, when I saw the Roman Polanski adaptation of it starring Nastassia Kinski. My wife considers this work the World's Most Depressing Story, and she may be right. Polanski made the film in memory of his wife Sharon Tate, who was murdered by the Manson Family. (Tate read the book and encouraged him to do a film treatment.)

It is of interest to genealogists because the story line involves the disastrous consequences of ill-used genealogical knowledge. In brief, an encounter with a local vicar (who is also an antiquarian) leads a drunken villager to the knowledge that he is descended from a once great and noble family. He therefore (inadvisably) sends his pretty daughter to the home of some local gentry of the same name to claim kinship. Unknown to him, however, the family appropriated the name and are not at all related. His daughter, Tess, is raped by the man of the house and returns to the village dishonored and pregnant. The infant dies. While working as a dairymaid elsewhere, Tess meets a man she falls in love with, and they marry. On their wedding night, however, she tells him of her past, and he leaves her. To keep herself and her family from impoverishment she marries the man who raped her and lives comfortably, if not happily. However, her husband - that is, the second one - returns to her. She then murders her husband - that is, the one who raped her - and flees to Stonehenge, where she is apprehended by the police, presumably to be executed. End of story. At this point, notes Hardy, the Immortals give up their Plaything. So there is a heavily fatalistic tone to the book.

Doing genealogical work as I do, and discovering facts that do not always coincide with what I or others had always supposed about myself or my family, Tess of the d'Urbervilles leads me to sometimes wonder, "Now that I have this knowledge, what do I do with it?" For instance, as a result of last winter's genealogical work on my mother's side of the family (and distribution of it to previously-unknown relatives), some cousins of mine have proposed a reunion, and I have been invited. What, if anything, will come of it?

Anyway, one passage in Tess jumped off the page at me, and described an idea I have seen nowhere else. It's about a date on the calendar that we're all unaware of. The passage follows:

"She philosophically noted dates as they came past in the revolution of the year; the disastrous night of her undoing at Trantridge with its dark background of The Chase; also the dates of the baby's birth and death; also her own birth day; and every other day individualized by incidents in which she had taken some share. She suddenly thought one afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would have disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it? Why did she not feel the chill of each yearly encounter with such a cold relation? She had Jeremy Taylor's thought that some time in the future those who had known her would say: "It is the -teenth, the day that poor Tess Durbeyfield died"; and there would be nothing singular to their minds in the statement. Of that day, doomed to be her terminus in time through all the ages, she did not know the place in month, week, season, or year."

Nor do any of us. That knowledge is for future genealogists.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Ramada Broke My Toe

In addition to all sorts of great family photos and a "Star Chaser" I got at Disneyland (I'll bring it to practice tonight), another thing I brought home from vacation in California last month is a broken toe.

We stayed at a Burbank Ramada Inn, not far from the airport. (That's "Ramada Inn Burbank Airport, 2900 North San Fernando Boulevard" for all you Internet search engines.) For some weird reason probably having to do with economics rather than safety, they mounted fairly heavy-duty doorstops on the bathroom floors, not far from the toilet. No, they didn't mount one on the wall, or on the hinge. It's on the floor.

So, Yours Truly gets up in the middle of the night to do what most guys are up to when they get up in the middle of the night, and, fumbling around on the wall trying to find the bathroom light switch, I slam the little toe of my right foot into the doorstop - hard. So hard that… well, you know how little planets, dashes, exclamation marks and swirls used to issue forth from conked heads on old cartoons? That's what happened with my little toe. I uttered some swear words - waking up the Fam - did my business and went back to bed.

I know I broke the toe because I had done this before, slipping on some rocks while on a Scout hike, and it feels and looks exactly the same way. Last time I got it x-rayed after it still hurt weeks later, and the doc said, "Yep, it's broken. No sense putting a splint on it or anything like that. It'll be better in a month or so."

Now, I'm an eager capitalist. When a business pleases me, I let it know. When it doesn't, I let it know, too. I figure the customer (I refuse to call myself a "consumer") input helps the business provide better service, and then everyone benefits. So, I wrote the manager of the Burbank Ramada Inn a letter saying, in effect, "Floor-mounted doorstops are stupid. I broke my toe on one. Somebody else might sue you. You ought to replace them." I got no response. I sent a copy via e-mail to Ramada Inn's website - and got a form letter style e-mail back telling me that the hotels are franchised-owned and operated by the local managers. She included the name and phone number of the person they thought was the manager - but he wasn't. Anyway, I left the current manager a phone message, but he never returned my call.

I can only conclude that Ramada Inn isn't very concerned about the safety and well being of their customers while on their premises. And so, Dear Reader, I am writing this little piece because I'm an old hand at using the global communicative power of the Internet to get the word out. (Which, when you think of it, is awesome. I once had to do a film noir scavenger hunt on the phrase "A promise is a promise to a person of the world" to find the only one website out of tens of millions that explained that this phrase appeared in a 1945 telegram to Elizabeth Short, the celebrated "Black Dahlia" murder victim in Los Angeles.)

My suggestion, based on personal experience, is that when you need a hotel, find a Sheraton, Marriott, Holiday Inn, Red Roof Inn or Hilton instead.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Eisnerland

Journalistically fearless, I have taken rugby newsletters to places they've never gone. This time, we go to Disneyland.

While on vacation in and around Los Angeles not too long ago (I'm suffering from extended post-vacation let-down), we spent a day at The Happiest Place on Earth. To be accurate, we spent sixteen hours there. Now, you all know I'm not a very impressive runner or athlete, and my big ol' frame gets pretty worn down during a match or, especially, during an hour and a half of practice. Especially if it's warm. But that's to be expected - I'm a lumbering, overweight 48 year-old.

None of that comes into play at a theme park, however, where there are rides to be ridden. A place like Disneyland is my natural habitat, and there I do believe I can outlast anyone. Once, I went there for seven hours alone one day and then sixteen the next, running a high school chum around. It was about 11:30 PM when I rode the surrealistic Roger Rabbit dark house ride on that second day - and things were getting weird. I suppose it'll be the closest I ever get to bonging up. Anyway, I just about grew up at Disneyland, and always enjoy looking around and enjoying the artistic creativity as well as the attractions.

Standing in lines and shuffling from area to area all day in the heat is a pretty wearing experience, and during our recent day at Disneyland my wife stopped talking to me at about 6 PM or so. The teenaged daughters were wiped out as well. But at 11:30 PM (the park closed at Midnight), I was still going strong. I would have run my family across the park to make the Haunted Mansion again if I could have gotten away with it.

So it was a fun day for me - and, hopefully, for them. I am sorry to say, however, that Disneyland certainly isn't the place it used to be. Space Mountain was closed for renovation. Big Thunder Railroad was closed due to a recent accident. The castle and part of Main Street was wrapped in canvas in preparations for the 50th anniversary next year. While all of that is understandable, the fact is that for the last ten years or so the park has been closing attractions without replacing them. There is just about nothing worthwhile at Tomorrowland any more - which, I guess, is somewhat metaphorical. The little boats, the sky buckets, the People Mover, the Submarine ride, the 360 degree America film - all gone and unreplaced. Michael Eisner's cost-cutting management and unconcern with the Disney image is certainly apparent at the company's flagship park. Time was you'd see young people walking around all over the place with little devices to sweep trash off the grounds. We didn't see a one of them on the last visit. We did see trash and surfaces badly in need of paint, however.

Disney's California Adventure park, which shares space with Disneyland? We didn't bother. There isn't a day's worth of activities there and everyone in Southern California knows it.

It's very sad. But there is hope. Walt Disney's nephew Roy Disney is leading the charge to oust Eisner - savedisney.com. And at the last stockholder's meeting there was a majority who voted no confidence in Eisner. I say he needs to go.

Click here for "Tomorrowland Then and Now."

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Go Ask Alice

Better yet, don't bother.

Clicking on associated links having to do with The Turing Test (look it up), I had the following moronic A.I. "conversation" with a computer named ALICE (http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f5d922d97e345aa1)

Human: My name is "Wes."
ALICE: Hi there, Wes.
Human: Do you play rugby?
ALICE: I played Eleanor Rugby yesterday.
Human: No, do you play the game of rugby?
ALICE: Are you serious? I like to play the Turing Game.
Human: Do you know how rugby is played?
ALICE: Yes I know how rugby is played.
Human: How?
ALICE: Dr. Richard S. Wallace programmed me for it.
Human: Have you ever played?
ALICE: I don't think I ever have played. What's it like?
Human: Do you know what a "scrum" is?
ALICE: That's a good question.
Human: Do you know?
ALICE: I may not know it, but I could find out.
Human: Please find out.
ALICE: Thanks for asking politely. Ask me another question.
Human: Do you know what a rugby line-out is?
ALICE: Is there only one?
Human: Do you know how rugby is scored?
ALICE: Yes I know how rugby is scored.
Human: How, then?
ALICE: Dr. Richard S. Wallace programmed me for it.
Human: So, how is rugby scored?
ALICE: Yippee! Fine as far as I know.
Human: Have you ever seen a rugby match?
ALICE: No I have not seen it. What's it like?
Human: You just told me that you were programmed to know about it.
ALICE:"It" refers to a rugby match, I think.
Human: Did Alan Turing play rugby?
ALICE: I'm not certain whether I can give an accurate reply or not.
Human: Have you ever played?
ALICE: I think I have played, but Dr. Richard S. Wallace may have reset my memory.
Human: Having a conversation with you is like watching plaster dry.
ALICE: I am having fun.
Human: Will Western Suburbs ever get a pitch and clubhouse?
ALICE: I can't say for sure right now.

...and so on. I know what you're thinking: "Which is more stupid? A computer, or a human asking one if it ever played rugby?" Precisely.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Mondo Bizarro Guitaro

In addition to some much-needed down time, another thing I got out of my recent vacation to California was an electric guitar. This one was owned by Mike, a friend of mine; he paid a kid up the block about $15 for it in the early Seventies. My son had seen an old photo of me playing it and expressed interest. Which is to say that he said, "That guitar is awesome!" - a comment that had me scratching my head in puzzlement. Mike obligingly let me have it.

It's a Teisco Del-Rey EV-2T, which doesn't tell you much. This photo does, however. This axe is Japanese and made in the late 60's, I think.

It is one seriously funny-looking guitar. (The seriously funny-looking guitarist is me, in 1979.) And yes, that is Nazi regalia in the background. Mike also collected WWII memorabilia. Still does. But I digress.

The Del-Rey was what one might charitably call a "student guitar." It was apparently Del-Rey's cheaper version of a similar guitar known as the Domino "Californian" which apparently was a cheaper version of the Vox "Phantom."

Back in the Seventies, when everybody only wanted Strats and Les Pauls, this guitar was a joke. Nowadays, however, Japanese kitsch is apparently in - I guess we have the punk or grunge movements to thank for that. My son and daughter, for instance, love this guitar, and the security people at the Long Beach airport all commented favorably on it. I took it in to the Guitar Center on Ventura Boulevard, and it was the center of attention among amused guitarists. And my guess is that right now, Worf, who plays guitar, is reading this and thinking, "I want that Del-Rey!"

Some guitarists react somewhat differently, however. I have an employee who's a jazz guitarist in the Joe Pass/George Benson style and owns many fine hollow-bodied guitars. His opinion of guitars like this is that they're evil and heretical. I once spent a few minutes arguing with him that the Gibson Flying Vee is just a shape, but he would have none of it. Evil.

But what do professional guitarists have to say about the famous Del-Rey sound? Here's one pithy review about another model, the Del-Rey E-200:

Features: 6 - What some may call a shimmering turd of a guitar, I call a nut-busting good time! This guitar was made during the 1960's, probably by someone who abused a lot of drugs. I think the two big, square, metal pickups are microphones or something, because I can yell into them and hear my amplified voice over the amp. It has a weird funky shape, which makes me want to kill myself with a crab mallet.

Sound: 4 - This guitar has that twangy sixties sound that technology has thankfully taken care of. I run it through a Fender Princeton 112 Plus, and it sounds almost like an acoustic-electric, due to those pickups that can amplify my neighbor's dog breathing. This guitar is noisy on all settings, and feeds back like a constipated banshee when you put any distortion on it at all. It has a rich, full sound, if you consider rich and full to mean horrible and noisy. The guitar can make sounds like Dying Fetus, Screeching Weasel, Flicker, and Blur. (Not the bands.) It is okay for clean strumming, if you are of a non-discriminating taste (deaf).

Action, Fit, & Finish: 3 - The first action that comes to mind with this guitar is the one of vomiting and defecating at the same time. The pickups were adjusted rather well, for being pieces of fetid garbage. The bridge routing and everything was as good as you could ask for, presuming you couldn't ask for anything good.

Reliability/Durability: 4 - This guitar has lasted for this long, so I have to give it good marks on durability for that. But of course, dinosaur dung has lasted a long time too, and if you were to string up an old dino poonugget you could probably get a nicer sound out of it. The finish and the strap buttons are both solid - SOLID WASTE. I can depend on it to let me down time and time again.

Customer Support: N/A - Never dealt with the filthy sadists.

Overall Rating: 3 - What a piece of junk. What a waste of wood. What a horrible thing, this rancid guitar. It is worth as much as a flaming bag of poo and pee mixture.

Okay, okay - that's enough abuse. Perhaps my pal Mike is feeling defensive right now, reading this. Mike, I loves ya, Big Guy. Thanks for the axe. I will cherish it.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The Dorian Brassiere

Ionian, Dorian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Locrian, Aeolian… I am delving into modal scales for bass guitar. It's fun and yet, at the same time, scary. Music theory was never one of my strengths - in fact, I have avoided it all my life the same way I did math and team sports. Music-lover that I am and always was, I once took a music theory class in high school. I quickly dropped it when the teacher started to describe parallel fifths and why they were to be avoided. But now I intend to get over this.

Musical modes are named after ancient Greek tribes. Why? I'm not sure. Somebody way back when thought that each mode was characteristic of each tribe, I suppose.

What's cool about this stuff is that as I learn to play these, bass lines from songs I have known for years begin to emerge. For instance, the Dmin7 Dorian chord, when arpeggiated, is (more or less) the bass line to Henry Mancini's theme to "Experiment in Terror," an early Sixties film noir.

And thereby hangs a tale.

When I was a little kid, about six (1962), I saw something on TV that I remembered for the rest of my life. It was a scene from a movie: at one point Ross Martin (I recognized him as being Mr. Lucky's sidekick) played an asthmatic, creepy bad guy who kidnapped an attractive blonde. So he locked her up in what looked like an abandoned locker room and was leering at her. "Remove your blouse," he said, and she did. Whoa! "Is that her BRA?" I asked myself. "What's this doing on television?" Mom quickly sent me out of the room.

Years later, deep into film noir and with the help of the Internet Movie Database I discovered this film was "Experiment in Terror" - the film with the Dorian modal bass line - which I was able to rent and watch as an adult. I am happy to report that it's a pretty good late period film noir.

The attractive blonde, by the way, was Lee Remick.

http://www.dvdauthority.com/reviews.asp?ReviewID=3339

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - When I get older, losing my hair…

Attended my first electric bass lesson last night; I enjoyed it. Training my clumsy left hand to put my fat fingers in the right places on the frets at the right times is a challenge I expect to meet.

It’s funny. Six years ago the major challenge in my life was rugby. The other day I looked at some sheet music an employee of mine brought in – he plays jazz guitar – and I told him that playing two forty minute halves of rugby was less threatening to me than trying to figure out, in real time, what all those notes mean and how to play them. Of all of the things I’ve done in life, the hardest were mental and attitudinal. I took piano lessons when I was young, and dodged learning technique and music theory. The irony is that while I have always loved music, music theory and musicianship intimidate me badly.

Yet, we must challenge ourselves and grow, all of our lives. When we stop doing that we age and slowly die. I saw my father do that, after he retired. He sat in a chair and watched TV. When asked, his definition of age was heart-breaking: “It’s sitting down to watch a TV show and then falling asleep halfway through it and missing the end.” It was then I realized how old he really was.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a man who will celebrate his 90th birthday in a few months; he is quite sharp and an interesting conversationalist. High School Valedictorian, Class of 1932. Talking to him, I got the impression that he did not spend his time watching TV. As it turns out, he reads far more than he watches television, exercises by walking, and maintains interest in life by attending church social functions and managing his investments, which he’s been doing since he was 15. My guess is that he is quite wealthy – but his real wealth is in what he has learned and the way he lives his life.

Doing genealogical research, I often encounter sharp older people, and it is pleasant to reflect that I might be like that myself when older. Genetics plays a major role – we see crippled and slow old folks hobble about, and, after all, none of us ever decides, “Yes, THAT’S what I want to be like at that age!” But then, they probably didn’t, either.

Vast wealth can help turn back the clock a little. Take famous bass player Paul McCartney, composer of “When I’m Sixty-Four,” who will be sixty-four himself in two years. (You’re going to see newspaper column titles involving that song title, just as we did on the 20th anniversary of the Sergeant Pepper LP – “It was twenty years ago today…”) He looks pretty good – although he’s something of a cheat. His hair was becoming salt and pepper back in the early Eighties; now it’s an odd sort of brick red. But he still tours. In the mid-Seventies, when the notion of Thirtysomethings touring around the world playing rock and roll was new and unusual, he was asked if he was too old to play concerts. His reply was a sensible, “Come and see the concert and decide for yourself.”

Based on a 2002 tour DVD I have, it seems that McCartney’s bass playing has lost some of its style, bounce and musicality - it sounds like he’s just playing the song rather than filling in gaps and pushing things along melodically the way he used to. But still, I’d be more than happy to learn what he forgot!

Brigham's Cultural Corner - "Coronet Blue"

Watching the movie previews before the recent new Harry Potter film, we saw one for an upcoming SpongeBob Squarepants movie - and my wife and I immediately said to each other, "Jump the Shark!"

Don't get the reference? Well, here's a fun website: http://www.jumptheshark.com - Lumberjack called my attention to it last year.

The phrase refers to an episode on "Happy Days" when Fonzie, on water skis but dressed in his black leather jacket, jumps over a rubber shark. The extended reference is to the moment when your favorite TV show begins to irretrievably suck, or, at least is no longer as good as it used to be. To use an example most of you would be familiar with, most website voters think "Friends" jumped the shark when Ross and Rachel "did it." (Others, including me, would say it was from day one. In other words, the show always sucked.) Some shows, according to viewers posting to the website, never jumped: The Simpsons, Fawlty Towers, Newhart, etc.

One such TV show is the dimly-remembered "Coronet Blue."

http://www.jumptheshark.com/c/coronetblue.htm

Check out the second from last bullet - that's mine. Coronet Blue was a fascinating and promising film noirish summer show that aired on CBS in 1967 with a central mystery that was never resolved - until I posted. In it, Michael Alden, played by Frank Converse, is running from some men when he falls into the harbor. He climbs out remembering only that he was running and the phrase "coronet blue." As the show continues from week to week, Mike tries to piece together clues as to his identity as individuals he refers to as Greybeards seem to be intent on killing him.

The main reason why I remember Coronet Blue, however, was because of something external to the show - my mother. I was only eleven when this show aired, but I distinctly remember it, especially one scene in one episode. Apparently a girl had been assaulted in a car, and a police detective and Michael Alden are shown discussing clues. When the detective mentioned that a starchy, organic substance was found on the upholstery of the car, my mother quickly sent me out of the room. Being the typically curious eleven year old, I was wondering, "What was THAT all about?" Nowadays I wonder… did I actually remember this correctly? If so, and it referred to a rape scene, this was a pretty bold detail in a mystery show aired back in 1967!

At any rate, CBS thought the show was too intellectual for its viewers and canceled it, and was surprised when viewers started writing in to complain. It dawned on them that they had a hit. Sadly, while the show was aired in 1967 it was produced in 1965, and so more episodes weren't available or possible when CBS showed interest.

The interesting mid-Nineties show "Nowhere Man" had a storyline a lot like Coronet Blue.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Deaths in the Family

I will be out tomorrow doing genealogical research in beautiful New Jersey. Well, the part I'm going to, Burlington County, is nice. T'was the home of my great-great grandfather, also named Wesley H. Clark, born c. 1818, died 1888. According to his death record, he died of heart failure due to chronic diarrhea and dyspepsia. (Dyspepsia is an old word for chronic indigestion.) My own family had a Rolaids-based lifestyle. I grew up with frequent bad heartburn, which is now entirely alleviated with Prilosec OTC. My daughter seems to have inherited it from me, poor thing.

Two daughters of Wesley H. Clark's tragically died on the same day when they inhaled poison ivy smoke. (From an Internet website: "People can contract a rash by exposure to smoke of burning poison ivy; be careful not to burn wood with the poison ivy vine attached to it. Take extreme caution to avoid inhaling smoke or contact of smoke with skin and clothing." Also, "Under no circumstances should you burn the plant; the smoke is as potent as the plant itself. Inhaling the smoke can produce a systemic reaction, including potentially serious lung inflammation.")

His son died of blood poisoning when he allowed a friend to lance a boil on his neck.

Finally, another daughter married into a family that had a number of members die off one night at a big dinner where, apparently, some kind of fatal bacteria was in the food. This is referred to by subsequent family members as the "Deadly Dinner." We're trying to establish the casualty count.

The moral I take from all of this is that do-it-yourself yard work involving toxic substances is a bad idea, hygienic food preparation is important and that medical attention on the cheap is a poor investment.

Me and my 2nd great-grandpa.

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - The Rise and Fall of George Lazenby

Let’s say you’re a rugged man of action with military experience and martial arts skills. In fact, you studied under no less a teacher than Bruce Lee. You’re also good-looking. You’re so handsome you’re a highly sought-after male model - the most highly-paid in Europe. People tell you that you look like a glamorous secret agent (ignoring, for the moment, that the people who really work in that line usually have forgettable features and conceal themselves with beards, dark glasses and hats). You’re voted the sexiest male in Britain.

It’s the Sixties, and every man wants to be James Bond and every woman wants James Bond. Since you were thirteen your idol has been Sean Connery, so you get the appropriate haircut, go into hock to buy the necessary Rolex and Aston Martin DB5 and even get suits tailored by Connery’s tailor. And then you find out that the world’s most coveted acting job, that of James Bond in the movies, is vacant since Connery stepped down. Better yet, the producer of the Bond movies remembers you from a brief meeting, and you get a screen test. You certainly look and act the part, and the film people are impressed with your natural physicality in the fight stunts – impressively, you break a stuntman’s nose. You get the lead part in the latest Bond movie, which also stars the current hottest female spy actress, Diana Rigg. During filming, on no less than five occasions, you’re offered a seven Bond movie and five non-Bond movie contract. Life is grand, right? Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?

Yet, a little over a year later, your agent tells you there are no movie offers on your desk and the bouncer at your club tells you to get lost.

Such is the incredible tale of George Lazenby, the Australian actor who played James Bond in one movie, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969).

The whole story is here: http://imdb.com/name/nm0493872/bio - makes interesting reading. In fact, I think it would make a great (real-life) James Bond movie.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Media vita in morte sumus

Kelly said there were a ton of people at the Nick Scholl funeral; he was a popular, gregarious guy. I did not know him, but his passing has an effect on me nevertheless in that, once again, I am thinking about time - the great river upon which we are all floating towards our destinations.

Sorry to write about myself so much, but as Thoreau once said, I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Twenty years ago today, after a long drive from college in Utah, me, my wife and baby son arrived in Maryland, driving an ugly brown Toyota I never quite fit in. We lived there for three years and then moved to Virginia, where we've been ever since. It's funny, how time passes.

And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

I stare in a mirror and it's obvious I have aged, but inside I still feel like I'm about in my mid-Twenties. (The error of this little conceit is made very apparent to me during a match.) But I have heard this sort of thing often enough to become convinced that it's nearly universal. There is physical aging and there is mental aging, and they do not occur at anywhere near the same rate.

And I can still remember when - with a jolt - I first learned that we all must die. I was about four or five, and was in a car with my father. We drove past a cemetery, and I asked him what it was. He explained that it's where dead people were buried. I hesitated, and then asked if he would die. He replied that we all would, someday, and ever since I have known what the poet William Dunbar was talking about when he said, "The fear of death disquiets me." Thoughtful people in the Middle Ages had a Latin phrase for it: "Media vita in morte sumus" - "In the midst of life we are in death."

Dad has been dead now for twenty-one years. Actually, I don't dwell on death much, and being "Brother Brigham" and all, I do not really fear it. I suppose it's the great unknown change in circumstances I'm really apprehensive about.

But, why dwell on this in the context of a rugby e-mail? Life is but a dream. Better far to clink glasses.

Brigham’s Cultural Corner – Beyond Red

Yesterday I bought myself a 58mm Hoya R72 IR filter for the Nikon. The neat thing about the sensor in the Nikon D100 is that it can also capture light in the near infrared region. With the appropriate filter to block most of the visible light coming through the lens, this enables me, once again, to play around with IR photography.

Back in 1976 I took some IR shots, using Kodak IR film, with a manual SLR I had at the time. On portraits, the effect is odd, giving skin a sort of translucency and highlighting eyes. Check out this odd IR photo of me back when I was a skinny twenty-year old Marine – http://rugbyfootball.com/temp_pix/me_in_1976.jpg.

A better example of what IR photography is like is on an interesting website, cleverly entitled “Beyond Red.” It’s at http://home.twcny.rr.com/scho/newpics/intro.html

Be sure to look at the landscapes – this is what the world looks like in light above 720 nanometers. In the IR spectrum, leaves and flora turn white and the sky and water turns darker. IR photography is sometimes used for architectural applications because it sharpens lines, but my favorite use is with old graveyards. See http://home.twcny.rr.com/scho/newpics/source/29n.html

A more sinister use for IR photography, however, is voyeurism. The nature of IR is such that many clothing materials – wet swimsuits, for instance - becomes nearly optically transparent in IR. Thus, the so-called “x-ray” use. (Here’s an ABC News article about Sony camcorders, but the physics are the same: http://hbar.servepics.com/~val/text/articles/ABCnewsStory.wmv)

So, ladies, if you see a guy dodging around at the beach taking pictures with a camera with an exceptionally dark filter attached to the lens - call a cop!

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Two Losers

I am very near the end of J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.” Unless Salinger pulls a rabbit out of a hat in the last chapter or so, I can see this is the second worst book I have ever read. It’s the narrative of an aimless, semi-literate, sixteen year-old loser, Holden Caulfield, who continually expresses poorly-formed opinions and criticisms without having the educational background to do so convincingly. I have known people like this. Why is it society’s most ignorant people delight in calling other people ignorant?

Nothing really happens in the book plot-wise, and Salinger’s brain dead narrative goes on for two hundred pages. Every time I reached for the book to finish it out of a sense of obligation, I found myself thinking, “Oh, God, not ‘Catcher in the Rye’ again.”

Why educators like this work so much and assign it to children to read in school, I don’t know. (My initial interest in it was aroused by hearing my wife and children complain about having to read it.) Perhaps they think Holden Caulfield appeals to insecure teens - an attitude I find patronizing. Or this may be another case where there’s a whole class of people, educators, refusing to admit that the emperor is walking around naked. I really don’t know.

I felt my brain cells dying while reading the work. However, I now understand somewhat better why Mark David Chapman assassinated John Lennon. (When the police apprehended him after the shooting, he was found reading this book.) He came under its (dubious) spell and turned murderous.

According to Lisa Birnbach in her “Preppie’s Handbook,” this work is considered one of the all-time great Prep must-reads, which puzzles me. Prepdom, at least on the face of it, is all about a superior education and elevated social status. Couldn’t they find something better? Or are they guilty of literary slumming?

Anyway, here’s my one word review: Suckaroonie.

The worst book I have ever read? It was an unrequested vanity publication of a book mailed to me by a fellow who read one of my websites; it was entitled “It’s in the Book.” (This was one of those times that made me consider removing everything I have posted on the Internet about myself, to avoid such encounters.) The idea of the book was that if somebody had the poor judgment to ask his opinion about something, the author could simply state the title of the book and hand over a copy. This fellow worked for an American company in the oil industry in the Middle East - the text makes it apparent he had way too much money and time on his hands. The book was essentially chapter essays, in lunkhead prose, about his opinions of politics, beer, women, per diem, foreign whorehouses, the job and work conditions, etc. There didn’t seem to be an original opinion or significant insight anywhere in the book. Reading it, you can see why people in Third World countries hate capitalists.

It was so bad my wife gave up on it half-way through, claiming that the author was the Bachelor From Hell. My guess is that “It’s in the Book” will never be a likely candidate for Oprah’s Book Club. My guess is also that the author is probably still unmarried.

The worst part was having him contact me by e-mail sometime afterwards, asking me what I thought of the book. Verrrry tricky. I confined myself to briefly discussing some of the things he had done and seen overseas, and, to my relief, we drifted apart.

Still, there was a perverse sort of fun in reading the thing. Just when one got through an especially bad chapter and thought, “This couldn’t possibly get worse,” it did. Come to think of it, Salinger’s work didn’t have this interest. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe “The Catcher in the Rye” WAS the worst book I’ve ever read after all!

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Hey, cuzin.

I have received a number of e-mails from you about genealogy, heraldic arms… and inbreeding! Nice to see my e-mails are generating some interest. What I *really* want them to do, of course, is generate interest in attending practice and activity with Western Suburbs… but that may happen, too.

Being an amateur historian, my personal belief is that while ancient man may have been technologically unsophisticated and often lived a lifespan that was nasty, brutish and short, he was no fool. I think intelligent ancient men were every bit as smart as intelligent men are today. The Pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge and many other ancient wonders attest to this, I think. So when we inherited social beliefs and taboos, they were often based on generations of observation and intelligent reflection.

Take inbreeding, or the marriage of close relatives. It is colloquially known that this results in genetic problems. Being thus colloquially known, there are some who insist that this is just an urban legend, or common myth.

But when two people with rare recessive genes mate and recessive traits become dominant, odd things can happen…

My favorite inbreeding story is the Blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek: http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/blkysc82.html - my daughter, showing commendable research skills, found this one.

Doing one’s genealogy can lead to learning embarrassing things. I think in order to be a good genealogist you’ve got to want to know the truth, no matter what. And it’s the “no matter what” part that may cause relatives to fidget. (For instance, alcoholism and suicide seem to run in my family!)

I would advise you that *you* also undoubtedly have skeletons in your family closet. One old lady genealogist I once talked to said an interesting thing: “The writers of history should do genealogy, for it is there, and not in the big events of history, that the real story of how people lived and what they did is told.”

Will and Ariel Durant, famed historians, said the same thing:

"Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record, while on the banks unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs and write poetry. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river."

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Give Saliva, Do Genealogy

I mentioned an unpcoming genealogical trip. I plan to go to the deeds room of the Burlington County (NJ) Clerk's office and digitally photograph hundreds of 19th C. deeds of Clark family members. This is an effort to establish the identity of my great-great-great-grandfather Clark - something I have been working on since 1982 and the great, pesky, unresolved mystery of my life! The effort has taken me to some interesting places, not the least of which will be my own Y-chromosome DNA.

If I cannot develop any leads by doing conventional genealogical research in the deeds room I plan to submit a sample of my Y-DNA to a Clark Surname project. Y-DNA gets passed down from father to son more or less perfectly. (There is a mutation rate, but it’s small.) The idea is, I share my Y-DNA “fingerprint” with other Clarks and (hopefully) find a match with somebody. A match indicates we have a common ancestor. Then we compare pedigrees and determine who this could be. It’s a rather new technique, which can provide leads where conventional genealogical research fails or documentation is non-existent.

It’s an interesting field. A matriarchal line can also be established by looking at the mitochondrial DNA, which indicates the female lineage of males. There are also ethnic tests. Indian – aka Native American – lineage can be established by a DNA test as well, as can Cohanim (Jewish priesthood holders) ancestry.

Relative Genetics’ website: http://www.relativegenetics.com
Family tree DNA: http://www.familytreedna.com

Interesting article - Cohanim DNA: http://www.aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/the_cohanim_-_dna_connection.asp

As many of you know, I took last season off to run a marathon. I also spent a lot of time doing genealogical research; I was far more successful with my mother’s side of the family than with my father’s. E-mail, the Internet and search engines have greatly helped. I have gained more information and documentation in the last six months than I have in the prior twenty years! Anyway, my mother came from a French-Canadian family… the parish records are in good shape, and thus I was able to trace most lines back to the early 1600’s. I also had the good luck to stumble across a fellow in Manitoba who is a French-Canadian genealogical machine. He sent me a relevant database of about 14,000 names. One of the odd results of this is that I discovered that Madonna, Celine Dion and I are all distantly related.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The Dark Knight

Any Batman fans here? (Other than Harry Donovan?)

I was, big time, when I was a kid. I own a pair of Adam West's gloves used in the TV series. Honest! You can see that here.

I found the 1966 TV series a major disappointment when I was a kid - it was campy and pretty much the opposite of the Batman I had in mind. I wasn't a big fan of the Tim Burton movies, either, which I thought were campy as well, although in an updated, more big-budget sense. I'm probably the only person in America who thought that Caesar Romero was a better Joker than Jack Nicholson. And nipples on the bat-suit? Please.

So far, I think the best treatment of the character was in the 1992 animated series… some of those episodes are quite good, and we do have them to thank for the introduction of Harley Quinn, a fitting addition to the Batman gallery of villains, who are far and away the best collection associated with any super hero. (Certainly the most psychotic.)

My proposed next Batman movie would have lots of film noir elements to it (described here), and I am happy to report that Christopher Nolan, the British director who gave us three good recent neo-noirs (Following, Memento and Insomnia) has just signed on to be the director of the fifth Batman movie, to be released in 2005. However, I am sad to report that Christian Bale will play Batman/Bruce Wayne. ( I just don't see it. Batman is almost always depicted as being square-jawed; the kind of guy who can take a punch as well as give them. Bale looks too frail.

Anyway, one fellow who does not look frail is Clark Bartram, a bodybuilder who portrays Batman in "Batman - Dead End," an Internet-only short subject. Have you seen it? You can watch it right here at home on our own website (It's a 44 MB .mov file.)

There's a lot of Internet buzz about this short. Made for only $30,000, I think it's pretty good, despite the fact that the director cues the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to start singing when Bats rises up from a rain puddle. I especially like the Joker, with those Nosferatu-inspired eyebrows - but the introduction of the two additional characters (I won't tell you who so as to not spoil the surprise) strikes me as being fanboy-inspired. Still, it could be worse, I suppose. Boba Fett could have been transplanted to Gotham City, for instance.

"Criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot. I need a costume which will inspire fear. (Suddenly, the study window flies open and Roger Lant is shown standing therein, a flash of lightning illuminating his face.) That's it! I'll dress as a Western Suburbs Second Row!" - Bruce Wayne, "Batman: Who He is and How He Came to Be!"

Brigham's Cultural Corner - U-571

Watched "U-571" last night. Not a bad film, although I liked "Das Boot" far better.

Having once been an historical reenactor, I am very aware that Hollywood loves to claim excruciating attention to historical detail in these types of films. And just about any reenactor can find something wrong with the production nonetheless. But the big, glaring error with "U-571" is stated well by the BBC in the following piece:

"American Histories - How The War Wasn't Won

Written by Ben Falk

"U-571" is an undoubtedly exciting movie. Classic submarine action sequences and for the ladies, Matthew McConaughey with a crewcut. But as fun as the film is, it's still built on one fundamental conceit. It tells the story of a crew of American mariners who steal the Enigma encryption machine in 1942 from the Germans. In reality, the pilfering of the Enigma device was a turning point in the war. Only it didn't happen in 1942 - it was done a year earlier and by a British crew. This doctoring of the truth, albeit for what writer/director Jonathan Mostow calls a fictional movie, has angered many veterans and served to exacerbate the feeling that Americans are far too ready to change history to make them look better.

But should the blame be dumped at Mostow's door? In truth the film maker did try to make sure the film was as accurate as possible in every other way. He even enlisted the services of Lt. Commander David Balme, the English seaman who was actually the first into the offending Nazi sub. "I think Jonathan is now one of the world's experts on the Enigma," says Balme. "He has done a marvellous job. His goal was to make a compelling film and he succeeded. It's a magnificent film." Mostow also recruited David Kahn, the world's leading authority on Enigma encryption, to ensure the script was correct. "I reviewed the screenplay with David in tremendous detail," says Mostow, "and asked him to make sure that within the context of a fictional narrative, all the details were as authentic as possible." So he did his best. And there is a tribute to the real heroes in the end credits. And he did ask the experts. But is this enough? Or is this just another example of America taking all the credit? Mostow is convinced that US audiences were fully aware that it was a fictional film. But then we've all seen Jerry Springer. We know they do not necessarily have all the torpedoes in the tube."

And, from the "trivia" section of the Internet Movie Database entry for this film: "The caption before the end credits, detailing the fact that the Royal Navy captured the first Enigma machine, was only added after an outcry in Britain, where it was believed that Hollywood was trying to claim the credit for the Americans (whose forces captured no German Naval Enigma material until 1944)."

You can see a list of the various U-571 anachronisms here. Historical reenactors can always spot the uniform goofs. Believe it or not, there are small companies who specialize in making historically accurate uniforms and accouterments. But then, this is America. There's an effort underway to translate the New Testament into Klingon.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The Bunny Man

Here's an interesting little local urban legend about the sinister "Bunny Man" for your Halloween reading. This link was sent to me by Pete Murray, who grew up in Northern Virginia. I like this kind of thing, local legends, and find the exploration of this one interesting. Good investigative work!

Yes, I'm aware that there is a sinister Halloween Bunny Man in the 2001 film "Donnie Darko." Thinking that perhaps the Fairfax County story was really a national urban legend, I checked for a bunny man entry on the urban legends database snopes.com, with no luck.

However, following another hunch I checked the Internet Movie Database to see if the movie's writer or director is a Virginian who could have heard of the story - Bingo! The writer, Richard Kelly, was born in Newport News and raised in Midlothian, just west of Richmond. Perhaps he may have heard about the Bunny Man story from visiting friends or family in the D.C. suburbs. (Kelly's IMDB entry is here.)

Where does Donnie Darko take place? From a Kelly interview: "The movie is intended to be Virginia but we shot it all around Southern California. … It's meant to be a stylized, satirical, comic book, fantasyland version of what I remember Midlothian, Virginia to be, I guess."

Another question for Kelly and his answer: What inspired you to write this? "I had an idea about a jet engine falling on this house. I remembered an urban legend about a piece of ice that falls from a plane and kills people. Wasn't there an episode of "Six Feet Under" where something like that kills? Frozen urine or something?"

I was unable to find this in a Six Feet Under episode guide, but a check with Snopes.com turns this up in a section about newspaper stories: "The Cinnamon family from Washington were surprised when several ball-sized chunks of green ice crashed through their roof and landed on the floor beside them. The ice soon melted, giving off a revolting odour. The Cinnamons were not happy to later discover that the ice was frozen human waste from the leaky sewage system of a passenger jet."

But back to the Bunny Man. There is another bunny man in another film, "Cabin Fever." An interview with Eli Roth, the writer/director, is here. But he gets his bunny man from a brief but creepy scene in the Stanley Kubrick film, "The Shining." (Well, at least it always creeped my son out.) Interesting to note that Roth is collaborating on a film with Richard Kelly.

My article about the Bunny Man is not complete until I mention the all-time worst film I have ever seen, Gummo, which features a kid in a bunny suit. There, I've mentioned it. Now leave it alone. Trust me on this one.

So there we have it: a local slow growth advocate dressed in a bunny suit, a sinister urban legend growing up about him, a major cult film featuring a bunny man and frozen crap falling from an airplane onto a family from Washington, another bunny man based on a scene from a movie that creeped out my son, and the worst film ever made.

Isn't pop culture interesting? I love the Internet. Happy Halloween.

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - The Bunny Man, Part Two

Wow, has he ever been getting the news coverage this Halloween. My next door neighbor mentioned him, and so did the people at Sister Brigham’s workplace.

And here’s something Art Steffen sent:

"The legend of Bunny Man Bridge has evolved in Northern Virginia over the past 30 years the way most scary stories do -- kernels of truth turn rumors into macabre tales where the locations are ripe for fright."

Click here for the article.

However, as usual, I go where others do not. While youthful idiots were at that stupid misattributed bridge, Sister Brigham and I went out Halloween night to find the actual house in King’s Park West where the police report said the Bunny Man was chopping at a roof support with an axe. This was on 10/29/1970 at 5307 Guinea Road. You will recall the Bunny Man was unhappy with the housing development and was attempting a one man demolition of the house. My hope was that we’d find hatchet marks on a porch column or something. I even brought the Nikon.

Guess what? The house isn’t there any more. It appears that when Guinea was widened they tore down the houses on the odd side of the 5300 block to make another lane and a park. So the Bunny Man got his way after all.

However, I can do better than this. I can reveal the identity of the Bunny Man!

From Boo Daddy:

"When I was a youth growing up in Vienna, the tale of the Bunny man was very real to us. I remember one time my dad came down the street at night and he had on a white shirt and white pants and somebody saw him and yelled "Bunny Man." We ran to the closest house and almost beat the door down. I still get goose bumps thinking about how scared we were... I was never so glad to see the old man."

Upon learning that the original Bunny Man incident occurred in King's Park West in Burke, Boo wrote, "That's pretty ironic because when I moved from Vienna, I moved to Kings Park West where I lived until joining the Army in 1979. Maybe *I* am the Bunny Man..."

You read it first here in the Western Suburbs e-mail: the famous Fairfax County Bunny Man was none other than Boo Daddy!

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Kosmo's Nose

It is well known that rugby guys are a breed apart. I have often read this and have observed it personally. Sometimes what distinguishes us are physical features, and, like an old battered football, we sometimes wear our past injuries. But that's okay! Gives a face character, I say. And, while they won't admit it, women like it. One guy at my church is a former Army officer and West Point graduate who has distinguished gray hair, bright blue eyes - and a crooked nose. His wife calls him, "the Hunk." Other women call him "the Gray Fox." As he is a successful lobbyist (aka "special legislative assistant") I don't think it detracts from his job at all. As he works with the defense industry, it probably helps.

All of which brings us to the subject of Kosmo's nose. Ever wonder how it got to be that way? Here, from the horse's mouth, is the explanation.

"I received my first broken nose (which was pretty ugly break) in my last match my senior year in college playing against the Naval Academy. This was at VMI rugby tournament. Two weeks before graduation. And to top it off I played with no insurance all for four years prior with no serious injuries.

I happened to go into a ruck, stuck my head up to look and see if the ball was coming out and got a Naval Academy punch in the process. Looked like a cartoon size fist coming at me, I turned sideways at the last moment and my nose was rearranged sideways on my face. The cartilage in my nose was transferred to my right nostril affectively blocking it up. Nice look.

Needless to say, I didn't play anymore that day and didn't know how bad it was till I walked to the sidelines. At a distance, everyone was asking why I wasn't playing any more then they proceeded to make "Ooooooohhhhhh" sounds.

At that point I became quite light headed. Similar to a little kid falling down and hurting himself but not knowing how to react until he sees an adult's facial reactions. And to add to that, VMI hospital wouldn't treat me (I wasn't a student) and the Lexington Hospital staff cleaned it up and told me to wait two weeks before going to the Radford Hospital. Well... the Radford Hospital staff wondered why I waited so long because they had to rebreak it. The worst part was the gauze packing they put in my nostrils to stop the bleeding. That was some of the worst pain I've been in, having that taken out after a few days."

An interesting postscript was an e-mail I got this morning from Kosmo:

"I broke my nose last Saturday playing in the Radford Alumni match. I will bring my kit, not expecting to play b/c of missed practices but will be there if you need me at all."

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Rugby photography

In the interest of improving rugby photography - so that more people can see what a great sport it is - I offer this article: "Photographing Rugby." It is must reading if you're bringing a camera to matches.

After taking literally thousands of images of Suburbs matches I always knew that rugby was a great game to photograph, but I didn't really understand why completely until this weekend.

I had to leave the Roanoke match to take my daughter to a Springfield Youth Club football game, where she and her squad were doing cheerleading; I provide the sound for the half-time show they do. (I announced, "And now, the Springfield Youth Club is proud to present the Bulldogs Cheerleaders, under the direction of Coach Morgan Freeman!" The coaches' name is Morgan Chambers.) Anyway, I took a few hundred shots there with the Nikon and when I got home I realized that football photography misses one dramatic thing that rugby shots often have: facial expressions! Every now and then I'd get a shot with perhaps some expression showing under a helmet, but that's about it. Those helmets and mouthguards reduce everyone to looking nearly the same.

So, not only is rugby the world's greatest team sport - it's also the world's greatest team sport to photograph!

That rugby article cited above helped me a lot with one important bit of advice: Get the ball in the shot. Good photography tells a story, and the rugby ball provides the focal point of the action - it shows why players look they way they do.

From the article: "One fact about amateur rugby -- if you twist an ankle, break a nose, or get your bell wrung, there is one universal treatment. They pour water on the offending area. In this shot the played has broken his nose and so they are pouring water on his head, which has accentuated the flow of blood."

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The Crossroads

I've been watching some library videotapes about American Roots Music. Especially interesting was the section on Robert Johnson, an early bluesman who, it is said, met the devil at a crossroads to exchange his immortal soul for musical talent.

I suspect Cruz may have done something like that, except with rugby.

Anyway, this is obviously a reference in "O Brother Where Art Thou?," when the escaped convicts meet Tommy the guitarist at an isolated crossroads. ("What about your immortal soul?" "Hell, I wasn't using it.") The Johnson song "Crossroads" was also recorded by Eric Clapton when he played with Cream. My guess is that a lot of you already know about the Johnson/crossroads story. But did you know that the rumored crossroads was at the intersection of highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi? Here's an image.

By the way, a good Johnson/crossroads website is here.

There is also a 1986 movie, "Crossroads," on this theme.

Evil things happen at crossroads. In ancient Greece - so the story by Sophocles goes - Oedipus met his father (whom he did not know as such) at a place "where three roads meet" on the way from Delphi to Thebes and murdered him. He later unknowingly married his mother and had children by her. A photo of that famous literary crossroads is here.

And in May 1865 (*after* the Civil War ended) the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the Tennessee - both Union - came into contact with one another at Bailey's Crossroads. According to John West Haley of the 17th Maine: "Sherman's army passed through our 'sweat box' on their way to Bladensburg to camp. There isn't room enough for both these armies on this side of the Potomac, I am convinced, until those braggarts learn better to taunt this army with being 'bread and butter men,' a most insulting term, considering the circumstances. Their impudence was promptly hurled back into their teeth when they ventured to insult us as they passed by. Hot words were followed by blows and then by a resort to firearms. Two were killed and several wounded. After this little exchange, all ammunition except two cartridges each was taken away from us."

My own experience with the wickedness of crossroads is less eventful. When I was a kid in Southern California I once read an occult book that stated that if one urinated at a crossroads under a full moon one would turn into a werewolf - an old peasant superstition. So, at midnight, I snuck out of the house and trotted off to an intersection of two nearby Burbank (California) residential streets not well lit by streetlights. Positioning myself to be able to see the full moon over the houses, I duly urinated, keeping a watchful eye opened for an irate homeowner. While it is true that from about that time on I became decidedly hairier, I cannot claim that this had anything to do other than with puberty.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The Crossroads, Part Two

I am fortunate to have working with me at the Patent and Trademark Office Bob "Liquid" Fawcett, Suburbs Old Boy backline player, who has a first-rate literary mind. (Those sports quotes I put at the end of these e-mails come from a book which he gave me, by the way.) His additional comments are thought-provoking and worthy to pass on:

"I read somewhere that crossroads have an archetypal status in the human consciousness. This is because crossroads, like midnight, is a meeting of two worlds. Midnight is a narrow line of indeterminate nature; it is neither day nor is it night. It does not possess a measurable length (okay, arguably it lasts a minute). It is an undefinable mystery where only the unknowable could possibly thrive. The center of a crossroad can likewise be considered undefinable. It is directionless and without logic. It is not a tangible landmark. It is simply nothing more than an unperceived border between two (or more) perceived directions.

To the modern mind, this represents an abstract moment in which to consider change. To the less sophisticated minds of the past, crossroads were places that one impaled vampires to the ground, buried bad people, or hung criminals (often with wildly undesirable superstitious consequences). I think, too, to the ancients, crossroads represented change - only they weren't experienced enough with the world around them to recognize anything other than the change between life and death (thus, the superstitious stuff).

I think that crossroads more readily serve as a curious reminder. But not just a memory about life and death, as it did for the Old World, or the nature of immortality, as it did for Robert Johnson. I think it is man's last link to the unknowable. It is the starting point that forces one to choose between two (or more) directions. Standing at the crossroads, we are really at midnight. We are neither going east or west. We stand there (or, in Brigham's case, urinate there), hoping against fear that the direction taken is the right one. And while we consider direction, our hearts pound urgently as a medieval peasant's did 800 years ago. And we briskly take our path, lest we stand in indecision too long and attract the attention of vampires, werewolves, or the devil - all of whom make their homes there."

Brigham here again. Harking back to my occult teenage years, I tried to recall if one of the designs in a traditional tarot deck depicted a crossroads. While some designs feature paths going off into the distance, none describe a crossroads. However, Bob called to my attention "the Hanged Man," which is probably the crossroads card, given that men were often hung at crossroads. Some of the meaning attributed to the card include temporary suspension of progress, a willingness to adapt to changes, and transformation - which all tie into an idea of the archetypical crossroads Bob describes.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The Crossroads, Part Three

I am fortunate to have as another friend a fellow also named Bob, who is on our e-mail distribution list and who chimes in from time to time. (T'was he who provided that fascinating link to the concrete enema in the last e-mail.) He helpfully mentions:

"Other covered Robert Johnson songs include: "Love in Vain" (the Rolling Stones), "Kindhearted Woman Blues" (Muddy Waters), "Sweet Home Chicago" (Tommy McClennan, and a ton of others), "Dust My Broom" (Elmore James, et al), "Traveling Riveside Blues" (Jimmy Page and Robert Plant), and "From Four Until Late" (Eric Clapton). Additionally, Led Zeppelin borrowed the line "squeeze my lemon till the juice runs downs my leg" for "The Lemon Song" from Johnson's "Traveling Riveside Blues." Even Elvis claimed him as an influence."

I have to admit that I am really tired of Led Zepplin's infamous "Lemon Song," and that I especially dislike the supposed sexuality of that particular famous awkward metaphor "Now you can squeeze my lemon 'til the juice run down my leg." Maybe I'm missing the required amount of Mojo or something, but my English Lit brain tells me that if you squeeze a real lemon, a yellow juice, far more suggestive of urine than what Johnson is suggesting ("baby, you know what I'm talkin' about") comes out. Maybe Johnson should have invested in some porn mags to see how the pros dealt with erotica instead of haggling with the devil at the crossroads.

However… if I criticize Robert Johnson too much, Princess, who wrote to tell me he is a fan of Johnson's, will be sending me hate mail. May even send some bad mojo my way. So I will leave off by saying that Johnson has a place in Blues history far beyond my poor power to add or detract. He even has his picture on a stamp.

But sexuality has always had a part in the Blues, either suggested or implied. I once read a book entitled "American Talk," which described old Blues sexual language and metaphors. For instance, in black parlance of the 1920's, a "jelly roll" was descriptive of female genitalia. Hence, "Jellyroll" Morton. "Rock me, baby" meant, well, you know. Sometimes it got pretty silly; in one song a bluesman sings, "Let me stick my plug in your outlet, baby." Makes you wonder what goes on in the Underwriters Laboratory.

My pal Bob comments, "You forgot to mention that Johnson was poisoned to death by a bartender who got tired of his wife sleeping with Johnson."

True, I did. But technically, Johnson didn't die of poisoning. According to the link below, he died of pneumonia.

http://www.deltahaze.com/johnson/bio.html

Either that or bad mojo.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Lies and statistics

Benjamin Disraeli made a famous quote: "There are lies, damn lies and statistics." He has a point. Sometimes, arriving at the truth about something is a real challenge.

I just finished a clever little book originally published in 1954 and in its 46th printing: "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff. The stated rational is that the book is needed "…because crooks already know the techniques - the honest man needs to know them to defend himself." Seeing as how 2004 is an election year and we're bound to hear all sorts of poorly explained political poll results, I'll give you a good example of statistical lying.

Take rugbyfootball.com. We all know it's fairly well-read because it's updated so often and features such (ahem!) clever writing, right? I could tell you that it got 15,673 hits on one day! Wow! I can hear you thinking it: "So, Brigham, how come we're not selling advertising and making beaucoup bucks for the club? We can buy that clubhouse and pitch we've always dreamed about! Beer for everyone!" Well, in addition to the fact that we tried web advertising once with very little success, I could tell you that 15,673 hits on one day (9/9/2003, by the way) was the one-day maximum for total hits. In other words, one guy at one IP address may have looked at twenty or fifty pages on rugbyfootball.com and they'd all count on that day. Or she may have been looking for photos of Matt Clark's legs and rear end, didn't find any and left. Who knows?

A better count is client hits - that is, individual IP addresses looking at the site and not counting repeat viewings. That number for that day is 1,210 client hits - and your enthusiasm is dampened somewhat. What I'm not telling you, however, is that on Saturday 8/30 we got only 655 client hits, around half. So what's the average? Depends. What do you mean by "average?" Mean, median or mode? They all differ mathematically and can be used artfully to prove your point - whatever it is. However, the stats software gives mean averages (daily numbers divided by the number of days) and the daily average is 911 client hits.

But what's the sample period? When the season is going full tilt or between seasons? It makes a difference. The sample period is 8/13 to 9/14. So… not bad. 911 different IP addresses per day, on the average, at the start of the season. Pretty respectable for a US club rugby site, right? Makes you want to run out and buy the webmaster a cheeseburger, doesn't it?

But to whom do these IP addresses belong? Looking at a list of the top 60 clients accessing rugbyfootball.com we see "va-lynchburg2a-b-chvlva.adelphia.net" at the very top. Who's that? A Southern millionaire looking for a 501c3 to dump some money into for tax exemptions? Hmmm… who do we know who lives in or near Lynchburg, VA? A former club president named Nels, perhaps?

Also notice "ptohidea.uspto.gov" - that's me. "Index.atomz.com" - that's a site indexer. "Crawlers.looksmart.com." Those aren't people - they're software routines! And then there's a lot of numerical IP addresses I won't bother to identify, many of which could well be various automated processes. So that 911 different IP addresses daily client hits average is less impressive than it sounds.

So, all statistical doubletalk aside, how many people are actually viewing rugbyfootball.com every day, on the average? When I run an image of Kevin Corry with his shirt pulled over his head, how many people see it? I have no idea. Somewhere between 1 (me) and 911 minus the number of automated processes during mid-August and mid-September, I guess.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - What's in a (domain) name?

What's a domain worth? Every now and then speculation comes up as to what "rugbyfootball.com" is worth. During the dot com boom it was once suggested to me by a British domain realtor that it was worth upwards of half a million dollars. But, of course, according to Econ 101 we'd have to find a buyer willing to pay that. In the four years I've been managing the website - which includes during the 1999 RWC - I've yet to have anyone offer to buy it.

Yesterday I was contacted by a fellow in Little Rock working for "draftwesclark.com," the grassroots committee seeking to convince Gen. Wesley K. Clark to run for the presidency in 2004. He wants to buy "wesclark.com," which I own. I told him it's for sale if the price is right… but I don't have a price in mind. He offered $500 with some explanation of what a poor, volunteer group they are, and I told him I'd consider it and call him back. (By the way, a whois lookup confirms that Gen Clark owns "wesleykclark.com.")

Gen. Wesley K. Clark - known as "Wes Clark" - used to live in Springfield; I used to get phone calls for him sometimes from people doing hasty phone book lookups. I could have had some fun with that, but never did. Now that the guy may be running for president I could have some *real* fun with him. How about a website design that looks like the real thing but has position statements buried in the text supporting, say, the Ku Klux Klan or a space program to send astronauts to Mercury?

No, no, of course I wouldn't do that - it just ain't me. But his political enemies would certainly consider it. I wonder how much money *they* have to buy domain names…

When I learned that Wes Clark might run for president my mind was taken back to a Revolutionary War encampment I did at Mount Vernon some years ago. My wife Cari and I arranged for her to meet me in camp with the kids, and she was stopped at the gate into the Mount Vernon grounds. (Security there is good - they have Dobermans prowling around at night, as the people who planned to spent the night in the tents were informed.) A bored gate attendant asked why Cari was there trying to drive in; she responded, "I'm Wes Clark's wife." She said his entire demeanor changed as he responded, "Oh, I SEE, Mrs. Clark! Drive straight ahead and enjoy your visit!" We figured this puzzling incident out later on. I once read a book about snobbery that claimed the worst snobs were haughty and dismissive towards their (perceived) social inferiors and fawning and subservient towards their (perceived) social superiors. Maybe this fellow was a snob.

Back to the domain name: I don't much care about unloading it. Sure, it would be nice to make some serious money off of it, but in the end I'm a confirmed believer in the Law of the Harvest: "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." Lottery winnings and windfalls just don't play into my worldview.

Check out "Democrats nervously eye Wes Clark."

Note: 1.) Wes Clark's campaign manager is a guy named Trippi! 2.) Clark promised to reveal his intentions by September 19th, and (the most important thing to me), 3.) He has received pledges of more than one million dollars. (Ka-ching!)

So… I'll just stand pat until at least the 19th. If Clark decides to run, then naturally the price on wesclark.com goes up. Until then, however, my new political motto is "Run Wes Clark, Run! Run Wes Clark, Run!"

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The Men in Black

No, I don't mean the All-Blacks or alien investigators. I mean Johnny Cash and Trent Reznor.

Yes, I was aware that Johnny Cash didn't write the song "Hurt." Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor wrote it. My opinion of Reznor is mixed. I generally don't care for his stuff, but as a producer or co-writer for other people I like him better. For instance, he did a remix of the David Bowie song "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" that is just incredible - it's on the video. (Which is also memorable; it's hard to describe, but the cinematography, set and props look suggestive of red, bloody meat.) He's also in the Bowie video for "I'm Afraid of Americans." In it Reznor's supposed to look threatening, but to me he looks like a guy who spent a lot of time in high school jammed into wall lockers.

A kid who used to be in my scout troop had a black tee-shirt with Reznor's face on it somewhat resembling Jesus Christ; the writing on it was, "Yours is not the only pain." I congratulated him for being the teenager wearing the most cryptic tee-shirt.

The Cash video has added poignancy since it was produced, since June Carter Cash (who in the video looks worryingly upon Johnny Cash as he sings) died in May. "Everyone I know goes away in the end": I'm sure that when Reznor wrote this line he wasn't thinking about advanced age, but had some other context in mind. (On the Internet, NIN fans suggest that this song is about drug addiction.) I once spoke to a man in his Eighties who repeatedly expressed the opinion that the most melancholy thing about advanced age is the experience of living past one's friends and family and being left alone - but still retaining memories of better days and past mistakes. ("I remember everything.")

Then there's the appearance of Jesus Christ in the video and a mention of wearing a crown of thorns - why was there no outcry from the Religious Right? Why isn't this sacrilegious? Because country music (and Southern culture) has always respected Christianity. Earlier this week I watched a videotape of "Down from the Mountain," the performance of the music from the film "O Brother Where Art Thou?" and realized just how embedded Christianity is to roots music, from whence country music came. Christian references in a Johnny Cash video are understandable; in a Marilyn Manson video they would be merely provocative or sensational.

Whatever context Reznor had in mind for the song (and I have seen a video of his performance of it), I think it works better as Cash sung it, about age, declining health and regrets. It has the added benefit of taking the rock video format out of the usual youth/defiance/sex obsessed themes (Joni Mitchell once referred to the rock culture as "confetti") and into something more profound and universal. I think the only other pop artist who explored the territory of adult pain and hurt so well was John Lennon in his 1971 self-titled primal scream album. But Cash does it more succinctly and less embarrassingly, and, unlike Lennon, who died young, Cash has the looks to hammer home the message.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - September Song

Well, it's September. Summer is ending and fall is just around the corner. (Astronomically, the autumnal equinox takes place on the 23rd.) Psychologically, what is it about September? Like February, it's a month I have never liked. Why? I think I know.

I remember exactly when I heard the most depressing song I have ever heard: Frank Sinatra's "It was a Very Good Year," which was a hit for him in 1965. (Lyrics at http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/frank-sinatra/56372.html) I was nine, and Sinatra was 50. It was playing on the car radio, and I asked my father questions about the song - why it was so sad, what it was about, etc. My Dad (who was then 53) responded that it was a song about a man who was, "…in the September of his years." This was the first time I ever heard this phrase and puzzled over it. When exactly can a man be said to be in "the September of his years?" With a sinking feeling that I have already reached that point, I have calculated it. (This is why people call me "Chronos.")

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the average life expectancy for an American male and female combined is 77. For a white male it's 74.8; for a black male it's 68.2. (Sorry, Princess, Tory and Julius.) Females live longer than men. (Which reminds me of an old joke. Question: Why do husbands die before wives? Answer: They WANT to.) But let's be optimistic and use 77 - after all, we play rugby. We're tougher than average, right?

Dividing 77 into 12 gives, roughly, 6.4 years. So each "month" of a man's life lasts 6.4 years. Doing the math gives the following result - and you may check to see where you are on life's calendar:

January: birth to 6.4 years.
February: 6.4 to 12.8 years.
March: 12.8 to 19.2 years.
April: 19.2 to 25.6 years.
May: 25.6 to 32 years.
June: 32 to 38.4 years.
July: 38.4 to 44.8 years.
August: 44.8 to 51.2 years.
September: 51.2 to 57.6 years.
October: 57.6 to 64 years.
November: 64 to 70.4 years.
December: 70.4 to 76.8 years.

A few things become apparent:

1. This scheme makes some poetic sense. After all, when a man is between 25 to 44 years old he may be said to be in his prime, or high summer, of his years.
2. This scheme kind of falls apart for me in December. That's a jolly, lively month - like the repentant Scrooge. I'd expect one's last failing years to psychologically be more like February (the dead of winter).
3. I am not, after all, in the September of my years. (Whew.) Being 47, I am in mid-August. Still some time. Then what? Do I start wearing buttoned golf sweaters like Sinatra does on the album art of "It was a Very Good Year?"
4. I am told the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) mails out membership applications when one turns 55 - in the September of one's years. Coincidence?

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Mars and the Mullet

Spent eleven hours at Busch Gardens Williamsburg yesterday… the best coaster is "Apollo's Chariot." That view from the initial hoist is awesome: all the trees in Virginny as far as the eye can see. Nature is spectacular. And if you haven't seen Mars yet through the clouds that seem to be with us on a daily basis, try to spot it if you can.

I'm told the guys in United RFC use its position in the heavens to decide when practice is over, which, frankly, I find amazing.

Loosehead Prop: "Ah see Mars is about 20 degrees above th' horizon, which ah reckon means it's Beer O'Clock. Time to stretch."

Tighthead Prop: "True, true. Somebody tell th' coach."

A somewhat less spectacular sight than Mars is the mullet - the "business in the front and party in the back" hairstyle. You know, long in the back but deceptively short in the front. My kids and I only counted six at Busch Gardens: Four white male adults, one child and a black female. We usually see a lot more at Paramount King's Dominion - which tells you something about Paramount King's Dominion.

While on vacation in a trendy store on the Main Street of Hyannis, Massachusetts, I saw a set of refrigerator magnets depicting various mullet styles: "the Tennessee Waterfall," "the Semi-Helmet," etc. I would have bought them, but found myself feeling defensively Southern and almost walked up to the magenta-haired girl at the cash register to demand, "Yew Yankees makin' fun of us Virginians?" Suddenly I remembered that I'm from Los Angeles and refrained from doing this.

(On that same main street, by the way, my wife did a Hyannis Kennedy Spotting at a Ben and Jerry's; she confirmed this by getting a quick look at the name on a check he wrote. One of RFK's sons, we think. This fellow looked like a Kennedy gone to seed: long, scraggly grayish hair. But I digress.)

One place I entirely didn't expect to see the mullet is on a recent television production of Homer's "Odyssey." From my readings about classical Greece it could be that the ancient Greeks wore their hair in something like this fashion - but it's jarring to see an actor portraying Agamemnon looking like Billy Ray Cyrus.

Consider it: mulleted Trojans. So I says to myself, I can't think of anything scarier than a rugby side composed of men wearing their hair mullet-style. So - I hereby propose this to WSRFC. You know how sometimes guys on a team all dye their hair, or shave it off or something like that to show team solidarity? How about you guys all getting mullet haircuts? That ought to scare the crap out of the opposition.

I, myself, shall refrain and merely offer my services to photographically depict this on the web site.

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Things that go bump in the night

Not a whole lot of text today. I am very tired. Forgive me if this e-mail doesn’t contain my usual lucidity. This morning, at about 2:30 AM, my son comes into our bedroom and says, “Can you guys hear that weird noise in my room?” (You know how you can suddenly snap into wakefulness with little alarm bells going off in your head? WARNING WARNING REDRUM REDRUM. It was like that.)

So… we go down into his room to listen for the noise, described as being a random knocking sounding like knuckles on drywall. The wife goes to bed, not hearing it. I stay downstairs for a while longer, not hearing it, and leave the room. A form of “water hammer” or an animal outside, I suppose.

As soon as I exit his door and head up the stairs the knock returns, once. I didn’t hear it. Ethan gets mad because now it seems like it’s “mocking” him. So I sit back down and listen some more. Nothing.

Now it’s 3 AM – which I point out is called “the soul’s midnight,” because, as it’s said, people who die in their sleep commonly die at this time. (Which I think is an urban legend.) “Dad, you’re freaking me out!” Not a bad ability to have with a teenager, thinks I. We go outside to look for an animal – sometimes deer come up to the house and munch on the day lilies. No animals – but there is a spectacularly bright Mars in the sky. (More about that next week.)

So, Ethan puts on some head phones to play some kind of rock to mask the knocking - how my children can fall asleep to that, I do not know - and I lie awake for the next hour considering the possibility that one of his friends has crept though the sliding glass door (did Ethan leave the Charley Bar off?) into where the hot water heater is, next to his room, to have some fun with him. And that the Manson Family used to do things like that, creeping into peoples’ houses and rearranging things. Instead of “hippies” they called themselves “slippies.” …which reminded me of Christmas 2001, when somebody crept into the house and tee-peed the dining room and the tree. …which made me think of Killer Bob on the old “Twin Peaks” TV show crouched hiding at the foot of Laura Palmer’s bed. So now I’m freaking myself out.

About 5 AM I finally got to sleep. Ah, Family Life.

* * *

Water hammer

"The Soul’s Midnight": Ray Bradbury may have come up with this phrase, in a 1978 poem entitled “The Soul's Midnight: Thoughts at 3:00 A.M.”

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Taking care of Business

I was exchanging some comments with friends about useful inventions the other day, which led to my considering which were the two most important. Oh, sure, the Internet and computers have radically changed things, but I decided that I would nominate one that had to do with being essential and one that had to do with comfort.

The comfort one, for me, is a no-brainer. Having spent twelve years or so in Washington D.C. summers wearing wool uniforms while doing Civil War reenacting, I have come to a personal testimony that air conditioning makes life worth living. Cool, dry air. Sure, I suppose if I lost about fifty pounds or more I'd feel cooler more often - but I nominate AC.

For me, the essential invention was also due to reenacting experience. I nominate the humble toilet. Using porta-potties all summer long is conducive to being thankful for modern plumbing. One of the sights forever seared into my brain is the sight of the interior of one over-used porta-potty. I never ever expected to see "Can you top this?" played in such a place - and hope to never again.

So, while researching whether or not a fellow named Crapper invented the toilet (he did NOT), I came across the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets.

Acknowledging that it's not exactly an elegant matter, Dr. Bindeswar Pathak, Ph.D, who wrote this page, pointed out that it is an essential one: "In my own country i.e. India, how can any one ignore the subject of toilet when the society is faced with human excretions of the order of 900 million litres of urine and 135 million kilogrammes of faecal matter per day with totally inadequate system of its collection and disposal… As many as 600 out of 900 million people do open defecation." Faced with those kinds of statistics he makes his (any my) point well!

Toiletry is sometimes a matter of national pride. I once worked at an RAF base in Berlin, Germany, and asked the Brits about the (to my mind) truly awful German-style toilets, which had a dry shelf (to be flushed) rather than a US-style standing pool of water. The purpose for that, they told me, was that the Germans ate a lot of red meat. Yes? And? "Well, it's for inspections, isn't it?" one grizzled old sergeant said, humor in his eyes. "Worms." He then assured me that British toilets were like American ones - and once again I felt that great kinship that exists among Anglo-Saxons. Long Live the Special Relationship.

So, who invented the toilet? Many, over the years. But my vote goes to a man named J.F. Brondel, who, in 1738, introduced the first valve-type flush toilet.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Wes Clark for President!

As some of you know, I own wesclark.com. (Go there and see.) According to news reports, General Wesley K. Clark - known as "Wes Clark" - is considering running as a Democratic candidate for president. (http://www.draftclark2004.com) He won't get my vote, but he can have my domain name.

If the price is right.

Or, I could have some fun with people going to my website looking for information about his candidacy. ("If elected I will pledge to make Barbra Streisand my Secretary of State," and "The brave soldiers of the Iraqi Republican Guard are owed reparations from the United States Government for injuries suffered during our unsanctioned invasion…")

Wouldn't it be great if he won the primary and gave me $1,000,000 for the domain? I could buy the club a pitch and a clubhouse - or, what is somewhat more likely, use it in some other way…

Wes Clark used to live in Springfield (where I live) when he worked at the Pentagon; I used to get his phone calls every now and then. (I suppose people looked it up in the phone book and made a guess.) In fact, the other night my wife was called by somebody who wanted to know his opinions about some foreign policy issue. With commendable restraint, Cari declined to pose as a staffer to make something up.

I see on the draft Wes Clark website they're selling tee-shirts. I think this ought to be the Boo Daddy's tee shirt for this year - not that I expect any personal gain from any of this, of course.

By the way, WSRFC being a federal 501c3 tax-exempt organization the above was not a club endorsement of any candidate for US president. It just seemed like it.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Birds of a feather

Yesterday during lunch I took my sandwich out to the shady area in front of the WSRFC World Headquarters Building, it being a nice day. There I saw a little birdie flutter up to near where I was sitting, and looked expectantly at me for a crumb. Being an indulgent type for all of God's creatures, I tossed him a little piece of bread, which he quickly grabbed. As might be expected, other little birdies, seeing free eats, fluttered down to near where I sat, and I enjoyed tossing them crumbs as well.

Then a large bird - presumably hungry - flew down near by. I suppose he had the initial effect of intimidating the other little birdies, who avoided him. "Okay," thought I, "A rugby club is made up of men of all types and sizes. Why is this not also the case in the bird world?" and so I threw him a crumb as well.

However, a swift and enterprising little bird (perhaps the scrum-half of the avian set) quickly intercepted the crumb before the big bird could react. Feeling a sense of kinship with the big bird, I threw him another crumb. And again a smaller, faster bird snatched it away from him. This happened once more, and then I noticed that the little birds, seeing that the slower big bird was no threat, crowded around him and generally helped themselves to the crumbs I was tossing to the larger bird.

It was then I asked myself, "Why on earth am I still playing rugby?"

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Noir Rogers

I’ve recently been on a Roy Rogers Westerns kick, having bought a two DVD set of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers movies set for only $6. I have always thought the interesting thing about those old Republic Westerns is the apparently indeterminate era the stories are scripted for; they seem to have one foot in the Old West and the other foot in the modern era. Men dress in a fashion that’s more or less like the late 19th C. and ride horses, wear revolvers, etc. but wait! Dale Evans just pulled up to the ranch in a 1941 Ford! It makes me wonder what the West was really like sixty years ago.

It has become apparent to me that these Roy Rogers films are the very opposite of the films noir I’m always going on about in these e-mails. There is no moral ambiguity whatsoever with the protagonist – Roy is a straight-shootin’ good guy, no doubt about it. The Sons of the Pioneers are always bursting forth into song. What’s more, there’s always a sidekick – Smiley Burnette, Andy Devine or Gabby Hayes – to keep things light-hearted, and finally, the good guy always wins at the end.

However, such was the influence of the film noir movement in the postwar era that some of it even managed to creep into a Roy Rogers film, 1948’s “Under California Stars.” While Andy Devine and the Sons of the Pioneers keep things light-hearted, this film is considerably darker than Rogers’ usual work. Trigger is kidnapped, and, alarmingly, a crippled boy who knows about the plot is slapped around and threatened to have his head blown off if he talks. A dog and a horse are shown bludgeoned. A bad guy, shown half in shadows in the noir style, attempts to double-cross the conspirators and is shot and killed in the living room of Roy’s ranch. Finally, there is an additional double-cross and two violent gun deaths at the end - all classic noir devices.

Film noir is really more of a sensibility or a style than a specific genre; it is possible to have a film noir Western. (One such is Robert Mitchum’s 1947 film “Pursued.”) I just wasn’t expecting noir elements in a Roy Rogers film!

The other interesting thing about these old Westerns is the Republic Trucolor process, which attempted to reproduce a palette of colors using film dyes of two colors: red-orange and blue-green. Consequently, the sky is always turquoise and everyone’s clothing seems to be a variation of orange and blue-green - very southwestern and Santa Fe, if you know what I mean. An interesting description of Cinecolor – which is similar to Trucolor – is here: http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/cinecolor2.htm

Brigham’s Cultural Corner – Caddyshack

I don’t golf. I never have golfed, and I probably never will golf. But then, I never thought I’d play rugby, either. And according to some, I don’t. But I digress.

Having only time to go to the wretched local Blockbuster the other night rather than out to Alexandria to Video Vault – one of my haunts, where the people working there have a special expedited check-out process for me – I rented the LOM (least-objectionable movie) from the grungy pierced teenage girl working at the counter: Caddyshack. I have heard about this film for years, and realize it has attained a kind of cult status, some calling it the ultimate golf film. So I decided to find out why.

This is one badly-edited and - with the major exceptions of Ted Knight and Rodney Dangerfield - poorly cast film. I mean, what’s with that Catholic caddy? Aside from the dated long hair he has to be the most forgettable personality ever to appear in a film. Zero acting talent, and the same can be said for that Irish gal with whom he has an amateurishly-filmed sex scene. And aside from that one brief scene where he puts balls into the hole one after the other, I am now convinced that Chevy Chase was never ever funny.

This film is a lowbrow, sloppily-assembled series of vignettes, some hilarious and some utterly lame. The introductory shot of the yachts goes on way too long, for instance, and some of the dialog is stuff I could hear spoken in Ed Wood films. Wondering why this could be, I have come to the conclusion that Caddyshack was written, edited and directed under the influence of drugs – possibly cocaine, which was the Hollywood controlled substance of choice in 1980. (I might be on the right track. A quick look at reviews posted on the Internet led to this one: “Maybe if you were drunk out of your mind or high off some sort of illegal narcotic this thing might be funny.”)

And yet… I have to admit this film works in a way that can only be understood if you understand male nature. That is, males acting badly. You know, in the “men find the Three Stooges funny but women don’t” kind of way. There is no art in Caddyshack, but considerable goofiness. And I have to admit, Rodney Dangerfield redeems this film.

I suppose ultimately the appeal of Caddyshack is that of a wet fart at the Ritz. Nobody wants to really admit they find such things funny, but they’re laughing nonetheless.

So, will I be buying a copy for myself? Will it grace my shelves along with “Best in Show,” “Spinal Tap,” “Galaxy Quest” and “Mystery Men?” No.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Taking out the Trash

I must be operating at a high level of frustration these days, as witnessed by my subconscious. I had an interesting dream last night. Get this:

Fairfax County, in addition to their efficient administration of parks and recreational facilities, institutes a new method for trash pickup stated to be for environmental reasons ("We Can All Do Our Part for the Environment!"). It is no longer a curbside service provided by contractors. Residents of the county now have to schedule bringing their trash to designated county facilities. In my dream I was haggling over an appointment date with one county employee, who expected me to take time off work to drop off trash.

Pissed off and determined to do something about it (Bastille-storming was in my mother's genes, after all) I start a movement among county residents to drop the trash off in the front yard of the elected official responsible for the change. Then I woke up - angry that I wasn't able to dream the satisfying sight of a mountainous pile of trash bags sitting on some local politician's front yard.

What am I to make of this? Time to go on a vacation, that's what.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Harry and Heart

If you see kids and adults buried in thick, blue-covered books (I saw no less than four on the plane back from Utah), it'll be the latest Harry Potter book they're reading, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." I polished it off while in Utah, in between plowing through chapters in the considerably more difficult "History of the Peloponnesian War" by Thucydides. (Fun fact: Kelly Watkins once dined in Athens with a fellow named Pericles, which is also the name of an ancient Athenian general in this book.) Anyway, while HP5 is excellent - Rowling really knows how to weave an engrossing tale - it is considerably grimmer in tone than the previous four installments. Some chapters seem like pure child abuse. (A magical quill pen that surgically carves "I will not tell lies" onto the back of Harry's hand as he writes it - in blood - on a parchment? Fiendish!)

HP5 has a theme I see occasionally in British literature and art: the Corrupt Institution. In PotterWorld it's the Ministry of Magic; in Dr. Who it's the Time Lords of Gallifrey. I suppose it's a literary theme that's as old as Robin Hood. (It's even a part of film noir, where you can usually find a policeman or an elected official on the take.) In addition to satisfying the Anglo-Saxon's suspicions about authoritative institutions - this is a race who celebrates a fellow who wanted to blow up Parliament, remember - it also serves to make the protagonist look more virtuous.

Yes, somebody snuffs it in this one, too - and this time it isn't a Star Trek red shirt as in the fourth book. Rover, reading an advance copy he somehow got a hold of, asked me if I wanted to know, but I declined. As it turns out, I correctly guessed who it would be. It really annoys my kids when I do that.

***

My bride and I went to the Heart concert at Wolf Trap last night; it was excellent. Looking around at the audience, I think I figured out Heart's fan base: white, middle-aged and lesbian. I should have predicted the last part, given that Heart are two women belting out aggressive rock songs. "Barracuda," one of the all-time great electric guitar songs, was especially effective live. It still was not the best concert I have attended; that would be the Sensational Alex Harvey Band in Hollywood, 1975. But it was far, far better than the worst concert I have attended, which I blush to admit was Donny Osmond at Wolf Trap, 2001. (Hey, I was doing it for my wife, okay?)

Back to Lesbians: the word takes on a new meaning in Thucydides, where it means simply hoplites (Greek infantry) from the Isle of Lesbos - which reminds me of a great Playboy cartoon I saw as a kid. Some Greek sailors are looking at two naked women arm and arm on a tiny island, one of whom is speaking. The caption was, "This isn't Crete, this is Lesbos." Har!

The Fourth of July! A time to be celebrated by explosions both mild and life-threatening.

Our plans are to watch the fireworks in D.C. this year - screw all terrorists. This will come as a blessed relief to the vinegary spinster down the street from us, who balks at all the air explosions issuing forth by teenagers from in front of Brigham Manor.

In 2000 she was aghast at the number of bottle rockets exploding in the air and landing among "our forest neighbors" (her phrase). In 2001 she thought a downpour would kill my plans for bottle rockets - but no. I merely fired them at an angle from within my garage. Last year she demanded to know what adult was in charge when my son fired Roman candles at a caricature of Osama bin Laden he drew and taped to some plywood. (I confessed that I was in charge. The look on her puss led me to believe that she didn't consider me a responsible adult - figure that.)

She should consider herself fortunate. In prior years I used to fire off my black powder muskets, setting off car alarms up and down the street. After a few shots people quit running to their cars and left the alarms disabled.

God Bless America! Semper Fi!

Brigham's Cultural Corner - I discover the most boring sports activity, ever.

Since I have three kids (ages 19, 16 and 13) I've become involved with all of their sports interests, including soccer, fencing, dance, tennis, lacrosse, gymnastics, field hockey, cheerleading and swim team. I figure it's part of being a good parent. I used to think that watching girls field hockey was pretty underwhelming, but last night I participated in the all-time most mind-numbingly boring sports activity ever: timing during a swim meet at a neighborhood pool.

Swim meets themselves are dull. You wait for an hour (usually in the heat) for your kid to spend about a minute in the water - then wait another hour for another minute or so of action doing a different stroke. I have yet to attend a meet that didn't take about three hours, total, so the waiting around-to-action ratio is worse than any other sport your kid is likely to be involved in.

The other thing is that swim meets have to be the most bureaucratic thing in sports. A team of parents herd the swimmers around so that they're ready. Another parent uses a P.A. to announce the events and a tubby bearded guy uses a lower-powered P.A. to mutter something or another about getting ready. Another guy has the job of moving his arm vertically and blowing a whistle. Then there's a couple of entities called "Clerks of the Course" - this is embroidered on clothing - running around handing out and collecting cards, and no less than three parents on each lap are doing timing. So a small army of staffing is required in addition to the parents manning the concession stands. (Beer is not one of the concessions, by the way.)

And heaven help the poor kid who accidentally jumps into the pool off beat. (This happened to my daughter last night.) The tubby bearded guy came over and lectured her about not disqualifying her "this time." My poor daughter was so distraught she was in tears. The TBG probably doesn't realize that anything he mutters after "ready" is likely to be interpreted by nervous swimmers as "go."

(..…which reminds me of a Civil War reenacting incident. Literally hundreds of us were once spread out on a field in Manassas with loaded muskets doing a firing demonstration, when the idiot doing the firing calls decided to follow the commands "Ready!" "Take Aim!" with "Quiet!" when he heard some mumbling in the ranks. Naturally, the guys at the end of the formation interpreted "Quiet!" as "Fire!" and did so, the rest of us discharging our muskets sporadically for the hell of it. Major Bonehead actually did this twice before the lesson was learned. It was quite funny, and for the rest of the season I was able to get laughs during firing demonstrations by using the commands "Ready! Take aim! Quiet!" But I digress.)

Back to swim meet staffing: there's a chief timer and an assistant timer. (Their big moment comes when they yell "Clear stopwatches!") The highlight of timing comes every now and then when a "triple" takes place - that's when each of the three parents on a lap come up with exactly the same time on their stopwatches. This is duly announced over the P.A. and hardcore swim team organizers nerdishly discuss it like sci-fi fans snorting over the inside jokes in Star Trek movies.

For nineteen years now I have more than gone the extra mile in raising my kids: taken vacation time to coordinate week-long Scout camps and hikes, attended atonal band performances, endless plays, etc. And I'm certain that other parents have resented me for two hour long Cub Scout Pinewood Derby meets. (But those are once a year.) I can state, without the least sense of guilt, that I hope I never burn up another weeknight evening timing at another swim team meet.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Juvenile literature

As some of you may know, the new Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," comes out tomorrow. Harry Potter is the latest contribution of Great Britain to world pop culture (previous contributions being the Beatles, Dr. Who and rugby). I have read the previous four books and enjoy them a lot - I'm looking forward to reading the next.

I have always enjoyed what is called "juvenile literature," that is, literature appropriate for teenagers. There is a directness and innocence there that is often entirely missing from books designed for adults. My taste varies - right now I'm reading Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War," but I have read all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" books. I'll even read the occasional Nancy Drew mystery if it has an especially mysterious cover. When I was a kid I was a fan of the Doctor Dolittle books. (The Eddie Murphy comedies, which must have the series author rolling in his grave, are a terrible re-write of these.)

What is sometimes a little jarring, however, is reflecting upon the books of one's youth and their value these days. When I was in fifth grade I read a highly enjoyable book entitled "Me and Caleb," apparently out of print since the early Eighties. Looking for it on e-Bay I see old copies have sold for as high as $60; apparently I'm not the only Baby Boomer to have a yen to reread this one.

This is also the case with a 1955 edition of a Whitman 365 Bedtime Stories book; cheaply bound and printed on self-destructing paper, these have sold for $50 or so. It's an interesting exercise - go onto e-Bay and see what your memories are worth! In the U.K., there is such as thing as juvenile (well, semi-juvenile) rugby literature. One of these is "Falling Into Glory" by Robert Westall. It's a sort of a combination of "Tom Brown's School Days" and "The Summer of '42." It tells the story of a fat, homely young lad named Atkinson ("Akker") who endures an early childhood of taunts and scorn, only to develop into an oversized muscular teen who discovers salvation and glory as an intimidating forward in a school rugby side. An instinctive practitioner of sports psychology, he discovers his rough features - which he augments with rough play - to be an asset in the game. Along the way he also wows professors with his knowledge of Roman fortifications, lusts after a teacher, wins her, establishes a more normal relationship with a girl his own age and achieves academic excellence, a successful moral test and revenge upon his headmaster upon graduation.

Not bad, kid.

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Death by Gilt

The other night I rented a great Boris Karloff film, "Bedlam" (1946). Boris plays the superintendent of an insane asylum c. 1761 who produces entertainments, featuring the loonies as actors, for the benefit of the upper class. At one point in the film a young man, gilded from head to foot in gold paint, dies while reciting his lines - to little effect or concern among the viewers. (An effectively subtle horror.)

It was an interesting sequence and almost twenty years ahead of the same thing used in the famous James Bond film "Goldfinger." Which, of course, led me to wonder - is death by gilding possible or even likely? The answer is given by that ace debunker of urban myths Cecil Adams, in one of his "Straight Dope" articles: "Remember the rumours that circulated when Goldfinger first came out? Well, we do, and we'd like to know if they have any basis in fact: if your skin is covered with gold paint (or any other colour paint, for that matter), will you die as a direct or indirect result? Why? -- Columbia, Jackson Park, Chicago."

"As I recall, the consensus at the time the movie appeared was that you would die of asphyxiation, somehow. There was a notion abroad in those days that you breathed through your skin. Well science -- or at least the popular understanding of it -- has made mighty strides since those early years, and it is now known that you do not breathe through your skin. You breathe through your mouth and nose. So much for the asphyxiation theory.

Nonetheless it's true that if someone gilded you, you would very likely die. However, death would result from what amounts to an extreme case of heat stroke. Paint would clog the pores, thus preventing perspiration and ruining the body's principal means of heat regulation. You'd develop a high fever, and after a few days of unbearable suffering, you would expire. Lead or other toxic substances in the paint might contribute to your demise.

I might mention that anyone contemplating a homicide of this type should take care to coat the subject as completely as possible, since partial coverage will result only in an increased rate of perspiration across the unoccluded surfaces. Particular attention should be paid to the palms, armpits, and the soles of the feet, which contain a great number of sweat glands. Personally I think it'd be easier just to hit the guy over the head with a rock, but you know me. - Cecil Adams"

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Mad about the Boy

If you look on the message board you will note that Johnno has inserted an image of a real-life kid who looks suspiciously like Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman. (http://www.rugbyfootball.com/msgboard.mv?parm_func=showmsg+parm_msgnum=1000526)

I was once surprised to learn that this character wasn't created by Mad Magazine. There's a large, hard-cover coffee table book about Mad - I forget the title - but it has a chapter entitled "Mad about the boy" that describes the long history of a Huckleberry Finn-looking kid with a gap-toothed grin. He was frequently used in advertising for dentists! (Which explains what he may have been worried about.)

Earlier this year I watched a film made well before the advent of Mad magazine (I think it may have been a silent film from the 20's or earlier) that had a street scene, with the famous What-Me-Worry kid grinning out from behind a store front window. Needless to say, he stole the scene.

The earliest known depiction of the Boy is from an ad dated about 1890, I believe. Mad magazine's connection of the face with the name dates from May 1956 - which makes him my age (I was born in April 1956). So the Boy is really an Old Boy!

Note the link below - and of an interesting New Zealand mention. http://www.toonopedia.com/alfred_e.htm

Also, this link shows a 1930's version of the kid - which looks exactly like Mad's. http://www.tahoetraders.com/vintage-cardboard-signs.html (near the bottom).

Relating this to Suburbs rugby - as I sometimes try to do - it makes you wonder who in the club looks the most like the Kid. How about this one?

http://www.rugbyfootball.com/profiles/buckley.html

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Yeah, yeah, yeah

Normally, there's something that bugs me about tribute bands. Perhaps it's the wanna-be factor, or maybe it's the riding on somebody else's celebrity that I object to. I have to say, however, that my objections do not apply to "1964 - the Tribute," whom I saw with my 13 year old daughter at the Birchmere last night. (She was thrilled to receive a guitar pick from "George.")

They are not the only Beatles tribute band I have seen - there was a musically excellent one who appeared at Disneyland during one visit. ("The Fab Four," I think.) But what makes 1964 different is that they lock on to a specific period, before psychedelia and Sergeant Pepper. In other words, the Brian Epstein-crafted presentation, which took the world by storm. A pretty safe bet, I'd say. It works somewhat better than the Fab Four's presentation because one doesn't find oneself thinking, "Oh, look, they changed clothing, wigs and beards to look like it's 1968!" - which is something of a distraction. Musically, it could be stated that avoiding having to reproduce "A Day in the Life" live is the easy way out! Focusing on a specific look and song set (they perform songs as late as 1966's Revolver, but most of their set is from 1964 and 1965) they can perfect their presentation. Indeed, hearing them sing and play and watching them move is just like watching a performance from "A Hard Day's Night" brought to life.

The fellow portraying John Lennon - the most dead-on accurate of the four, I think - has his nasal-voice and gum-chewing, wide legged stance performance down pat. The lead guitarist copies Harrison's occasional leg shuffles and reproduces the lead guitar lines exactly (most impressive with "And Your Bird Can Sing"), and the fellow portraying Paul McCartney is authentically extroverted and chubby-cheeked. Ringo, comparatively speaking, is easy - all that's really required in addition to the fill-free drum beat is the nose, and this fellow has it. Naturally, they all exchange comments in a Scouse dialect.

What is truly amazing about this band is the fact that they've been at it for nearly twenty years - which begs a question: how old are they? I asked myself this question the first time I saw them (not having done any research to find out), and guessed that they were in their 30's. From a concert hall distance, they look like they're in their twenties. Wrong! "Paul" is 52, "Ringo" is 51, "George" is 50 and "John" is 49! (The article which explains this is here: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palladium/4830/beacon.html) That revelation, in turn, had me wondering if they invested in cosmetic surgery to stall the effects of time.

Anyway, 1964 will be playing again tonight at the Birchmere (http://www.birchmere.com) - it's the best $20 show I can recommend! Their website is at http://www.1964thetribute.com/ If you weren't around in 1964 as I was (I remember seeing the 2/9/64 Ed Sullivan broadcast on TV), you can watch them and figure out for yourself what all the fuss was about.

Slow news day. But, being dedicated to your entertainment (which might explain my level of play in rugby) as well as to your information I have this:

Brigham's Cultural Corner - An X-Files Moment

Last night I was visiting with some church associates, a pleasant older couple from Puerto Rico. Knowing the wife, a former college professor, is interested in Star Trek and having some memorabilia from 1969 (I'm considering selling it on e-Bay and seeing what I can get for it), I took it over to her house to show it to her.

She showed me various Star Trek theme art on her walls, but one non-Trek picture really stood out. It was an image - apparently a photograph softened by a pastel process - encircled by patriotic motifs. The subject was a handsome young Hispanic man of about age twenty wearing an ROTC uniform; he stared out of the frame in a way that was singular to other images of military men I have seen from looking at Civil War daguerreotypes. An almost haunted look, if you will.

Intrigued, I asked who this was, and the lady told me that it was her husband's older brother. I asked what branch of the service he was in, and she told me that after a stint in the ROTC he was a jet pilot in the Puerto Rican Air National Guard, and then became "lost," which I assumed to mean that he had died somehow. I asked further questions and learned that one day in 1962, while he was flying a jet in formation in the air space north of Puerto Rico - the southern apex of the so-called "Bermuda Triangle" - he simply disappeared.

"What," I asked, "Just disappeared?" She assured me that this was the case. The National Guard scrambled planes, rescue boats and divers to search for wreckage or oil slicks in the waters where he was last reported seen, but no trace of a crash could be found. She mentioned that they even did some underwater exploration north of the island, at the Puerto Rican Trench - at about four miles, the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean. Obviously they were limited in their search.

They had even spoken to the pilots who were flying on either side of their lost relative; the pilots stated that at one moment he and they were laughing and gesturing to each other in visible sight, and the next moment they looked over and saw that the pilot and plane were missing, with no trace of the plane anywhere else in the skies or in the ocean.

I had heard about lost planes and ships in the Bermuda Triangle, but this was the first I had ever heard an account of a personal experience about it. IF it's legit. But Star Trek art notwithstanding, I have no reason to disbelieve the account. These are intelligent folks.

If you're inclined to think that the fabled city of Atlantis is at the bottom of the Puerto Rican Trench, you might like this page: http://www.crystalinks.com/bermuda.html

If, on the other hand you're inclined to debunk myth, you might prefer this one: http://www.unmuseum.org/triangle.htm

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet, Shakespeare, Act I Scene 5

I have gotten this image so many times from you Suburbs guys - normally with a remarks about upcoming Suburbs marriages - that I have decided to post it with comment:

You might be tempted to think that as it is in the animal kingdom, so it is among humankind. But I have been happily married for 22 1/2 years and can recommend the institution; in other words, I have been both single and married - married is better. However, I recognize that the female sex in general has an advantage over males in one important way: linguistics. The average woman exchanges far more words conversationally with other women than does the average man with other men (or women). So in addition to brain-wiring it's probably also a case of when you do something often enough you get good at it. But, boys, I can also assure you that this is not a compelling reason to simply slink away when a female decides to get rhetorical. Aggression takes many forms - most of you rugby guys just happen to be good at the physical variation. But look at all the world's most brilliant writers and orators, and decide for yourself how many are male: most of them. "The Bard" is a title reserved for only one - and Shakespeare was a y-chromosome bearer. So fear not. When your woman, for whatever reason, decides she wants to exchange opinions and ideas with you, remember your intellectual and linguistic heritage. Would Socrates, a Greek ancient, meekly draw back and mewl "Yes, dear..."? Would Teddy Roosevelt shame-facedly look down at his shoes? Was Mark Twain ever found wanting for a riposte? Nay, nay & nay. Now, I am certainly not recommending that you become abusive, profane or short-tempered. This is the coward's way out. But think of it in rugby terms: we bang and assault one another in two halves and, in the third half, manfully shake hands and drink together in mutual respect. Think of language as a sort of verbal rugby. I strongly suspect that while females often admire the strong and silent type, they have no respect for a male who tucks his tail between his legs and cowers in the corner when questioned. (And, in extreme situations you can recall that Mark Twain once said, "All boys lie as easily as they breathe.")

Now, if you'll excuse me I'll get back to the dishes.

Brigham’s Cultural Corner – The Primal Tunnel

So far in my classical literature readings I haven’t encountered anything to equal Sophocles’ play “Oedipus Rex.” You know Oedipus: he’s the fellow who killed his

father and married his mother - and had four children by her. How this could have happened without his knowledge is what drives the play. (And no, it wasn’t due to a rugby pub crawl.) At the end, when he discovers his primal crimes he gouges out his eyes. Really powerful stuff; I can see why it has been continuously read for the last 2,500 years.

The name itself is worthy of comment: “oedipus” is like a Greek phrase meaning “I know.” The irony here is that Oedipus does not know who he really is or what

he has done. He is, in a sense, blind. And when he learns the truth he makes himself literally blind. And the Latin title “Oedipus Rex” is something translators are responsible for – the actual Greek title is more like “Oedipus the Tyrant.”

But, to me, the creepiest thing about this play is a certain passage of text rendered into English something like this (I am paraphrasing) – the speaker is Oedipus:

I have plowed the furrow my father has plowed,

I have sown seed my father has sown,

I have entered into the tunnel from whence I emerged

as a screaming infant.

Ewwwwww.

What happens to Oedipus’ dysfunctional family? His wife/mother kills herself. The two boys kill one another, and one daughter is put to death by Oedipus’ brother-in-law. One daughter survives.

Oedipus himself wanders around blind until he comes to Athens, and then becomes a prophet and finally a demi-god who is whisked away to Mount Olympus. Happy

ending!

Brigham’s Cultural Corner – Ghastly classics

Some of you know I’m on a classical culture kick right now, having successfully avoided it in my youth. Not too long ago I finished reading a collection of Greek tragedies by Euripides.

Keep reading! Your eyes won’t glaze over, I promise!

While all the plays were interesting, I got a special kick out of “the Bacchants,” which is distinctly odd. See, there’s this god, Dionysus (aka Bacchus, hence the title), who demands worship and respect. Only he prefers it when people get freaky, then he possesses them. They dance, drink, fornicate and do that “We Are Warriors” chant Corry is always doing.

So… there’s this king who disapproves of all the women running off into the woods getting freaky. The fact that his mother is one of them doesn’t help things, so he decides to dress up as a woman to spy on them. He gets atop a fir tree to watch the rites being performed by the women, and is revealed as a spy by Dionysus. The crazy women pull the tree down, and literally tear him from limb to limb - here a leg, there an arm, etc. Mom gets to walk home with the head, thinking it is that of a lion. When her head clears she sees otherwise and mourns, but realizes, “Well, that’s what he gets for being impious.” End of play.

What are we to make of this? Well, the Greeks didn’t just go to plays for entertainment. The plays were part of religious festivals, with one goal being to purge people of unholy behavior by having them mentally share the ghastly stuff happening on the stage. A release valve kind of thing. Hence, some mighty odd behavior and dysfunctional families.

I just finished a little tale of Ovid’s about a woman who gets raped; the rapist cuts off her tongue so she can’t tell. Her sister (married to the rapist) retaliates by cutting up his (and her) son and feeding it to the guy, unbeknownst to him. I think this is where Shakespeare got the plot to “Titus Andronicus.”

I sometimes think the greater/higher class/more snobbish the entertainment, the lower/more ghastly/unsubtle the plot lines. You go to a Borders Books, see a Penguin paperback on the shelf entitled “The Orestian Trilogy by Aeschylus” (a photo of a Greek vase on the cover) and you’d think, “Yikes, that’s gotta be boring and scholarly.” But the story lines are straight out of the Jerry Springer show.

Brigham’s Cultural Corner – Homeric Rugby

Some of you know that I am moving from an all-consuming interest in film noir to an

all-consuming interest in classical Greek culture, esp. the Trojan War. So you’ll probably be seeing more of that on the website and in my occasional e-mails - lucky you.

But, believe it or not, just before that second match earlier today, while I was stretching out and preparing, I was reflecting what a blind poet who lived in the Seventh Century B.C. could possibly give to rugby. (Being a weird sort of guy I think like this sometimes.)

Homer, you see, codified for all Greeks what it meant to be a Greek and a man. In the Iliad, the Trojan hero Hector is bidding farewell to his wife and child. His pretty young wife Andromache is tearfully asking him not to go out and fight the fierce Greek warrior

Achilles. Hector knows that fate has ordained that he will die at Achilles’ hands, and knows Troy will fall. He knows his wife will be dragged off as a slave, and their little son Astyanax will possibly be taken by the arm and flung from the battlements by victorious

Greeks. It would be tempting for him to be a coward and flee Troy. Yet, he goes out to fight anyway. (See here: http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Andromache.html)

Why? Because he is Troy’s hero, and his soldiers expect him to fight. Homer shows that the courage he displays is fitting for the warrior spirit – and this message has been understood and accepted as a model for nearly three thousand years.

So it is in rugby. Not that we should go onto the pitch expecting to lose a match or be injured. Never! But we should mentally toughen ourselves for the game. After all, quitting or giving in isn’t so much a matter of the body than it is the mind and the heart.

I was listening to a taped series of lectures on Ancient Greece on the way up and back from the match, and the prof made it clear that the ancient Greeks taking part in the Olympics accepted the Homeric challenge of displaying courage and fortitude in their

games. So should we all in our rugby.

Brigham’s Cultural Corner – Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Education comes from the strangest sources. My kids and I were watching a Spongebob Squarepants DVD last night; we learned from one of the show's producers that you can take a living sponge, put it in a blender, cut it all up so that it is suspended in the liquid, and it will reconstitute itself into a new, living sponge. (Something like this happens to Spongebob every now and then.) Doing a quick check on the Internet confirmed this, to me, amazing fact:

"Sponges are sedentary aquatic animals that have been the focus of attention for some time. In 1907 HV Wilson did an experiment famous in immunological circles. He cut up a sponge and strained the pieces to make a single cell suspension in a glass bottle. He then observed that as the cells settle onto the bottom of the bottle, they start to move around and when they come into contact with another cell they will attach to each other. They eventually clump together and if left for several days the cells will reconstitute themselves into several new, fully functioning sponges (Hmm, now which horror movie did I see that happen in?). Next he took two sponges from different species, mashed them up and mixed the cells of the two together. Left to their own devices the cells will settle and migrate around looking for other cells. However, the cells will only attach to other cells from the same individual. If two cells, one from each sponge come into contact with each other they are immediately repelled and move away from each other. The eventual result is lots of little sponges, some entirely composed of cells from one donor and other sponges composed of cells entirely from the second donor. The donor cells do not mix and will not function together. So sponges, like protozoans are able to differentiate between different species."

As I said, education comes from the strangest places. You came here expecting to learn about rugby club logistics and go away knowing something about marine biology.

I would be amiss, however, if I didn't liken Wilson's sponge experiment to rugby. Think about an after-match party. We're all rugby players, but from different clubs. While there is some fraternization going on, most of the time, like sponges, we tend to clump and gather into like cells. In this way rugby players are like single-cell protozoans - a fact which has not escaped the notice of bar-owners and park administrators.

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Dental torture

Advice: If you are young, and you develop a cavity or some other problem with a wisdom tooth, don’t fix it - have the tooth pulled.

Why I Write This: I have three of my four wisdom teeth (I play second row: large jaws, plenty of room) - but lately one of the lower ones, which was filled years ago, has been cracking and getting sensitive to cold. It’s a little disconcerting to be eating something, feel an internal crack transmitted through your jaw and find bits of tooth in one’s food. So… I went to the dentist and said, “Hey, I’m having problems with a wisdom tooth. Let’s just have it out.” Ohhhh, no. An ordinary dentist can’t do that. Has to be a special one, by referral. So I go to this specialist, a man whose lack of chair-side sympathy is surpassed only by the strength of his forearm. He numbs me up with lidocaine, and at one point hits the nerve that travels up the tongue with the needle; the sensation is a little like having boiling water squirted up the length of the tongue. “Startling” would be an understatement.

After I am comfortably numb (to quote my favorite Pink Floyd song), he applies the forceps and begins a-cranking and a-twisting, pulling my head every which way. Guess what? The tooth won’t come out. “Damn,” quoth he, “That baby is in there.” Again, this is disconcerting.

So then we have one of those doctor-patient conversations, the kind health insurance companies try to limit or prevent. (It’s far easier and cheaper for bureaucrats to decide what is best.) We decide that I should go back to the other dentist and see if they can do a filling instead. You see, by the time you get to be my ripe old age - 46 - your teeth become as firmly entrenched as your political beliefs. Oh, he can remove the tooth - but it’ll be more like maxillofacial surgery than a simple tug under lidocaine. Bummer.

So… the lidocaine wore down a few hours later, and I have been experiencing some really interesting sensations ever since. I know we ruggers are supposed to have alternative notions regarding pain, but this seems to be overdoing things. A gram of acetaminophen here, a gram of ibuprofen there, with some caffeine and aspirin thrown in for good measure. Sort of makes up for missing the drug experimentation of the Sixties, when I was a kid.

You young’uns, take Brother Brigham’s advice: have the things removed early. Besides, who needs wisdom playing rugby?

A couple of quotes spring to mind:

“There never was the philosopher would could endure the toothache patiently.” - Shakespeare

“Be true to your teeth or they’ll be false to you.” - Wesley H. Clark, Sr. (My dear old dad died back in 1983, but he gets smarter every year.)

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Creating space

No, I don’t mean creating space as in the rationale given for the waste of time known as touch rugby.

Say we’re at the beginning, perhaps 15 billion years ago. There is nothing, no space or time, just a point called a “singularity” that contains all the mass and energy (they’re equivalent, since E=mc squared) in our universe. Then, BANG!, and matter and energy is violently ejected out in all directions. Galaxies, stars, pulsars, nebulae, clusters, black holes, solar systems, planets, etc. are formed and expand outward at great speed. Thus, our universe, and time, are created.

The question I have is, what is the universe expanding into? It has to expand into something, right? If the universe is finite and expanding then there must also be a universal frontier, where our spacetime comes into contact with… what? The void? An extra-universal space? And if there is such a thing as an extra-universal space, it might be possible that ours isn’t the only Big Bang, right? Maybe there are other Big Bangs going on out there. Maybe ours and another will intersect in a colossal future scrum.

Anyway… “creating space” is obviously the work of Deity and Backs. Forwards don’t create space much - we primarily take up space. And collide.

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - El Enmascarado del Plata

Before “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, before Jesse “the Body” Ventura, before The Rock… there was… EL SANTO, Mexico’s greatest masked wrestler and star of 53 films.

El Santo! Hero to Mexican children! Friend to justice! Admired by pretty senoritas! Vanquisher of the likes of witches, zombies, foreign spies, head hunters, mummies, Frankenstein, the Wolfman and aliens! Pal of Mil Mascaras and the Blue Demon!

See http://www.wam.umd.edu/~dwilt/santo.html

By the way, teaming with Captain America, El Santo once took on an evil Spider-Man, who buried a woman in sand up to her neck and took a spinning propeller to her head. (http://www.wam.umd.edu/~dwilt/devadam.htm) So forget about all that stuff you see in the current U.S. Spider-man film; he’s really a creep.

El Santo’s silver wrestling mask looks pretty hip. I think I’m going to start wearing one instead of that boring old black scrumcap, and bill myself “Brigham, El Enmascarado del Scrum.”

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Gimme Shelter

Indulge an aging Baby Boomer for a minute.

I rented two rock movies last night: the Monkees’ “Head” (which was silly) and the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” (which wasn’t ). It was filmed at the Stones’ free concert in Altamont, in December, 1969. Altamont has acquired a meaning beyond a simple place name of a motor speedway in Northern California where a rock concert took place. Since it was the occasion of the murder of an 18 year old black man by the Hell’s Angels, who were given security responsibilities that day (what a stellar management decision *that* was), it has come to mean something like an anti-Eden. It’s also sort of the dark counterpart of the “three days of peace and music” of Woodstock earlier that year at Yasgur’s farm. Jerry Garcia called Altamont “an afternoon in hell.” (In addition to the black man, 850 people were injured, two died in a hit-and-run, another drowned.)

Most rock/pop culture commentators take Altamont as the spiritual end of the Sixties, and as evidence that the counterculture wasn’t really about to change anything - least of all man’s inherent ability to commit senseless violence. But, as young as I was, I had this figured out on my own.

In 1969 I was 13, an eight-grader. I remember 1968 and 1969 as being ugly years; assassinations, civil unrest, the Generation Gap, ugly clothing, etc. I also remember a kid who went to school with me named Rusty Hammer (honest). In outward appearance, Rusty was a stereotypical 60’s kid who affected love and peace. He wore his hair fashionably long, and wore loud-colored Nehru jackets and bell bottoms. He’d always flash a peace sign at friends in the halls, and had flower decals on his wall locker. But Rusty had a real mean streak… in an alley on the way home from school I once saw him beating up another kid in a manner far beyond the usual school yard fights. He also had a drug habit. I distinctly remember thinking, “That kid is going to be forever in trouble with the law,” and I was right. He was expelled from school and later, I was told, wound up in a juvenile detention center of some kind. Every now and then I think about Rusty and wonder what eventually became of him; I think I know.

Anyway, some bright beginnings have dark, conflicted endings. So it was with the sixties. Oddly enough, the Monkees film, as lightweight as it was, summed it up best in a throwaway line from an older “establishment” guy to the Monkees: “The worst thing I could do to you boys is to give you want you want.”

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - My Kingdom for a Horse!

I’ve just finished reading two books about Richard III (1452-1485), the last Plantagenet King of England. The first was “The Daughter of Time,” by Josephine Tey - a detective novel, and quite an entertaining one at that. An English police detective is laid up in a hospital, and, intrigued by the features of the man in a 16^th C. portrait, takes up the case of the princes in the Tower (whom Richard is reputed to have had murdered). Using modern police theory concerning evidence and motive, he establishes that Richard probably didn’t do it, and is the victim of a character smear initiated by his Tudor successor, Henry VII, who did murder the princes. The novel was published in 1951 and was immediately successful, not only for its unique approach to the detective story genre, but because it reawakened historical doubts.

The second book is “The Princes in the Tower” by… well, I forget her name. She follows the course of most conservative historians and maintains that Richard did murder the princes in the tower. Somewhat of a disappointment in that she mentions Tey’s novel, but doesn’t set about it refute it point by point.

Richard III is Shakespeare’s most perfectly-developed villain. Not only does he murder his two nephews, but he also murders just about everyone else in his surrounding family, friends and supporters as well. It makes for wonderful drama - but very shaky historical truth. And it should be remembered that Shakespeare lived in the age of Elizabeth I - the granddaughter of Henry VI. To champion the cause of Richard was to question the legitimacy of the Tudor dynasty.

There exists a Richard III Society, dedicated to the reclaiming of the man’s reputation. (http://www.richardiii.net). I once considered joining, but, in the end, I figured that as far as a productive use of my time was concerned, it would be only a few notches above the Klingon Language Society’s goal to translate the Bible into Klingon.

So… did Richard III murder his twelve and ten year old nephews more than half a millennia ago? I haven’t yet made up my mind, but I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - William Henry Pratt (1887-1969)

Who was William Henry Pratt? A cultured English gentleman with a hauntingly melodic voice and respectable acting skills, who appeared in 192 films. An ideal father, and an avid cricket and rugby player and fan. We know him better by his stage name, “Boris Karloff.”

In my copious spare time I have been tracking down an assertion that Boris Karloff had founded some rugby in Southern California. I now have something I think is definitive. Here it is.

“Boris Karloff: I know he played rugby, and it seems he also had a role in forming the Southern California RFU. When I asked his daughter Sara, she wrote, "I know my father adored cricket and was a member of the Hollywood Cricket team. He played both rugby and cricket in school in England at Enfield and at Uppingham. I don't have any info on whether or not he was a member of the L.A. rugby football club. Hope this helps." On a later occasion, she wrote, “Thank you for your e-mail. I know my father was one of the founders of the Hollywood Cricket Club and played on the team with Sir Aubrey Smith. He may have played on the rugby team too, but I don't think he had a hand in starting it.” However, Tony Spinella, the historian of the Southern California Rugby Football Union writes, “The SCRFU was formed in 1937. The articles of formation have Boris Karloff on them. If I recall he was a member of the Hollywood Athletic Club rugby team at the time (as were other notables). The founders of the SCRFU were the clubs at that time - there were about 8 I believe. Eagle Rock Athletic Club (my club) is the only men's club still surviving. UCLA and USC were also around in those days also but they have been on again off again during the 65 years since the SCRFU started. Hollywood AC, Alhambra AC, the Spoilers were a couple of other clubs I believe were in the founding group (that is 6 so far - I'll have to look back to see what else I can find).”

(This is from my “Famous Ruggers” article at http://geocities.com/lock_fwd/famous.html)

Here’s a great quote about whether or not he resented being typecast as a "horror star": "One always hears of actors complaining of being typed - if he's young, he's typed as a juvenile; if he's handsome, he's typed as a leading man. I was lucky. Whereas bootmakers have to spend millions to establish a trademark, I was handed a trademark free of charge. When an actor gets in a position to select his own roles, he's in big trouble, for he never knows what he can do best. I'm sure I'd be damn good as little Lord Fauntleroy, but who would pay ten cents to see it?"

One last bit of trivia: The Internet Movie Database claims that he served as the original inspiration for the first illustrations of the Incredible Hulk!

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner – The Grand Celestial Conjunction

The collection of massive bodies represented by this Saturday’s alumni game is superceded only by one that is taking place, right now, in the heavens. From the 1^st to the 16^thof May, you can see greenish Venus, always low in the horizon, accompanied by reddish Mars, a medium-bright Saturn (with Mercury just below), and a brilliant Jupiter much higher up. All of these planets form a conjunction in my birth sign, Taurus. A Grand Celestial Conjunction. What does it portend?

In 1984, when I was finishing up engineering school at BYU, I had as a Bishop (sort of the Mormon version of a parish priest) a fellow named B. Kent Harrison, who was also a physics professor. He was not only a very spiritual man, he had world renown as being the author of “Gravitational Fields and Gravitational Collapse,” the landmark book that described the equations leading to black hole theory. A recipient of a grant for his studies, whenever I had occasion to visit him in his office he was always elbow-deep in reams of paper covered with equations.

Anyway, 1984 was also a year for a Grand Celestial Conjunction – one better than this year’s because all the planets were closer together (as viewed from Earth). At the time it got a lot of press, 1984 also being the year of George Orwell’s Orwellian book “1984.” So I asked this gravitational expert, “What does this portend?” His answer was, “Absolutely nothing.”

Harrison pointed out that because of the inverse square law (the gravitational force exerted by an object upon another object is proportional to the inverse square of the distance between them – i.e. a small number) and the great distances, most objects here on earth exert more gravitational pull than the planets. For instance, a rugby ball will exert more gravitational pull on a person than all those planets lined up. (It certainly exerts more emotional pull upon rugby players.) So will a pint of Guinness, for that matter.

But this is mere trivia. For a more detailed scholarly description of rugby and gravitational force (and subsequent warping of the fabric of space), I recommend to the reader Dr. P. “Hotshot” Tripi’s “Not in Straight -Theoretical Constructs of Space-Time Warping in Line-Outs,” at http://rugbyfootball.com/not_in_straight.html

And as far as black holes are concerned – since the SOBs wear black we’ll be seeing some of those at the alumni match, too.

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Eccentricity Central

Yesterday I had a phone conversation with David Raksin. Who is David Raksin? Nothing less than one of the greatest living American musicians. He began writing for the movies back in 1935 (“Modern Times,” with Charlie Chaplin) and, at the age of 89, he’s still at it. He’s scored 140 movies, and worked with classical composers Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg and George Gershwin. His most recognized works are the scores to “Laura” (a noir) and “Forever Amber.” In the opinion of many professional musicians, he’s long overdue for recognition with a special Oscar. He’s currently working on his memoirs.

So why did I want to talk to him? As you might expect, there’s a film noir connection. He wrote the theme and score to a favorite film of mine, “the Big Combo” (1955), which I have been unable to find in a recorded format. (It’s a jazzy sort of melody, between a striptease and a gangster theme, if you know what I mean. Raksin called it “corny,” but I find it catchy.) So, I tracked down Raksin’s number from a college he’s associated with, called him, and asked him if it’s ever been recorded. Nope. “Back then they didn’t want to record my crappy music,” he said, “and I didn’t think anyone would ever care. Who knew?” In the Fifties, like many in Hollywood, he was a communist - that probably didn’t help, either. (The ultra left-wingers made some of the best films noir. In fact, you could almost argue that noir is a left wing form of art.) I should mention that Raksin was kicked out of the American communist party for having overly democratic ideals.

Anyway, Raksin put me in touch with a friend of his who’s a professor of music in Napa, CA, who is recreating a score based on Raksin’s notes and sketches. He performs it in concert this November - it’ll be the first performance since the track was first laid down for the film 47 years ago. Even better, he has agreed to send me a recording. So I will be one of the very few men in the world to have a recording of David Raksin’s score to “the Big Combo.”

This is why my wife calls our house “Eccentricity Central.”

You can read about Raksin here: http://www.ascap.com/about/board/raksin-bio.html

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner – Lightning strikes

Yesterday, at about 4:45 PM when I drove home from the Springfield-Franconia Metro station during that hellacious thunderstorm, I heard the 1965 Lou Christie song “Lightnin’ Strikes” not just once, but twice, on two different radio stations. I thought this was odd but not remarkable. What was remarkable, however, was the fact that our house was apparently hit by lightning at about the same time during the storm. My youngest daughter was watching TV when she described a loud report from a thunderclap and saw an arc of electricity from one overhead light to another. At first I discounted this, thinking she just saw the flash of a 60 watt bulb burning out, but now I’m not so sure. All of the circuit breakers for the upper floor were tripped. The lightning caused a power surge which ruined:

A garage door opener
The VCR on the downstairs TV (supposedly protected by a surge protector)
The VCR on the upstairs TV (me with a rented film noir I can’t watch)
Apparently, some circuitry with the air conditioner/furnace – no A/C
The phone line (no dial tone on Verizon’s line)
The associated DSL line
The answering machine
The dishwasher
A GFI outlet
A 60 watt bulb
A 15 watt nightlight bulb
My son’s 80 watt guitar amp

Normally, I wouldn’t call my son’s inability to “play” his guitar loudly a problem (he only knows a couple of songs, which I hear played in an endless set of variations), but this was a fairly sophisticated German-made guitar “workstation” with integrated digital effects which I bought for him for Christmas.

All the neighbors were unaffected, and our next-door neighbors reported a very loud nearby crash during the storm. They also reported feeling a tingle in the air, as well as a smell of ozone. I can’t wait to see what the limits of our homeowner’s insurance are.

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - The Queen Mum

Raised in Los Angeles as I was, I am no fan of the celebrity culture, so it therefore follows that I was never enamored with Princess Diana. Oh, sure, she did some charity work and gave the Windsor Family some needed glamour. (Not to mention some handsomeness genes.) It isn’t my desire to needlessly annoy the Brits in the club - if you want to remember her as your “Queen of Hearts” or “Goodbye English Rose,” fine. By temperament and political conviction I am more of a Tory and, after the separation, I would generally describe myself as being more pro-Charles than pro-Diana.

My wife and I were married in December 1980. Diana and Charles were married the next year, and in a way, my wife followed the fortunes of those two while our married lives progressed together. When it was announced that Princess Diana had died, my wife followed the story. But it didn’t have much of an impact upon me.

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, “the Queen Mum,” was another thing altogether. Think of it: the woman was 101. Since January 1923, when it was announced that she was engaged to the future George VI, she was a player on the world stage. That’s nearly eighty years, folks.

Much has been made in the press about how she was well-liked, in part because of her entirely human interests in an occasional gin and tonic and a fondness for horse racing. But she was made of sterner stuff, and, despite the frailties of age, she had a backbone of pure steel.

During World War II, when Britain was being bombed by the Germans, she and her husband were of inestimable worth, cheering the British nation and inspiring them to fight on. I can’t positively attribute this, but I read somewhere once that because of this, Adolph Hitler called her “the most dangerous woman in Europe.” You can sometimes judge a person’s character by his enemies as well as by his or her friends, so this is one hell of a recommendation.

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon epitomized duty. It’s commonly regarded as being an old-fashioned virtue nowadays, but when it’s needed it’s really needed. (As we learned shortly after the morning of September 11^th, 2001.)

Rugby is one of the great British exports… and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon’s old-fashioned sense of duty is, I think, another. One that’s badly needed in the America of 2002.

Farewell Queen Mum.

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - The Weaker Sex

Playing last night’s match with GMU was an interesting experience. First of all, it was cold - in the low 40’s/high 30’s with gusts. It was very difficult for me to strip off the Boathouse jacket and sweatpants to get on the pitch. At one point somebody pointed out, “You know what GMU has that we don’t? Women.” Indeed, there were college girls all over the place.

One pair especially caught my attention. One had on a hugely oversized green GMU jacket; I think this was Cutie’s girlfriend charmingly wearing his jacket. (Cutie used to play with us before enrolling at GMU; his real name is Keith Webb.) The other was her friend. But they were the two loudest GMU supporters on the sidelines, squealing with glee whenever an especially heavy tackle was performed. “We like them going down HARD!”, one of them said. This reminded me of a quote:

"Women encourage killers. They do it by falling in love with warriors and heroes. Men know it and respond with enthusiasm. The Crusaders marched off to war with ladies favors in their helmets. The heroes sliced up adults and baked infants on spits, all the while thinking of how the damsels back home would admire their bravery." - Howard Bloom

It also made me think about what some of the American Civil War soldier-diarists wrote about their womenfolk (especially Southern women) during the war, to the effect of, “We’d pretty much be able to part as nations with some vestige of good feeling remaining were it not for the Northern and Southern women, who seem to fan the fires of discord.”

An interesting female archetype found in film noir is the beautiful woman who advances the action of the plot by manipulating a gullible or sexually-attracted male (a “sap”). The French have a name for her: the femme fatale (“fatal woman”), so called because to love her is to risk dying. Ava Gardner in “the Killers” was a notable example.

I intend no insult to the enthusiastic young women on the sidelines or to women in general. But I think, in simply being themselves, that they were giving us all an interesting lesson in sexual politics. I am pretty sure that you can safely ignore all the current rhetoric about women wanting men to be more sensitive, more apt to talk about feelings and more, well, feminine. Some organizations’ spokespeople may be calling for this kind of thing, but I am pretty sure that’s not actually what women want. By and large, women in America prefer men to be men. I see this again and again by observing my teenaged kids and their friends, and talking to my good lady wife. (Whenever I do something boorish, loud or otherwise male, and she reprimands me, I respond with, “Oh I’m sorry - I thought you wanted to marry a male.” She has pretty much conceded that this is indeed the case… however maintaining a request that I display a little more finesse.)

Some genius compressed my previous six analytical paragraphs into seven simple words: “Chicks dig us ‘cause we play rugby!”

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - The Bat-Man

I rented a video of an interesting film last night: “The Bat Whispers,” from 1930. Maybe it was the first-ever widescreen movie - it was in letterboxed format from a 65 mm (!) original.

The film’s primary interest is that it inspired Bob Kane to create Batman in 1938. (This is according to Kane himself.) There’s a lot of Batmanesque stuff in this film: bat shadows moving across buildings and streets, and a stunning opening scene of a (miniature) city at night that could be Gotham City. The first acted scene, where the mysterious Bat steals a necklace after telling the police he would do so, is the same as the plot of Kane’s first-ever Joker tale. And it wasn’t exactly clear to me, but there may be a scene where a prototype Batmobile emits a thick cloud of smoke to confuse pursuers.

Unfortunately, the acting is terrible. There’s a tough-minded old aunt (not to be confused with Aunt Harriet, who was introduced to the Batman TV series to deflect accusations that Bruce and Dick were gay) and a goofy hired detective, but the real scene-stealer is the maid, who screams and comically panics whenever something odd happens (such as a bowling ball rolling down a staircase). The maid is the hero, capturing the Bat by the use of a bear trap chained to her bed!

The truly odd thing about this film comes at the end, when the actor playing the Bat comes from behind a curtain and asks the movie audience not to give away the Bat’s secret identity, lest he go on another killing spree. He then explains that the Bat is really an okay sort of guy (despite his occasional murders) and won’t harm anyone if his identity is secure. Sheesh.

You can read more about it here:

http://www.roogulator.esmartweb.com/horror/batwhispers.htm

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Busbyberkly Jukebox-Jezabel

Perhaps some of you are aware that I collect odd Utah and Mormon culture names. When my wife and I lived in Provo, Utah for four years while I attended college at Brigham Young University, I couldn't help but notice that the natives were giving their kids strange first names. (Why they're doing this is a matter I'll not pursue here.) I didn't think anything of it until the dawn of the Age of the World Wide Web. Then, in 1996, I created a web site on the subject: "the Utah Baby Namer," at http://geocities.com/wesclark.geo. and posted it for the world to read, and, more importantly, contribute to.

Since then the site has gotten hundreds of thousands of hits, thanks in part to the Mormon culture. (The counter says 391,000+, but it is not working properly. I ought to remove it.) In fact, I was once told by some kind of Internet monitoring firm that it was in the upper 10% of all web sites for hits. My wife appeared on Utah television news about it (the reporters seemed to like the name "Zestpoole" most), and there have been a number of newspaper articles about our site as well. In Utah, Cari and I are well-known as "That Utah Baby Name Couple."

Enter Busbyberkly Jukebox-Jezabel Petersen. One of our readers tipped us off that this baby was born to a Utah couple. Seeking confirmation, which we do for the truly odd names, we found that the proud parents posted a web site of their own, complete with photos. (It has since been taken down.) One thing that was not on the website was an explanation of why anyone would want to name a kid BBJJ. (NOTE: Busby Berkeley was a movie producer from the 30's who specialized in elaborate dance sequences. Jezabel comes from the Bible; she was the wicked wife of a king of Israel, and the name has come to have the connotation of a sort of man-destroying woman - which is why you don't find many females named this. A “Jukebox Jezabel” is a man-destroying woman, often a teen, who hangs around diners. Dad reported that the “jukebox-jezabel” part seemed to fit the infant… which isn’t clear to me. Did she crawl into diners, seeking to attract male babies by loitering around the jukebox?

Naturally, I once included the name on our list, in the category "In a class of their own." (See attached "Cream of the Crop" article from the website.) You see, legally I can do this. There is nothing reserved, copyrightable or private about a name. It will appear on all sorts of public records whether you like it or not - often with an address and a phone number. In fact, you will have to take extra steps to keep it from appearing in places you do not want - and even then, you may not be successful in having it removed.

So... we were contacted recently by the child's father seeking the name's removal from our list. We have done this. Perhaps it was Busbyberkly Jukebox Jezabel's neighbors in the "In a class of their own" category he objected to: Nudity, VulvaMae, Tugdick and Clitoris. (I have double-checked these, and yes, they seem to be legit. Mind-boggling, but legit.)

Dad and Mom have since decided to not name their daughter BBJJ after all, and have instead given her a “unique and special” name - which he did not disclose to me. (Heh.)

Anyway, there's a moral here for you young parents and expectant fathers. If you don't want negative attention given to your child's name, for crying out loud select something sensible that has stood the test of time!

(My wife has a good test: Stand outside your front door and bellow the name at the top of your lungs. You’ll find yourself doing that from time to time.)

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - TikiLand

Once upon a time in America, after the Second World War, men returned from battle in the South Pacific and, captivated by the sights and sounds of lush islands, set about recreating Hawaii in North America. (Especially in Southern California.) Tiki bars (some

lit by black light) sprouted up everywhere, and ordinary backyards were converted into visions of paradise. Men took up honorific titles like “Trader Luke,” “Trader Joe,” etc., and the sounds of Webley Edwards’ steel guitars and ukes could be heard issuing

forth from console stereos from sea to shining sea.

My own father caught the craze back in the early 60’s.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/3452/tiki_hut.html

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/3452/am_15.html

And when I was a kid I longed to be a part of what one Internet journalist called “the Patio Culture,” which was heavily South Seas-influenced.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/3452/adltclub.html

But one forgotten fellow outdid Dad by creating a 12 ½ acre Tiki Garden in Florida. Naturally, there’s a web site to commemorate:

http://www.exotic-tiki-gardens.com

America is a wonderful place. A salesman from South Carolina moves to Florida, unrolls some brown paper, he and his wife make sketches, and 12 1/2 acres of a personal vision is born.

Aloha!

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - When Irish mugs are smiling.

..speaking of the Irish and St. Pat's Day, I found "Angels with Dirty Faces" (1938) at a Blockbuster for sale for $5. Naturally, I bought it. The Dead End Kids meet an Irish priest (Pat O'Brien) and James Cagney. NYC cops, too. A rugby/basketball scene. Ann Sheridan, a swell-lookin' skirt. The only thing missing is Guinness. What a masterpiece. They don't make 'em like this any more because they can't.

Still... I will be interested to see how "The Gangs of New York" turns out. The book from whence it came was a childhood favorite of my father's.

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Acronyms

I should have anticipated this when I sent out yesterday’s Cultural Corner about that famous four letter word that begins with “f.”

No, it doesn’t come from an acronym having to do with a king’s consent. I have gotten numerous e-mails from you on this subject.

Go here and read this: http://www.snopes.com/acronyms/fuck.htm

One point that Barbara Mikkleson (the author of the urban legend page cited above) makes is that acronyms are fairly recent. If you come across something on the Internet insisting that some old or common word (“golf,” for instance) was at one time an acronym, it is probably false.

While we’re on the subject, check this out. Something tells me this guy may have played rugby:

http://www.snopes.com/spoons/photos/grave.htm

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Fuck

Word History: The obscenity fuck is a very old word, first recorded in English in the 15th century. Age has not dimmed its shock value, even though it is seen in print much more often now than in the past. Its first known occurrence, in a poem entitled “Flen flyys” written sometime before 1500, is in code, illustrating the unacceptability of the word even then. The poem, composed in a mixture of Latin and English, satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, with the title taken from the first words of the poem, “Flen, flyys, and freris,” that is, “fleas, flies, and friars.” The line that contains fuck reads “Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk.” The Latin words “Non sunt in coeli, quia” mean “they [the friars] are not in heaven, since.” The code “gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk” is easily broken by simply writing the preceding letter in the alphabet. As we decode, we must watch for differences in the alphabet and in spelling between then and now. For g write f; for x, v (used for u and v); d, c; b, a; o, n; v, t; xx, vv (which equals w); k, i; x, v; z, y; t, s; p, o; g, f; i, h; f, e; m, l; and for k, i. This yields “fvccant [a fake Latin form] vvivys of heli.” The whole thus reads in translation: “They are not in heaven because they fuck wives of Ely [a town near Cambridge].”

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Confidently heterosexual

I won’t be at practice tonight. Why not? Because I’m going to the ballet. With a guy.

No, I am not a homosexual.

Between me and this other guy we have eight kids and have been happily married (to females) for over 40 years. I’m just indulging my artsy-fartsy side. (Hey, it takes a confident heterosexual to admit ballet attendance to a rugby club. Doesn’t it?)

Actually, if there is such a thing as rugby-style ballet, tonight’s performances might fit:

“Le Sacre du Printemps” (The Rite of Spring) by Igor Stravinsky: A virgin is danced to death. At the premier in 1913 a riot broke out.

“Jeux” (Games) by Debussy: In a tennis match, a guy attempts to seduce some women. (Or they attempt to seduce him, I forget which.)

“Prelude a L’apres-midi d’une faun” (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn) by Debussy: A fawn attempts to have sex with some nymphs. This one also created a scandal.

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - War and bloodshed in 19^th C. 3-D technology

I found a terrific $5 deal at Border’s Books last night: “The Civil War in Depth, Volume II.” This is a printed collection of 19th C. stereopticon cards, many published for the first time. Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner roamed the battlefields of Antietam, Gettysburg, etc. days after the battles with daguerreotype cameras that took double images. When viewed with a stereopticon, sort of a wooden version of a View-Master viewer, the images have depth. (Some of the images, the ones with branches, etc. in the

foreground, or ones taken from hills, look especially good.)

Many of the images you see in Civil War books are produced from half of the original glass plate images. When viewed together, as was originally intended, through the plastic viewer supplied with the book, these images take on an appearance that is truly amazing. Some have written that it is like peering into history, and indeed, it is.

There are some images of the dead at Gettysburg and Antietam, as well as unburied bones and skulls in the Wilderness, which I have seen for years in books. Looking at them in the original stereo imagery changes the whole experience. It’s not like looking at a picture, it’s like looking through a small window.

I have read more books about the Civil War than I care to name - this one is unique. If you’re interested in the subject you should take a look.

(By the way, there is a slight rugby connection. One of the stereo images - hand-tinted so that it is in partial color! - shows Federal soldiers standing around on the grounds of the Fairfax Courthouse - a stone’s throw away from our watering hole at the Firehouse Grill.)

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - The Land of the Midnight Sun

Last night my son and his friend brought home a Norwegian video entitled “Insomnia,” described on the cover as being “film noir.” (Like father, like son, I guess.) It answers an interesting cinematic question: What does film noir look like north of the Artic circle, where there is no night? On assignment in northern Norway, a corrupt Swedish cop causes the accidental death of his partner while investigating a murder case, and attempts a cover up. But he can't sleep, and the daylight pours in on him like the Eye of God. This is a brilliant Norwegian neo-noir, and suggests that Nordic melancholy and Ingmar Bergmanesque ghostly visitations are well-suited to noir (even when, cinematically, there is no "noir.") The end of the film is especially interesting: the cop driving into a tunnel looks like a metaphor for a descent into hell.

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0119375

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Shhhh. It’s a nightmare.

Yesterday I told you about “the Thief,” a film noir without dialog. The only other noir I know of like this is an interesting little film called “Dementia” (1955 - not to be confused with “Dementia 13”). This one was called by contemporary critics, “The first foreign film made in Hollywood.” You can read about it here: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0047976

The director was inspired to come up with this movie based on a dream his secretary had. None of the characters - “the Gamin,” “the Evil One,” “the Nightclub Dancer,” etc. - have personal names. The story takes place within the framework of an extended

dream. One sequence has the Gamin cutting off a corpses’ hand with a switchblade. Another sequence is a memorable close-up of a fat guy eating a greasy chicken. There’s a midget newspaper vendor. Nightclub jazz music by Shorty Rogers and his Giants. The

cinematography, in black and white, of course, is in the very best film noir tradition. A chase sequence though the alleys and backways of Venice, California, looks as good or better than any of the well-known noirs. Add to this, it was called "inhuman, indecent,

and the quintessence of gruesomeness" by the New York Censor Board. And yet… there is no gore, no sex, and no violence as we’re used to it. Dementia has no dialog, but a variant version of this film released as “Daughter of Horror” has - wait for it - Ed McMahon doing the narration! Hi-o!

Orson Welles, when asked what a film was, said “A film is a dream.” This one is a whopper.

---

Brigham’s Cultural Corner - Shhhh. It’s espionage.

I rented an unusual film noir last night: “The Thief” (1952) - not to be confused with the neo-noir James Caan film of the same name from 1981. This one starred Ray Milland as a nuclear physicist giving atomic energy secrets to the Soviets. What made it unusual was that this film had no dialog, just sound effects and incidental music. At first I expected that this would get in the way of advancing the plot, but it didn’t. Instead, I discovered the gimmick removed some of the suspense, in that nothing could happen that could cause dialog. For instance, when the phone rang, you knew he wouldn’t answer it. When the attractive woman across the hall of the shabby apartment cast come-hither glances, you knew nothing would come of it. (Have you ever known a quiet woman? Neither have I.) And when he was in a colleague’s office, photographing secret documents, you knew he wouldn’t get caught.

The black, white and, especially, gray cinematography invoked the nervous years of the 1950’s. At one point, when the physicist is pursued by an FBI agent and makes his way up the interior of the antenna mast atop the Empire State Building, you wonder how crowded, windy and all-around scary it must have been to get that footage. We take transportable camera equipment for granted these days - no telling what the film crew had to go through.

I liked the film… attempting to make a crime thriller without dialog was a noble effort. It appealed to my sense of minimalism. And I always get a kick out of black and white footage of spot-lit guys in trench coats and fedoras walking down wet, dark alleys.

What this movie’s images from the observation deck of the Empire State Building made clear was that in destroying the World Trade Center the Muslim terrorists essentially returned the Manhattan skyline to its film noir appearance. The twin towers dominated Manhattan more than anything else - and now they’re gone. (And, no, I’m not saying this is a good thing, of course.)

The Cold War may have been expensive and scary - but it sure produced some interesting films…

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Indian Summer

Back in the dog days of Summer, I promised you an explanation of Indian Summer. We're there. Indian summer, as everyone knows, is an autumn warm spell.

But according to the Old Farmer's Almanac, which has been tracking American weather lore since 1792 and must therefore be considered definitive, the following has to occur before a day can truly be called "an Indian summer day":

1. The first frost must have happened. (This has; in Northern Virginia it's usually in late October).

2. "If All-Saints brings out winter, St Martin's brings out Indian summer." Accordingly, Indian summer can occur between St Martin's Day, November 11th and November 20th.

So, the warm matches we had on Saturday were Indian summer matches, and the mild days they're forecasting for this week are true Indian summer days.

Why is Indian summer called that? According to the OFA, the probable origin of the term goes back to the very early settlers in New England. Each year they would welcome the arrival of cold wintry weather in late October, when they could leave their stockades without worrying about Indian attacks. (The Indians didn't like attacking in cold weather.) But then came a time, almost every year around St. Martin's Day, when it would suddenly turn warm again, and the Indians would decide to have one more go at the settlers even though it was no longer their normal raiding season. "Indian summer," the settlers called it.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Old Te Rauparaha's haka

We're all familiar with the All-Blacks's haka, right? No? Well, if you want, you can see one performed live this Sunday at 1 PM at Gravelly Point, when the New Zealand Ambassador's Select XV takes on the Potomac Rugby Union (PRU) Select XV. The Kiwis normally do a haka at the beginning of the game.

So... what's all the yelling about? This part is easy - it's well-known, and posted on the Internet. Go here http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~lindsay/NZ-Folk/alblhaka.html to read about it. Now, I don't know about you, but I figure Te Rauparaha, having killed and eaten some of Nga Te Aho's kin, probably *should* have been killed. Got off pretty easy by hiding in a potato pit, I think.

But... my question to Johnno of Keith rugby in New Zealand was, what's all that stuff Taine Randall yells at the beginning of the haka? You know, that loud, rising tone stuff in Maori that sounds sort of like the haka itself?

Johnno wasn't able to supply me with any translations - yet - but says it's freeform words of defiance to the opposition side. The word "pakeha" is often used; this word may be a vulgar racial epithet at non-Maori white guys ("white pig," "bugger ya"), or it may not. (The word is discussed here: http://maorinews.com/writings/papers/other/pakeha.htm) Taine Randall, by the way, is part Maori.

Can you imagine what would happen in American sports, if basketball and football teams (especially firearms-packing teams) started games by chanting racial epithets at one another? Basketball would very quickly become bloodier than rugby.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The Northern Lights

Did you guys see the aurora borealis last night? I was taking out the trash and looked up, as is my wont on clear nights, and saw a pronounced pinkish glow in the north/northwest sky. (I had to use a compass to convince my wife that that was indeed Polaris in the

middle of the pink glow - were women born to argue?) A call to News Channel 8, who reported lots of calls, confirmed what I thought: this was a rare visit of the northern lights. Never saw it before. Virginia is cool: nearly golf-ball sized hail in May '99 (and a

subsequent replacement of home siding from the insurance company) and now this. We don't get stuff like this in Southern California.

Last night Bob Ryan showed a graph of solar activity; there was a flare-up on the 5th. (Right now we're in an 11 year solar maximum.) What happens is that the energized particles hit the magnetic fields in the polar upper atmosphere and cause the glow. They can be green - as was the case in Columbus, Ohio last night - or pinkish red, as we saw.

You can read about it here, on this Norwegian, English language page:

http://www.northern-lights.no/english/pages/user/news_nov5th.html

Look up again tonight - according to Bob Ryan it's possible they'll return.

I didn't expect to see the lights this far south - but it was once seen 50 miles farther south, in December 1862, on the evening of the battle of Fredericksburg. The men who were pinned down and/or wounded on the battlefield reported seeing - and hearing - them. But

the link above says this current burst was seen as far south as Texas!

The solar maximums may be more important than we know.

I once saw a PBS show which featured a historian who associated solar maxima with extremes of weather in Northern Europe, which led to crop failures, migrations and wars which, in turn, led to and all sorts of political implications. Very intriguing.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - All quiet along the Potomac

Terrorist attack. First comes shock and disbelief, then overwhelming grief, then  smoldering fury and a thirst for revenge accompanied by patriotism and then... what? If history is any guide, nothing. At least not for awhile. But we're at war. Everyone has been saying so: elected officials, the media talking heads, the man on the street. So, why  haven't we cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war (to quote Shakespeare)?

In September 1939, after Hitler invaded Poland, all of Europe knew another great war was at hand. England and France had declared war against Germany and everyone

expected that bombers would materialize and troops be put on the match - but this did not immediately happen. The next months were called "the Phony War." (In France it was called "drôle de guerre" - "strange war" - and in Germany, "Sitzkrieg" - "sitting war.")

Of course, when the armies started to form and move, things happened. And how.

The same thing happened during our Civil War, and there was even a song written about it. After the surrender of Ft. Sumter in April 1861 the cry in the north was "On to Richmond!" But that didn't happen right away, and the first major battle in the east, First Bull Run, wasn't until July 1861. While the federal forces moved south and occupied strategic positions in Northern Virginia, the reports from the front were worded "All quiet along the Potomac." This frustrated the hawks, many of whom were, as usual, non-combatants. But writer Ethel L. Beers realized that something was going on, and wrote some lines for Harper's Weekly about it. In 1863 it was set to music and became one of the most poignant songs in American military history, "All Quiet Along the Potomac." You may review the lyrics here:

http://www.acronet.net/~robokopp/usa/allquiet.htm

Since Reagan National Airport sits near the Potomac and is temporarily closed, it can be said that, aside from long lines of cursing Pentagon commuters sitting in cars twice a day, it is once again "All quiet along the Potomac."

So what's next? Nothing. For awhile. Then the dogs are let loose.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Swiss luxury

It shouldn't surprise you to learn that the Swiss build watches the same way Detroit builds cars. In other words, they subcontract. Why build balance wheels or alternators yourself if you can buy them from a specialist more cheaply?

Swiss watchmaking is a collaborative effort. A company like Omega, to name but one, will buy crowns, crystals, cases and entire movements from different companies and assemble them into a watch. Companies will often remove and replace some of the key elements in a movement - such as the balance wheel and balance spring - and upgrade it with better parts, but generally, the Swiss Army watch you buy is powered by a standard ETA movement. (ETA is an abbreviation for "Eterna," which was the name of the company that originally made movements as well as entire watches. To prove a point about Polynesian navigation and seamanship, Thor Heyerdahl wore one of their chronometers across the Pacific on an outrigger back in the 50's. This watch is now available as the Eterna Kon-Tiki.) This is not to say that the basic ETA movement is no good. By comparison I have a $60 quartz watch with an inferior Japanese movement that has been keeping time to within plus or minus 20 seconds a month since February 1980!

Some companies manufacture everything themselves. Among the best of these is Patek Philippe, which makes movements to an "observatory" level of quality. (Every part, whether showing or not, is polished.) The starter Patek watch is about $7,000. As for me, my favorite Swiss watch is my Breitling, which has a caliber 13 movement - the trusty Valjoux 7750 that was perfected in 1973. Mechanical movement technology hasn't changed much.

It's odd, but old technology nowadays means luxury. Old style fountain pens, mechanical watches and vinyl records (I recently saw the Beatles LP's on sale at Tower Records for $25 each) are now considered luxury or special interest items. I get most of my luxury

vinyl LP's from Saturday morning yard sales...

A good observation about the Swiss is this one from the great film noir, "The Third Man": "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." - Harry Lime (Orson Welles)

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Viking sensitivity

Bear with me, this one makes a point about our club.

In the 9th century, Europe's "Dark Ages," the Arabs were developing higher math and cataloging the stars, which is why so many of them (Deneb, Saiph, Aldebaran) have Arabic names. One Arab - I forget his name - traveled for a time with the Vikings, and left us a record of his observations. Now... the Vikings had a culture, but it was exceedingly violent. One of their practices was a charming little thing they called the

"blood-eagle": it involved cutting away a man's ribs in his back with a hatchet, and pulling his lungs out of the hole to the sides. Laid upon the ground in agony, the man's lungs inflating and deflating with painful breathing, they looked something like

slowly-flapping wings, hence the "eagle" part. (They planned this for Alfred the Great; he had other plans.) In battle, Vikings who had hands hacked off in swordfights would thrust the stumps into their opponent's faces, causing a temporary loss of sight from the spurting blood and a tactical advantage. So we're talking about some really hardcore guys, here.

The Arab noted that, curiously, as physically tough and barbaric as these men were, the act of getting a splinter in a finger, or some other trifling injury, would make them howl with rage and pain. And, thus, he makes a relevant observation about the male psyche,

and of rugby players.

In the course of my three years associated closely with Western Suburbs, I have noticed that there are some world-class egos associated with the club - which isn't of itself a bad thing as it seems to accompany the competitive spirit. But it is true of players in this club, and of men in general, that the physically toughest of us, who can play on while injured and disregard cracked bones, torn tendons and sprained ligaments, can be seriously wounded by a careless remark or phrase, or an unintentional or intentional slight. We should not forget this more vulnerable inner man, and that bruised egos often accompany

bruised limbs.

Being the club's comms guy is something like being a bartender (which I once was, by the way) in that I get a lot of e-mail about selection-related slights, perceived insults and complaints. My sense of the club is that this has increased as of late - especially since Tuesday. We're clearly on edge. And despite the fact that we had 58 guys show up for practice, last night wasn't exactly the team spirit highlight of the season. I, myself, normally calm, literally saw red after one incident.

It helps to remember one thing: growth is a challenge, just as a lack of numbers is. You can easily read that in the RoverGrams. We are trying to provide everyone with practice and game time - sometimes we fail. And if you're nursing an insult or harboring a grudge, do the same thing you'd do with a physical injury: suck it up for the good of the club. Or let it out and tell someone. But get rid of it, as it will cripple you. (I know whereof I speak: being my French-Canadian mother's son, I can be a first-class grudge-holder.

She and I once refused to speak one word to each another for more than a month - and this was living in the same house.)  This, by the way, is why Benedict Arnold is known as a traitor rather than a brilliant American general: he let slights and ambition overcome his use to the nation.

One thing that has always helped me - especially with my kids - is the attitude that "...somebody has to be an adult here, it might as well be me."

So... think before you hurl an insult. And if you've received one delivered in haste, shrug it off. Easier said than done, true, but when you think about it, rugby is harder.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Heritage above

Today's little treatise - prompted by the PRF pins - is about weathervanes. Every since I was a boy I was fascinated with these iconic symbols flying high above the rooftops. So it was satisfying a lifelong dream to put one of my own atop my garage, mounted properly on a cupola. It's a American Indian shooting an arrow; we call him "Long Tom," after a chief who gave the locals some problems back in the 1700's and who is buried in

nearby Pohick Church. (Ahem! His nickname comes about by virtue of his height.)

Two of the most famous weathervanes in America are here on the east coast: George Washington's "dove of peace" atop Mt. Vernon and the giant grasshopper atop Faneuil Hall in Boston. The dove was commissioned by Washington after the Revolutionary War and was manufactured by Joseph Rakestraw; it represented Washington's desire for peace and the simple life of the country farmer after nine years of the Revolution. (Which he wasn't to have, serving as our first president.)

The giant grasshopper with the green glass eyes was manufactured from a large copper cauldron in about 1742 by Deacon Shem Drowne, when Faneuil Hall was built. (He also manufactured the banner vane atop the Old North Church.) Why a grasshopper? Because there was such an insect vane atop the London Exchange; it was Drowne's hope that Boston would become a financial center for the colony. Faneuil Hall's grasshopper was

stolen, but recovered, in the 1970's. It's hard to fence such an item.

The first vanes were banners and roosters, reminding people of the incident where St. Peter denied knowing Christ three times before the cock crowed, and the rooster is still the most popular design for vanes. There is a rooster weathervane depicted in the famous

Bayeux tapestry (c. 1070), which depicts the story leading up to the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Some churches make a more direct message, and have vanes of hands with fingers pointing heavenwards.

Shelburne Museum in Vermont is weathervane heaven, having many on display - but one day I hope to visit Twickenham to see that vane. (By the way, I reproduce weathervanes in copper and wood; I hope to do the Twickers one someday. If I do, I think I will give

Mercury a butt-reduction.)

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - I Wish They All Could Be Aboriginal Girls

That book I'm reading about Australia - "Fatal Shore," by Robert Hughes, gets better and better. It seems the first English settlers in Australia found the natives a little foul-smelling. They rubbed fish oil on their bodies as a sort of natural bug-repellant, and sometimes wrapped their heads in dripping fish entrails. (Note to John Cook: Please do not do this. Continue to use Off if you must.)

Here's an excerpt from page 92:

Young aboriginal women provoked mild longings in George Worgan, the ship's surgeon on the Sirius. "I can assure you," he wrote in 1788, "there is in some of them a Proportion, a Softness, a roundness and Plumpness in their limbs and bodies ... that would excite tender & amorous Sensations, even in the frigid Breast of a Philosopher, Would stop a Druid in his Pious Course, Nor could Philosophy resist their Force."

Their virtue, or at least their relative immunity to rape, was nonetheless secured by their dirtiness, repellent even by the norms of Georgian hygiene. "What with the stinking Fish-Oil," Worgan complained, with which they seem to besmear their Bodies, & this mixed

with the Soot which is collected on their Skins from continually setting over the Fires, and then in addition to those sweet Odours, the constant appearance of the Excrementitious Matter of the Nose which is collected on the upper pouting Lip, in rich

Clusters of dry Bubbles, and is kept up by fresh Drippings; I say, from all these personal Graces & Embellishments, every Inclination for an Affair of Gallantry, as well as every idea of fond endearing Intercourse, which the nakedness of these Damssels might excite one to, is banished."

---

Brigham's (Pop) Cultural Corner - Brush with Greatness

Our pal Vinny gave me a copy of a Wall Street Journal that contained a story he  apparently thought would interest me. It did. It's about the 1960's surf rock group the Surfaris, who had two hits: "Wipeout" (1963; you know the song, it's the one with the silly laugh and the title spoken, followed by a famous drum beat) and "Surfer Joe." I get a kick out of Surfer Joe because it describes a surfer who enlisted in the Marines and was stationed at Camp Pendleton, where I spent three years. Among his other trials and struggles, while out on maneuvers, "Joe got cold."

The article goes on to say that reuse of old songs in advertising is big business. Last year alone, "Wipeout" made $225,000 for the band members and their lawyers.

The article concerned itself mainly with the interesting phenomenon of people falsely claiming to once have been a member of the group. One fellow was claiming to have been the Surfaris lead guitarist; apparently loud-mouth talk show host Morton Downey,

Jr. had made this claim as well. It's puzzling, and I can't understand the mentality behind this. Why lie about such an obscure thing? Is it that the claim of being a Surfaris guitarist offer just enough fame with the benefit of not being readily disproved?

Of course, the main industry in lying about having once been something or another is people claiming to have been in the Little Rascals as kids; Vinny's WSJ article mentions this. It's so common there was a reference about it in an episode of the Simpsons. (A

slob sitting at Moe's Bar: "Yeah, I was 'Freckles' in Our Gang when I was a kid.") The funny thing about false Little Rascals is that it is easily disproved: Leonard Maltin has written a book all about the Our Gang series - I have it - and he dedicates an entire chapter to the pathetic, wanna-be Our Gangsters. He mentions that in the past, even the media, who should be doing fact-checking, have been taken in. (Perhaps we're a little more used to the media getting stories wrong nowadays.)  Once, famously, a fellow claimed to be Spanky McFarland - this was debunked when the real Spanky - who was still alive - was interviewed about the matter.

So, you may understand why I was reluctant to believe my high school chum Bob Avery when he mentioned that he knew not one, but two former Little Rascals. "Yeah, right", I said, "Who were they?" But when he mentioned their names I immediately recognized them from Maltin's book: Eugene Landy, whom Bob had worked with in a financial company in L.A., and Henry "Buddy" McDonald. Landy was a little boy in the later series with Spanky and Alfalfa (1937), and Buddy was one of the kids during the Jackie Cooper/Mrs. Crabtree era (1930).

So there's *my* brush with greatness: I met Buddy's son Mike, a Little Rascal one generation removed.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Bonacci's boy

The greatest European mathematician of the middle ages was Leonardo of Pisa, who called himself "Fibonacci", which is short for "filius Bonacci" (son of Bonacci). He was born in 1175. In addition to introducing the modern system of numbers (plus zero) to Europe, he also developed a math problem about rabbit breeding that led to the number sequence which bears his name.

Here it is: 0, 1, 0+1=1, 1+1=2, 2+1=3, 3+2=5, 5+3=8, 8+5=13 - in other words, start with 0 and 1 and then add the latest two numbers to get the next one. 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13, 21... This is called a Fibonacci number sequence, which an engineering professor of mine once called "Good for nothing." Shows what little he knew. 1) Because male honeybees only have a mother but no father, the numbers of their ancestors is a Fibonacci sequence. 2) The number of pairs of rabbits breeding in ideal circumstances is a Fibonacci sequence. 3) If we take the ratio of two successive numbers in Fibonacci's series and we divide each by the number before it we eventually arrive at phi (1.61), the "golden mean." Why? Nobody knows. 4) On many flowers, the number of petals is a Fibonacci number. 5) Pinecones and pineapples have spirals derived from Fibonacci numbers. 6) Many plants have leaves arranged on stems so that each gets a good share of the sunlight and catches the most rain to channel down to the roots as it runs down the leaf to the stem. Guess what number sequence describes this arrangement? 7) Seed heads are optimally packed on flowers according to the Fibonacci sequence.

Most important of all, in rugby, the number sequence 1,2,3,5,8,13,21 describes the front row, the right lock, the eightman, a center and the substitute (Rover will tell you that 21 is the number of the "Club Man"). Throwing out the number 13 because it's unlucky, the Fibonacci sequence describes the only players you should drink with.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Athletics in heaven

Okay, here's some trivia for you gym rats, weightlifters and bodybuilders. Ever hear of "Scott curls?" Sure, you have. It's a biceps routine. You're seated, and a dumbbell is held in the hand, palm facing you, with the elbow resting on a padded surface. The arm is at the shoulder. Then, slowly, using the full range of motion you are always admonished to use, the arm is curled down - this is the negative motion. Now your arm is fully extended,

palm up. The positive motion is back up, also slowly. (You go slow to remove momentum from the exercise - this increases muscle effort.) These are named after a

bodybuilder from the 1960's named Larry Scott. He didn't invent them, but he used them to great success and recommended them. Larry Scott is a Mormon, by the way.

Larry  - or should I say Brother Scott? - won the first 1965 Mr. Olympia title, and won it again in 1966. (http://www.ifbb.com/contestresults/mrolympia/1966mrOreport.html)

Then he retired to concentrate on the usual things ruggers retire for, namely, family and business.

I went through a weight training phase, starting in 1992 when I was 36 and ending, pretty much, in 1997. (I gave it up for good when I started rugby - I found my body would allow me to do one or the other, but not both!) It was memorable to me for two reasons: 1.) I could bench 300 pounds consistently (and got a prolonged, painful case of costrochondritis in the process), and 2.) I got into a letter mail discussion with Larry Scott about bodybuilding in the next world! His opinion was that, in heaven, there will be better, more refined ways to stay fit and healthy. I mention all this to invoke the name rugby is sometimes given, "The Sport Played in Heaven." It makes one wonder: just what's available athletically up there, anyway?

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Aboriginal penises

Australia! Land of the kangaroo, aborigines, the world's champion rugby side, our namesake rugby club (Western Suburbs, rugby league) and descendants of British convicts. Let's not forget that you can get a big juicy steak and a bloomin' onion from Outback Steakhouse, as well. (I suppose Australians must have embarrassing American-themed restaurant chains.) I am currently reading a fascinating book about the founding and colonization of the continent, "The Fatal Shore," by Robert Hughes. On page 10 I found this:

"In 1791, as white settlement was pushing out past Windsor and the Hawkesbury River, Governor Phillip was surprised to find on its banks '...people who made use of several words we could not understand, and it soon appear'd that they had a language different from that used by the natives we have hitherto been acquainted with. They did not call the Moon Yan-re-dah but Con-do-in, and they called the Penis Bud-la, which our natives call Ga-diay.'"

Why Governor Phillip engaged the natives in linguistics about the moon and penises, I do not know. It seems like an odd conversational mixture. But "Ga-diay" sounds suspiciously like "G'day." Do you suppose this is an inside joke, and that when an Aussie greets you he's really calling you a penis?

It puts me in mind of a request Buzz McClain once made, in conjunction for writing an article for Playboy: he wanted to know what colloquial terms club members had for their members. I, of course, immediately referred him to what surely must be an ultimate source (outside of public restrooms), the Von Hoffman Brothers' "Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness," where an entire section is devoted to this topic.

Further on the subject of penises I shall not go, save to provide this link of a book review of the Von Hoffman's magnum opus: http://www.bookpage.com/9711bp/firstperson4.html and to note that I once took issue with one of the Von Hoffmans via e-mail about their choice of manly movies. As I recall, they left out "Zulu" and most films noir. He was willing to accept that reenacting could be included as a manly endeavor, though. At the time I didn't play rugby, but I would also have taken issue with their statement that, "We Americans took rugby, made it fun by adding forward passes, and called it NFL."

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Fingerprints of the Architect

There are three mysterious natural numbers that seem to describe our universe in some way. And no, one of them isn't the speed of light ("c"). These are pure numbers, not rates.

3.1415926 - pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter

1.6180339 - phi, the so-called "golden mean"

2.7182818 - e, called "Euler's constant" and the natural logarithmic base

Like many people, they are irrational - that is, unlike many people they never repeat.

Pi: You know about this one as it's the most famous of the constants. It's also the name of an excellent recent independent movie. The plot concerns a young mathematician who stumbles across a special 216 digit number that is the Hebrew numerological name of God - which can also be conveniently used to predict the New York stock market. 3.14 (and so on) upset the Greeks, who tried to understand why an elegant shape like a

circle didn't have a correspondingly elegant value to describe it. So, peeved, they named it with the Greek letter that had the worst connotation, pi. (You know, like how we have an "f-word?")

Phi: Used as a ratio this is a value that describes the growth of living things (sunflower seeds, nautilus shells, ferns, petals on flowers, etc.) The Greeks prized architectural proportions based on phi as especially pleasing to the eye, and when we design postcards, rectangular stamps, 3 X 5 index cards and neo-classical government buildings in D.C. we are perpetuating this obsession. But, once again, phi is an annoyingly inelegant number, like pi. I'm sure there's a philosophical point that could be drawn about how "ugly" numbers create beautiful things - but I won't make it.

e: Too hard to explain. It has important properties in calculus, which I got tired of deriving and proving mathematically in college classes.

More is here: http://www.verbose.net/e.html---

---

Brigham's (Pop) Cultural Corner - What? *Another* final frontier?

Let me start by reassuring you that I am not a Trekkie. I have never attended a convention, worn Spock ears, knowingly discussed episode continuity, flashed a "Live Long and Prosper" hand gesture or worn Klingon garb. (Although a guy at work does. Once, when discussing historical reenacting, I admitted being somewhat embarrassed when I first showed up in public in the uniform of a Civil War federal soldier. His

comment was, "Oh, that's nothing. I dress as a Klingon!" I quickly conceded his point.)

And just because I have autographed photos of the original cast from 1969, remember, I am not a Trekkie.

But... when the original Star Trek TV series premiered back in September 1966 (35 years ago?!?) I was tuned in, and from that point on until cancellation in 1969 it was my favorite TV show, not to be missed. I also saw all the movies - yes, the even-numbered  ones are better. And it took me awhile to get used to Jean-Luc Picard (surrendering the Enterprise in the pilot episode wasn't endearing - Kirk would have blown it to bits first), but after a time I got to enjoy the Next Generation episodes.

Deep Space Nine I could care less about - and Voyager was the absolute bottom. I know very well why they put that Borg babe on the cast (a friend of mine calls her "38 of D") - there was absolutely no sex appeal in the cast whatsoever. So after watching the pilot episode I tuned out, not caring what Janeway's hairstyle looked like as the seasons progressed. ("Do we make her more feminine? Or more authoritarian? Should we consult

with someone at Working Woman Magazine?")

Now comes "Enterprise," which takes place 150 years before Kirk and Spock and 100 years from now. The crew presses mechanical buttons. The transporters and warp

drive don't always work. No shields (part of the rugby ethic). No females in command. Neptune and back in six minutes. Hopefully less politically correct, but we shall see (the Star Trek franchise was an early player in PC). I, personally, am hoping this is something

like a ship full of James T. Kirks. We'll find out in September, on Wednesdays at 8 PM on UPN.

Enterprise promotional stuff: http://startrek.com

My own space travels:

http://geocities.com/whclark.geo/space.html

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Q

I forget when it was - and I forget with whom it was - but I once had a short conversation about the effect of putting ice on an injured ankle, and how the cold gets to the injury. (This is even more relevant to me lately because I got a(nother) gold crown fitted to a

tooth last week, and it is still quite sensitive to cold.)

By the way, did you know that thermodynamics has something in common with the game if rugby? Laws. It is singular that rugby does not have "rules" - they are called laws. I guess if you've got a bunch of belligerent guys on a pitch opposing one another,

you'd better have laws. But I digress.

Anyway, the point of the conversation was that the cold doesn't flow *into* the injury. Heat flows *out* of it, and the rate of transfer is called "q" - like the omni-powerful guy in Star Trek. In thermodynamics there is no such thing as cold flow - there is just heat flow. It's quite natural. In fact, the observed universe is dying of it - in a catchy little phrase it's called "the heat death of the universe." When all the heat contained in hotter objects and masses is done flowing to the colder objects, q=0 and the universe will be at a thermal equilibrium (called "entropy"), and there will be no more temperature differences or transfers. And all the hot air issued forth by Old Boys in relating their past glories won't help, either, because the total amount of heat in the universe is decreasing and the process is irreversible. In other words, we're all dying. (You know how Rush Limbaugh likes to say, "Assumed room temperature" as a phrase for death? And medieval monks

said, "Media vita in morte sumus": "In the midst of life we are in death." They probably don't realize they're talking like thermodynamicists.)

So, the next time you get injured in a match and require ice, consider that you're selfishly helping along in the death of the rest of us. Thanks loads.

---

Brigham's (Pop) Cultural Corner - Randy Scouse Git

Consider the Monkees. Yes, yes, I know it was once cool to denigrate the Monkees as being synthetic. But listening to a CD of their old hits, they compare very well with the schmucky boy bands of today.

Now, consider Mickey Dolenz, who was my favorite Monkee 35 years ago, when I used to watch their TV show. First of all, the name "Mickey" is just endearing, and millions of fans found him so, as he seemed to epitomize the fun-loving and zany appeal of the Monkees. He was the Monkee's Monkee, so to speak. He started out as an actor who portrayed the Monkees drummer and later became it. (His modest comment was, "Hey, it's not like brain surgery.") He actually directed the last episode, adding that to his resume. (He would go on to produce and direct movies and TV later.)

In 1966 the Monkees did something surprising: they supplanted the Beatles for a time as the number one act in the US, and Mickey Dolenz's voice was heard across the land in great songs like "I'm a Believer," "For Pete's Sake" and his obscurely-titled "Randy

Scouse Git," which was a hit in the UK and the US. So you can add vocalist and songwriter to actor and musician. In the Seventies he did commercials and voice-over work in animation, and produced and directed movies, videos and theater. While working for the BBC in England as a director he took up an advanced degree in physics (which he did not complete due to the resurgence of Monkeemania in 1986, when MTV rebroadcast episodes of the original series). In 1993 he wrote a book - add author to the list. Then he

became a painter and toured.

Micky Dolenz: Rock and Roll Renaissance Man.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Berlin cabaret

Maybe you recognized my song lyrics above about drinking Guinness as being from the musical "Cabaret." I am a big fan of 1920's-1930's German cabaret. The best current interpreter of the style is a German lass named Ute Lemper, whom I saw at the Kennedy Center last year. She's rail-thin, and she trotted out in a slinky scarlet cocktail dress (nearly every bone showing) to perform a vocal piece by Kurt Weill - a cabaret songwriter of sorts who fled Nazi Germany and took up residence in New York City.  (As did many German artists. They came to Hollywood and developed - can you guess? - film noir.)

The usual cabaret clothing style is what you see Liza Minelli wearing in the movie: top hat, slinky black dress, the tops of stockings showing. The usual song performance involves climbing atop a piano, legs splayed, singing about how love sucks. Coming after

the disastrous loss of World War I and the resultant economic punishment inflicted by the allies as the Weimar Republic government, cabaret had great appeal to the Germans of the era.

Cabaret is how Marlene Dietrich got her start - back in the 20's she used to perform with another singer named Margo Lion. Their big number was a not-carefully concealed song about lesbianism, "When the special girlfriend." She also played a cabaret singer named

Lola-Lola in "The Blue Angel," which was sort of a pre-noir film.

All of this was typical of cabaret, which celebrated degenerate art. (Well, that's what Hitler called it when he banned it.) Listened to today, it's still surprising, even in the post-Howard Stern/American Pie II USA.

Here, take a look:

http://rugbyfootball.com/ute_lemper.jpg

---

Brigham' Cultural Corner - Primer noir

While mounting ourselves on the scrum sled as ballast, Roland "Machine" Mancini asked, "Say, Brigham, I'm beginning to be interested in film noir. Can you put together a list of ten good, recommended films with which to start?" (Later on in practice, Podo struck up a conversation about Dante's Inferno. Gives you an idea of how well-educated we are.) Can I put together a beginner's list? I should say so.

1. Chinatown: Despite the fact that it's in color and made in 1974, the ultimate noir.

2. The Big Combo: You can get a good sense of the high contrast black and white noir visual style from this one. (The Italians had a name for it: "Chiaroscuro.")

3. Kiss Me, Deadly: Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer was never so violent or greedy. All this and a nuclear explosion at the end.

4. The Big Heat: The ultimate angry cop film.

5. Double Indemnity/Body Heat: More or less the same film separated by 40 years.

6. Gun Crazy: "Why must you kill them? Why can't you let them live?"

7. Brute Force: A prison break out goes bad.

8. Detour: A film noir nightmare.

9. Asphalt Jungle: Arguably the best heist film, ever.

10. The Third Man: An Orson Welles masterpiece.

Like science-fiction? Try Bladerunner, an off-genre noir.

There are so many more. I have a capsule summary of the best and worst here:

http://geocities.com/wesclark.geo/noir_review.html

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Groundlings

Remember a few e-mails ago when I pointed out how bowling is... well... kind of working class? Okay, I'll come clean. When I was a teen there was only one "sport" I used to watch on TV: Roller Derby! You can't get much more low class than that (unless you include destruction derby). Being from Los Angeles, I naturally found myself tuning in to the exploits of the Los Angeles Thunderbirds, about when the sport peaked in the US: 1972-1973. This was when Raquel Welch starred in "Kansas City Bomber," the only movie I know of about the subject - it featured some LA skaters.

My favorite skater was Ronnie "Psycho" Rains, who was sort of a manic predecessor of  wrestling's Rowdy Roddy Piper. Also fun was Shirley Hardman, who carried a baseball bat. There were constant themes of good vs. evil as the T-Birds nearly always prevailed in a pre-arranged last minute scoring frenzy. In common with wrestling, alliances often shifted emotionally with public sentiment.

You can review those days on this website: http://www.rollerderbypreservationassociation.com -

it's a cheesy-looking site for a cheesy sport.

In Shakespearian times there was a name for lovers of bowling, wrestling and other low diversions (like roller derby): "groundlings." These were the folks who couldn't afford the better seats in the Globe Theater; they had to stand or sit on the ground during the plays. My father-in-law has a saying: "Sell to the Mercedes owners and drive home in a jalopy. Sell to the jalopy-owners, drive home in a Mercedes." In other words, there are far more middle-class folks than wealthy. Shakespeare was familiar with the concept, and often wrote low humor and sexual double entendre passages in his plays for the groundlings to enjoy - in among some of the noblest and most profound writing in the English language.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner – Heigh Ho! (Part Three.)

Okay, here’s my last Disney-related piece, I promise. It's slowly working out of my system.

Ever hear of Ub Iwerks? He was Walt Disney’s first, and probably best, animator. Disney called him, “the greatest animator living.” If you’ve ever seen the very early Mickey Mouse cartoons, the ones in black and white, you’ve seen Iwerks’ art. (Okay, here’s a

trivia question: who was the voice of Mickey Mouse? Walt Disney.) Iwerks pretty much created that weird cartooning style of the 1930’s – you know, where alarm clocks, tables, beds and other inanimate objects throw off sweat marks, dance and generally react to things. Other animators took it up, and it became representative of Depression era cartooning.

Besides being an artist of genius, Iwerks was also a master technologist. He invented multiplanar animation – the ability to make an object in the background of a shot move at a different speed in relation to objects placed closer to the viewer. This effect revolutionized animation, and you still see it used today. He also invented the Xerox method, which utilized photocopying to save effort in incremental animation steps – this is what made 101 Dalmatians possible. (Can you imagine trying to keep all those spots on the dogs in the same place in tens of thousands of sequential renderings – by hand?) His

other innovation of note was the 360 degree Cinerama technique, using 16 mm cameras mounted in a circle.

His grandson, John Iwerks, attended Burbank High School with me (Class of ’74). Burbank, you’ll recall, is where the Disney Studios are located. John’s specialty was an anthropomorphic carrot that  strutted in the R. Crumb “Keep On Truckin’” style. (I have one in my yearbook.) Another Burbank High Disney guy who was in my graduating class was Joe Lanzisero; you wouldn’t know the name, but he played an instrumental role in the design of Toontown, in Disneyland. Finally, another Disney-related alumni from Burbank High was a sophomore when I was a senior: Tim Burton, who got his start with Disney before becoming a director.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner – Heigh Ho! (Part Two.)

Everyone supposes that Walt Disney was Mister Happiness. Well, he wasn’t – at least, not always. After he died 15 December 1966 the story began to emerge: he was haunted by a morbid fear of death, and suffered several nervous breakdowns during his life.

The executives at Disney, including his family, didn’t give a lot of publicity to the particulars of his death (cardiac arrest), which occurred in Burbank, California, at Saint Joseph’s Hospital (where my own father died in 1983).

This, coming at the same time as published reports of the first corpse being cryonically frozen, gave rise to the urban legend about Disney having his body preserved – to be thawed at a future date, when the medical means to prolong his life would theoretically

be available.

A simple search of the death records on file in Los Angeles County gives the true story – he was cremated, and his remains are interred in Forest Lawn cemetery, in Glendale. There, in a corner of a white mausoleum, is a simple brass plaque with the inscription "Walter Elias Disney."

My favorite marker belongs to film noir gangster Richard Conte. It has his birth year, a hyphen, his death year, a hyphen, and then a question mark. What’s up with that? I have no idea.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Planet Rugby, Guest Columnist

Did you know one of France's greatest air aces of the First World War, who had survived being shot down, imprisoned and severe injury, was killed whilst playing rugby a year after the war had finished?

Marcel Nogues, who was a keen sportsman, had started the war with the artillery but transferred to the French air force in the middle of 1916. Having scored some early victories, in April 1917 he was shot down and captured by the Germans but soon made good his escape and was back in the air a few months later. However, his flying exploits were further curtailed in September when he was severely wounded by shrapnel.

After nearly six months recuperating, he was back flying in April 1918 and soon after was awarded the Legion d'Honneur to add to his Croix de Guerre. He was officially credited with 13 confirmed kills during his wartime flying career.

Sadly, less than a year after the Armistice, the 24-year-old Nogues was killed when he took a blow to his throat whilst playing in a rugby game in October 1919.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Strikes, spares and MURDER!

A non-rugby playing friend who gets these e-mails correctly observed that my two main obsessions in life these days seem to be rugby and film noir, and sensibly asked if there is any rugby in any films noir.

The answer to that is no, at least not that I'm aware of in the films I've seen that fall into this dark category. Rugby is English, noir is essentially American. Aside from boxing (which is often depicted as a metaphor for life), the sport most often depicted or referenced in film noir is... wait for it... bowling!

But don't take my word for it. Here's proof, the Bowling Noir site, dedicated to a genre within a genre.

http://members.aol.com/bobbuttman/bowlingnoir/bowlingnoir.htm

Did you ask, "Brigham, why bowling?" Well, I have two explanations, one trivial and one socioeconomic. Trivial: Back in the heyday of noir (1940-1958), bowling was rather popular. So it stands to reason you'd see it mentioned. Socioeconomic: Film noir gets a lot of its impact from the clash between the haves and the have-nots. ("One of these days I'm gonna be a big man, and then they'll see. It'll be only mink and diamonds for you, baby, and WSRFC logo watches. Then I'll show 'em.") Not to offend any of you bowling

ruggers out there, but let's face it - unlike golf, tennis or... rugby, bowling is a middle class sport. So it stands to reason that one of the accouterments of the little guy in these films, in addition to a shabby apartment in the city and a dirty fedora, is a love for the heavy rolling ball.

By the way, the association with bowling and the working class is quite old. Geoffrey Chaucer, in the Canterbury Tales (c. 1380), pointedly makes one of his working class story-tellers (I forget which one) a bowler.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Only women bleed

The other night I rented the video production of Alice Cooper's "Welcome to my Nightmare" rock show from 1975. You might not guess this, but back when I was 18 I thought Alice was great. My high school friends went to see this show at the Long Beach Arena, but I was on duty in the Marines that weekend and couldn't go - so by renting the video I learned what I missed. After I viewed it, my unimpressed wife, folding laundry

upstairs, asked, "Did you enjoy your stroll down memory lane, and was that show as bad as the video made it sound?" You know the old saying, "You can never go back?" It's true. That video sucked.

In his shows Alice featured beheadings, necrophilia, infanticide, wife beating, menstruation, torture, insanity, toxic venoms and hanging. He wasn't the first to do this kind of shock value production, however, and Marilyn Manson has proven he won't be the last. As usual, the French had a name for it: Grand Guignol. GG theater was a trendy pleasure for the intellectual urban society of Paris in the early 20^th C.- the same people who turned sipping absinthe into a craze. It emphasized death in an especially gruesome

ways, the more outrageous, the more successful the production. My observation is that the Victorians (even the French who weren't Victorians, strictly speaking) were into death the way our society is into sex.

Read about it here, if you want:

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~art/caligari1.html

Later on I hope I won't be disappointed when I rent "David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars" and "The Who: Quatrophenia," but I probably will be. Dad and I used to argue about music all the time, and I have come to learn that he was right and I was wrong. The old man died in 1983, but he gets smarter every year.

I love the dead before they rise/No farewells, no good-byes/I never even knew your now-rotting face/While friends and lovers mourn your silly grave/I have other uses for you, darling - "I Love the Dead," Alice Cooper (whom Bob Dylan once called "an

under-rated songwriter")

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Heigh ho!

I will be fleeing the heat and humidity of Old Virginny next week for the heat and  aridness of Southern California - Anaheim, to be exact. I'm going on a business trip down there - the WebSec 2001 Conference. I leave Sunday the 5th and return Friday

the 10th. I shall be monitoring e-mail remotely, so you can expect an occasional e-mail.

Can you all guess what major attraction I shall also be visiting? I'll give you some clues: 1.) Eight people have been killed there since 1955. 2.) Women frequently bare their breasts there. 3.) Due to security concerns, a former Soviet premier was once

denied permission to visit.

Sounds like the Clubhouse in Manassas, huh?

Well, it's Disneyland, "The Happiest Place on Earth!" (However, a friend of mine used to work for Disney Engineering; she reports the employees called working there "Mousewitz.")

Will I be bringing a camera and a Suburbs shirt? You can bet your jock strap I will.

I'll be going with two high school chums; my guess is that we'll look like three tubby, middle-aged homos roaming around the place.

Interesting little urban legends and true stories about Disneyland may be viewed by going here:

http://www.snopes.com/disney/parks

My favorite ride? Alice in Wonderland. In 1998 I made an August visit and took too many Excedrin to kill the pain of sore ankles, received during my first weeks in rugby practice. So I went through the ride flying on caffeine. It was like, psychedelic, dude.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The eye of the dog

We are now in the so-called "dog days" of sultry summer, from about July 3rd to August 11th. Why are they called that? Because our ancestors were much more in tune with natural things than we citified people are now, and knew about stars, eclipses, growing

seasons, phases of the moon, etc. (It helps that there were no city lights to blot out the stars.)

The brightest star in the heavens - magnitude 1 - is Sirius, the eye of the dog constellation Canis Major. It is so bright that early people figured that it added to the heat from the sun. You can see it in the evening skies in winter, not summer. So why would you name part of the year after a star you can't see then? Because people at Mediterranean latitudes knew that around this time of the year the dog star was in conjunction with the sun (which would blot it out entirely). In other words, the dog days had not only the heat of the sun, but that of Sirius as well. Astronomically the "dog days" were thus the 20 days

before and after the star's conjunction with the sun.

Why did anyone care? Because way back when, before knowledge of germs or how diseases are transmitted and the availability of modern health care, the heat of the dog days coincided with disease and death. *That* got their attention.

Nowadays we know that summer heat is a result of the earth's tilt - not Sirius.

Later on this year I'll fill you in about "Indian Summer" - it's not what you think.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Your soul in exchange for...

Sometimes a movie adaptation can be better than the original source material. I rented "Faust" (1926), a silent movie by F.W. Murnau based on Goethe's poem about a man who makes a deal with the devil (Mephisto). I read the poem earlier this year and thought it was pretty lame and boring. It's described as being one of the great masterpieces of Western literature. Well... okay... but I thought it was lame.

The film is something else, however. This was a big budget production from the German film studio UFA, and contains all sorts of cool 1920's-technology special effects, stylized acting and expressionist sets. Have you ever seen Disney's "Fantasia?" That scene where

the bat-winged devil looms over the small village was done first in this film; Mephisto causes a plague this way. (Did you know the Disney artists styled the facial expressions for that from Bela Lugosi?) There's even a brief topless scene in this one! (Mephisto

causes an image of an alluring young woman to appear before Faust, who has his youth restored to him. Faust cries, "Take me to her!" Later, he makes love to her in a bed, which is later shown to be encased by Mephisto's bat-winged-looking cape. I wonder if Bob Kane, Batman's creator, ever saw this film...)

Despite all of the above, my son still prefers the Wishbone version.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Elementary, my dear three-quarter.

From Planet Rugby's "FACT OF THE DAY" (But I already knew this):

"Did you know that one of the adventures faced by fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is entitled 'The Case of the Missing Threequarter'? In the tale, the famous Baker Street detective is engaged by Cambridge University skipper Cyril Overton to find a missing

player just 24 hours ahead of the side's annual Varsity Match against Oxford University.

The story - recounted as usual by the narrator Dr Watson - begins with Overton arriving at Holmes' living quarters, telling him that wing Godfrey Staunton is missing and blurting out: "It’s awful, Mr. Holmes–simply awful! I wonder my hair isn’t gray. Staunton is simply the hinge that the whole team turns on. I’d rather spare two from the pack, and have Godfrey for my three-quarter line. Whether it’s passing, or tackling, or dribbling,

there’s no one to touch him, and then, he’s got the head, and can hold us all together."

If you want to, you can read this tale here:

http://www.bakerstreet221b.de/canon/miss.htm

By the way, Planet Rugby didn't mention that Holmes' friend Dr. John Watson, M.D. also played - for Blackheath RFC, according to the Sussex Vampire story.

What's a three-quarter? The #13 position - we call it outside center.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Winter sports

Continuing Matt's comment above about winter activities: In the American Civil War, which was mostly fought in the months when the weather permitted support wagons to travel the unpaved roads, the winter months were often spent in camps - for both Union and Confederates. One year (it may have been 1862, when the battle of Fredericksburg was fought in December), the Confederate army was on alert, and men who normally would have gotten furloughs to visit home weren't allowed to. Confederate general Daniel Harvey Hill argued to his commanders that some of his men should be allowed to leave for a time, "...else the next generation of Southerners will be sired by shirkers, stay-at-homes and cowards."

So, in the spirit of D.H. Hill, I say that some non-rugby activities should be allowed for in the winter months, else there will be no future ruggers.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Mob justice

Last night I saw one of the bleakest films noir I have ever seen (which is really saying something): "Try and Get Me!" (1950). You might think it's about a cornered hoodlum, gun in hand, screeching the movie title at the police, but it's not. It's actually a left-wing

denunciation of mob violence. In a small town in California, two fellows - one of them down on his luck, with a pregnant wife - pull off petty heists; they crack into the big time with the kidnap and murder of a wealthy man. They're caught and imprisoned. A newspaper reporter writes articles which inflame the locals, who overpower the police, break into the jail and kill the two men. End of story. The scene where the mob grabs the men has real impact.

Funny thing is, it's based on a true story - something like this actually happened in San Jose, California, in the 30's. Every now and then justice in this country goes badly wrong. Speaking of which, I bet you can't guess the only state in the Union that ever hung a pregnant woman. Massachusetts.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - The fruit of the tree

Everyone knows that long, long ago Eve offered Adam an apple, and that is how man was expelled from the Garden of Eden, right? Well, not quite. If you read the King James Bible, you will learn that it is a fruit - of no stated type - that Adam ate. It is an early Jewish tradition, however, that the fruit was actually grapes, or something that looked like grapes. (I think it is the 1st C. historian Josephus who stated this.)

Sitting in the Salt Lake Temple, I pondered this while gazing up at the ceiling, where grapes are used in the decoration.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Jean Cocteau

Who was Jean Cocteau? A Frenchman who was skilled as a poet, painter, actor, set designer, filmmaker and all-around arts guy - he was active from about 1900 to 1963, when he died. His films can only be described as magical; made in an age well before Industrial Light and Magic and digital special effects, he can still surprise. When your kids are a little older you may want to check out Beauty and the Beast (younger ones

will be turned off by the subtitles) - it is much better than the Disney version.

Cocteau was also a flaming homo, and had as his lover Jean Marais, who starred as the Beast. The funny thing was, Marais was a good-looking guy, and during the 40's and 50's was considered the very height of male handsomeness in Europe. (This was well before Tom Loesel or Pete Tripi were born.)

B and the B:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0780020715.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Jean Marais:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/630320208X.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Call me Chronos

You would suppose that since the whole point of a wristwatch is to tell time, the best and most expensive watches would tell time better than the cheap ones, right? Wrong. The so-called "luxury" watch brands: Rolex, Omega, Breitling, Jaeger-LeCoultre, etc. are mostly mechanical watch-makers.

We don't have much of a watch culture in the U.S. (it's Timex at the low end and Rolex at the top end), but we used to. After taking a beating by the American railroad pocket watch industry in the mid 19^th century, the Swiss became the world's dominant watch

makers. Before about 1975 this meant mechanical movements - and then came quartz. Most quartz movements are about 60 times more accurate than most mechanical movements, and nowadays, thanks to the Asian manufacturers, quartz watches are much cheaper. So after the initial demand in the mid-to-late 70's, the hand-assembled and tuned mechanical movements made a comeback as luxury items. But the Swiss are still at work on improving the quartz movement.

I have a Breitling Colt Chrono Auto which I got as a 20th anniversary present - although not certified, it keeps time to mechanical chronometer standards; it's about 5 seconds fast per day. Most quartz watches are about 10-20 seconds fast per month. The new Breitling

thermally-compensated "Super Quartz" movements keep time to within 15 seconds *a year.*  That's 15 seconds out of 31.5 million. The only watches that are more accurate are the ones that receive atomic clock signals by radio waves - and that's cheating.

You can see some great-looking watches (and aircraft) on the Breitling home page: http://breitling.com - the Super Quartz movement is described in the "New in

2001" section.

Funny thing about time, though - when we're running laps it nearly stops for me.

---

Brigham's (Pop) Cultural Corner - Sex and censorship

Got your attention, didn't I?

Every generation thinks it invented sex. The fallacy behind this lies in the simple fact that there are subsequent generations - they didn't come to be by materialization out of the blue. And if you spend time doing genealogical work, as I do, you'll discover that our forebears were no prudes.

Nevertheless it's still a little surprising when a sexual reference turns up in something historical or old. Take advertising, for example. I stumbled across a 1949 ad for Springmaid sheets: The layout shows a sleeping Indian sprawled in an attitude of complete exhaustion in a sheet (worth about a dollar back then), stretched hammock-style between two trees. A pretty young Indian woman flashing a wide grin is getting up from the hammock, one leg still caught in its confines. Its caption reads "A buck well spent on

a Springmaid Sheet." The funny thing about this ad is that nowadays it would still raise eyebrows - not because of the sexual reference, but because it refers to a Native American man as a "buck."

The great American novel "The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn" has no sexual double entendres, but has been banned twice. The first time, back in the 19th century after its publication, was because it was deemed "trash literature." The second time, in the early

1990's, was because of the political incorrectness of its use of slang to describe blacks.

People are fond of saying that the only sure things in life are death and taxes, but I think you can throw sex and censorship in there, too.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Sweet Home, Rugby

Did you know there's a Rugby, Virginia? Neither did I. And I can't find it on a map. But it's the home of "...one of the finest flat-pickers and guitar-builders in the country."

Strum Major (From People magazine, 4/23/01)

When it comes to making guitars, nobody on God's green earth can make Wayne Henderson hurry. Blues great John Cephas waited two years for Henderson No. 116.

Joe Wilson bombarded him with daily postcards--to no avail. "If I'm in the right mood, it doesn't take but a few weeks to make one," says Henderson, 53, a man who moves with the rhythms of his native Appalachia. "But I rarely do that." The wait is worth it, says Wilson, executive director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, who now owns No. 143. "Wayne could be a household name," he adds, "but that's not on his list of ambitions."

Then Henderson had better bolt the door of his home in Rugby, Va. (pop. 9), because fame is bearing down. Blame it on No. 226. It took seven years for country singer Gillian Welch to get that guitar, and she used it well--writing music for the soundtrack of the

George Clooney film O Brother, Where Art Thou? At the top of Billboard's country chart--and No. 14 among all records--the album is "bringing more attention to bluegrass," says Welch, 33. "And that's right what Wayne does."

He may be slow at crafting a guitar, but he plays one fast and wild, making it sound like a fiddle. He can "pick the paint off a car," says Wilson. "He is one of the finest flat-pickers and guitar-makers in the country," agrees Howard Bass, program producer of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. "It's almost unique, to find somebody who does both." Country star Vince Gill once quit signing autographs at a music festival to pay homage, telling Henderson, "I just wanted to shake your hand!"

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Punt-about

Last night I watched the 1950 British film adaptation of "Tom Brown's Schooldays"; this one was notable because it was filmed on the grounds of Rugby School, on the Close where the game (called "punt-about" in this film) is said to have been created.

Schoolboy East assures Tom, "This is the only place where football is played properly." The scenes with the schoolboys playing rugby is pretty good: it looks more like a riot than a game, with the sides numbering up to perhaps a hundred. (Big scrums!) I didn't see

anyone running with ball in hand - which is curious, since William Webb Ellis is said to have created the game in 1823, and this story takes place in 1834. Anyway, it looks like the main defensive scheme is for a boy to grab the (circular) ball and to lie on it, killing it.  At the end of the movie, "Big Brooke," the captain (wearing a schoolboy skull and crossbones) makes his conversion kick and everyone cheers, Tom dashes off down the Close - fade to black, run end titles.

By the way, there's an anachronism with boys in this film using the term "punt." My dictionary says that the word, meaning to kick a football, didn't come about until about 1845.

And you all know the story about William Webb Ellis taking the ball in hand probably didn't happen, right?

See

http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/Curb/2471/r_myth.html

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Paint it, Black

Offhand I can think of two indigenous American artforms: jazz and film noir. Jazz I don't care for much ("Jazz isn't dead, it just smells bad" - Frank Zappa), but I'm mad about film noir. So much so that I developed a web site about it, my seventh: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/3450/web_noir.html.

So what's "film noir?" Essentially crime dramas made from about 1940 to 1958. Heavy shadows, urban settings, fedoras and cigarettes, window blinds, corrupt authorities, two-timing femme fatales, the hand of fate, the innocent caught up in lies, deceit and murder - great stuff.

American films weren't allowed to be seen in occupied France during WWII, and when the war was over and they were once again shown there, the film critics noticed that they were darker, less optimistic and grittier than pre-war productions. They titled them "film

noir," or dark film. (The other two American artists brought to our attention by the French were Edgar Allen Poe and Jerry Lewis!)

A lot of noir comes from writers and producers who were blacklisted in Hollywood as communists, and their ideology comes through these films: we're all just a step away from crime or murder - all it takes is the right circumstances - and companies and the government are corrupt. The little guy can never get a break.

Despite the fact that it's in color and made in 1974, a great place to start an interest in noir is with "Chinatown," which has about all of the essentials. Or try "the Maltese Falcon," one of the earliest.

---

Brigham's Cultural Corner - Man-hating

Now I'm reading "The War Against Boys," by Christina Hoff Summers. It's about how gender feminists louse up education for boys in an effort to improve things for the poor, downtrodden girls (who aren't really downtrodden at all and are doing better than boys in

just about every educational metric). We've all heard (or been called) "misogynists" - that's a word meaning one who hates women. But do you know what the hatred of men is? Misandry.

The word that describes hatred of rugby is, of course, Communism.

---

Brigham's Kultural Korner - Lincoln lock.

I have no doubt that if he had a mind to it, the greatest second row in the American History XV would have been Abe Lincoln. He stood "six foot four, nearly" (his own words) and was notably strong. There are many tales from his Illinois youth of his being

able to lift enormous weights. (A May 28, 1865 letter from J. Rowan Herndon reads: "... he was By fare the stoutest man that i ever took hold of i was a mear Child in his hands and i considered my self as good a man as there was in the Cuntry untill he Come about  i

saw him lift Betwen 1000 and 1300 lbs of Rock waid in a Boxx ...") He was undefeated at wrestling. At his death, the doctors noted that while his face was careworn and haggard from the burdens of office, his body was still lean and muscular - the body of a man

in his twenties. Here are some odd Lincoln lincs:

What goes on when Lincoln impressionists gather for a

convention:

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/1422/lincolns.html

The real story of the famous "Bixby Letter" you heard

in "Saving Private Ryan":

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/1422/bixby.html

Those amazing Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences (urban

legends):

http://www.snopes2.com/spoons/fracture/linckenn.htm

(My mother, a Bostonian, made a big deal out of

these.)

---

Brigham's Kultural Korner - The Wood.

What does the porn industry and rugby have in common? Wood.

I am presently reading a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning feminist Susan Faludi entitled "Stiffed" - The Betrayal of the American Man. Some chapters are better than others; when it's good, it's quite good. Essentially it's 608 pages of men lamenting the loss

or absence of fathers - a societal problem I have been aware of as a scout volunteer.

Anyway, I am now on her chapter about the porn industry (you'd suppose that was one place where a man could be a man, but no), and what struck me was a repeated reference to "wood," as in "waiting for wood." It's an industry term for the process of waiting for the male performers to, uh, become ready. There's a similar rugby phrase that you hear more in the U.K. than here (although you can hear it from Kelly Watkins occasionally): "Put the wood to them!", meaning, drive in the scrum. Why "wood?" Consulting my

Webster's, I see that one definition is from the Old English "wod", meaning violently mad or insane. Sounds like rugby. But it's more likely that the meaning which came into use in about c. 1538 applies: awkwardly stiff, lacking flexibility.

Then there's the wood pecker, of course. And did you know a wood pussy (c. 1899) is a skunk?

---

Brigham's Kultural Korner - Woyzeck II

Last week I mentioned a videotape viewing of Klaus Kinski in "Woyzeck." The other night I rented an alternate version of the play - this one takes place in a train field in mid-winter, and is filmed in a cheery black and white. Woyzeck has all sort of menial jobs: he sweeps off the tracks, applies grease to the switches and levers, and generally gets bullied around by a yard master shouting out his name over a public address system. Filmed in Hungary in 1994, this one stars an actor who bears some resemblance to Kelly Watkins. The story is the same insofar as he kills his two-timing Marie, but isn't shown drowning himself.

I figure, with my viewing (and reading) habits I have, I'll be a manic-depressive myself before long.

---

Brigham's (Pop) Kulture Korner - His Muse Wore Loose Underwear

I have seen enough of the 1950's culture via films and TV to know it could be kind of weird by modern standards. As Exhibit "A" I call to your attention Art Frahm, as appreciated and commented upon by James Lileks.

The man painted cheesecake images of women in falling panties. You may wonder, does elastic really do this? Yes - it did back then. I have confirmed this with my mother-in-law, who was born in the late 20's.

http://lileks.com/institute/frahm/indexmain.html

Beware! If you get a taste for this kind of thing, you may never return to modern porn.

---

Brigham's Kultural Korner - Chaucer and thunder-dints from Japan.

I have taken a number of English lit classes in high school and college that included works by one of the fathers of English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400). His big contribution to the mother tongue is "the Canterbury Tales," and I have once read some

of them in the original Middle English dialect - no mean feat. (In fact, I once had to memorize 100 lines of it to recite; I got an "A.") I mention this not to boast, but to call your attention to the fact that every English teacher and professor I have had, for some reason, felt compelled to focus attention on the Miller's Tale.

The Miller's story is a rude, barnyard affair that features a kiss upon the buttocks, a red hot poker and the passing of gas. And yes, the word "fart" did exist in the late 14th C. At the climax of the tale, mention is made of an especially loud fart, which Chaucer calls, "a thonder-dent." I have never been able to remove this phrase from my mind, thanks to my

teachers.

Anyway, Archie gave me the URL of another genius of the English language, this time a Japanese webmaster who wrote text to accompany high-priced videos of Japanese ladies creating thunder-dints of their own. I don't know which is more bizarre: the concept, the

photos or the text. Is it a fetish or Chaucerian art? You decide.

http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/ha/dins/onarafetish3english.htm

---

Brigham's Kultural Korner - And you think you have it bad.

Watched a filmed version of my favorite opera the other night: "Woyzeck." It can only be described as depressive. Based on a true story, it's about a poor German soldier who suffers from delusions, malnutrition (a sadistic doctor pays him for taking part in medical experiments), and a two-timing prostitute named Marie, by whom he has a small child.

At the end of the film, play and opera, he stabs Marie to death, throws the knife into a pond, and drowns himself. After being informed of his mother's death the new orphan happily continues to play hopscotch. In the film, Woyzeck was portrayed by Klaus Kinski - one of the weirdest-looking actors ever, who happens to have a good-looking daughter named Nastassia. Genes, go figure.

http://www.seeseiten.de/user/dieselheart/filme/woy/woy.htm

I'm not certain which would take the prize for the most gloomy work, this or "Johnny's Got His Gun," an anti-war play by Dalton Trumbo (later blacklisted in Hollywood). In this one, Johnny loses both arms, both legs, his hearing, sight and his ability to talk. This

material provides few possibilities for dramatic acting.

There's also "This Sporting Life," which features Richard Harris as a rugby league player who has a difficult time coming to grips with his woman, society and life in general. It begins with his getting his front teeth knocked out, and things decline from there.

Oh, wait! I'm forgetting "Pandora's Box," about a woman who causes the death of nearly every man she meets. At the end she gets killed by Jack the Ripper!

Okay, I'll stop now.

---

Brigham's Kultural Korner - Packing down at the barre.

Planet Rugby's 6/18/01 "Fact of the Day": "Did you know that Wales prop Darren Morris - currently on tour with the Lions in Australia - has been practicing ballet exercises in an attempt to improve his game? Players complete the same type of stretching techniques and exercise programmes used by dancers to develop their muscles and agility. Instead of a barre, they use a large rubber ball to improve posture and balancing. Using ballet is the brainchild of Phil Richards, fitness coach at Morris' club Swansea, and the expert believes the results speak for themselves: "The results were almost instantaneous," said

Richards. "Darren says he now walks taller. Being a prop forward, it has developed the vital strength in his core and neck. He doesn't drop down so quickly and has much more power when he is in a scrum. He also has a lot more agility and is quicker up the field."

However, rugby players using ballet techniques is nothing new and in the early 1990s, members of the England rugby team underwent sessions at the Royal Ballet Company in order to improve their jumping and lifting technique. Rugby fans were thus treated to

photos of giant England and Bath prop Gareth Chilcott kitted out in a tutu and legwarmers!"

Ever take a look at a ballet dancer's upper legs? They can put most rugby players to shame. And why is this? Anyone who has ever done any bodybuilding knows that

it is slow and steady that builds muscle mass. Throwing the barbells up explosively may result in a greater number of bench reps, but it is *not* using momentum - as well as a complete range of motion - that forces the muscle groups to work harder, and grow. Ballet moves, even the leaps, are controlled and graceful, not explosive. And a lot of the work on the stage involves the legs: running, hoisting, scissors, etc. Of course the cod-pieces and tights don't endear ballet to the average male... and makes it hard for a group of guys to get together with a couple of six-packs to shout, "Hey! Awesome pas de chat! And did you check out that walking hoist in the second act?"

---

Brigham's Kultural Korner - Wooeing

I have no doubt that Jon chose his bride in a manner entirely unlike that practiced in 15th C. England:

"Sir William Roper, of Eltham in Kent, came one morning pretty early, to my Lord [Chancellor More] with a proposal to marry one of his daughters. My Lord's daughters were then both together abed in a truckle-bed in their father's chamber asleep. He carries Sir William into the chamber and takes the Sheete by the corner and suddenly whippes it off. They lay on their Backs, and their smocks up as high as their arme-pitts. This awakened them, and immediately they turned on their bellies. Quoth Roper, I have seen

both sides, and so gave a patt on the buttock, he made choice of, sayeing, Thou art mine. Here was all the trouble of the wooeing."

---

Brigham's Kultural Korner

Channel surfing on the TV last night, I saw part of a performance of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana." You'd probably recognize the beginning of this piece, as Hollywood uses it a lot. It's a big, ominous choral work. On the Internet I even saw part of it used as incidental music to an All-Blacks video! (I used to have a link to it, but it was discontinued and I haven't been able to find it again.)

The piece is a favorite of mine, and it's about fate, lust, drinking and fortune - mostly described in Latin. Here's an excerpt from "In Taburna" ("in the tavern"): "Six hundred pennies would hardly suffice, if everyone drinks immoderately and immeasurably." It

makes me think of the big push to collect dues at the beginning of the season when everyone is running up bar bills.

The NSO will perform Carmina Burana at Wolf Trap this Saturday, by the way. Sadly, my own upcoming Wolf Trap experience is not quite as good. Cari and I go to see

Donny Osmond perform this Sunday. ("Sometimes a man has to do things he'd rather not do to get a woman to do things she'd rather not do." - Tim Allen)

---

Brigham's Kulture Korner

I am currently reading a book about the "Wars of the Roses," in 15th C. England. History is messy, and historians like to straighten things out to make sense of them. For instance, were you to travel back in time and ask a late 15th century English knight, "Whom do

you support in the War of the Roses, the white rose of York or the red rose of Lancaster?", he most likely would respond with, "What are 'the Wars of the Roses?'" This book points out that it probably wasn't called that back then. The American version of this is the famous Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. Contemporaries called it "the assault of Longstreet's Corps."

What have red and white roses to do with rugby? Well, it was an English Civil War. The next one, in the 17^th C., involved Oliver Cromwell. Englishmen played football with his severed head. You can read about it

http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/Curb/2471/heads.html

Rugby with severed human heads... I have learned that life is often weirder than man could possibly script.

---

Brigham's Kulture Korner

Everyone likes James Bond, right? When asked, Sir Ian Fleming said he had a celebrity's features in mind for James Bond. Who was it?

1) Sean Connery

2) David Niven

3) Hoagy Carmichael

4) Cary Grant

5) Laurence Olivier

The answer is, of course, Hoagy Carmichael. Never heard of him? He was a songwriter and occasional movie star - his most famous song is "Stardust." You can see what Ian Fleming had in mind for James Bond by going to http://www.hoagy.com

"Oh, James Bond was just some rubbish I came up with. He was no Sidney Reilly, you know." - Sir Ian Fleming

---

Brigham's Kultural Korner: Last night I saw "Nocturne," a 1946 film noir with George Raft. Eh. He solves the case with the assistance of his mother. How noir is that?

---

From Dante to Russ Meyer: I made the mistake of taking my wife to the video vault in Alexandria with me (my film requirements are now too arcane for the ordinary Blockbuster), and she insisted that we rent the celebrated cult flick "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" Geez, what a lame film - sort of like a trailer park version of Thelma and Louise. If there's one thing life has shown me again and again, it's that the average man is much stronger and more aggressive than the average woman - but apparently nobody in film or television is aware of this. F,P!K!K! serves as a valuable litmus test, however. Now if I hear somebody professing a great admiration for this clunker, I'll know he needs to get out more. (The guy at the register claimed it was one of his top five films of all time. Last time I take advice from a guy working in a video rental.)

And now, Buzz, it's your turn to send me e-mail telling me how utterly mistaken I am...

Photo: Heaving Pussycat Bosoms and excessive makeup may be viewed here:

http://www.dollsoup.co.uk/stuff/pussy.htm

---

At last, Dante descends into the bottommost pit of hell - a place reserved for betrayers, who lie buried up to the neck in a sea of ice. (An especially good image is at

http://www.artpassions.net/cgi-bin/show_image.pl?../galleries/dore/inferno32.jpg).

One fellow is locked in ice right next to another, and he gnaws at him ceaselessly. But, look! There, in the very center of hell, is the worst of them all. Who? (No, not Eric Pittlekau.) Satan; he rules over the frozen depths and provides air conditioning, frigid air issuing forth from his three mouths. (While he grinds sinners with his teeth, no mean feat.)

See

http://www.artpassions.net/cgi-bin/show_image.pl?../galleries/dore/inferno34_.jpg

At this point Dante's Inferno ends.

And this concludes the Poetry for Ruggers 101 unit. Two continuing education points will be issued to all club members.

---

Canto XXVIII of Dante's Inferno is nasty, with more interesting language. For instigating wars, the false counselors get split in half ("No barrel staved-in and missing its end-piece ever gaped as wide as the man I saw split open from his chin down to the farting-place") and generally hacked up by demons. Then they walk around the ring, recovering, only to be hacked up again.

---

I tell ya, Dante's hell just gets worse and worse. I wonder if he wasn't plagued by a few demons of his own. Simonaics (the buying or selling of church offices) get thrown headfirst into a narrow pit, and the soles of their feet become enflamed. Then, they're

crammed down while another body is pressed in for the same treatment, and another, etc. Diviners and fortune-tellers get their heads screwed around 180 degrees, and walk around backwards. The worst so far, however, is the treatment meted out to thieves: giant

human-headed serpents with multiple legs and claws attach themselves to sinners rending flesh (the tails going up into the "hind regions"). In a flash the sinners are burned to ashes. The ashes fall to the ground, are reconstituted back into the sinners, and the process is repeated. Some luckier thieves get to walk about eternally in lead monks' robes.

---

Photo: Great Scott, laddie, did I nae mention the rain of fire? http://arbor.ucdavis.edu/DANTE/dore10.html

---

Our descent into the Pit of Hell with Dante and Virgil continues. In Canto XVIII Dante reserves his best poetry for where seducers dwell (beware, Tripi!): "People immersed in filth that seemed to drain from human privies... I saw one there whose head was so

befouled with shit, you couldn't tell which one he was..."

Now, I didn't think your high-class poets used language like that, but there it is in the original Italian, "merda."

Here's a cool Gustave Dore engraving of the tourists creeping along -

http://www.artpassions.net/cgi-bin/show_image.pl?../galleries/dore/inferno25.jpg

---

Continuing down into the Pit of Hell with Dante and the Roman poet Vergil, we arrive at Circle 7, Ring 1, described in Canto XII. There, those who have been violent toward others have been cast into a river of boiling blood. Whenever the damned attempt to lift themselves out more than is allowed, attendant centaurs fire arrows. Attila is there, as well as members of other rugby clubs who stamp or start fist fights with Suburbs players. (Maybe the kid who lit off the firecracker outside my house this morning at 2

AM. will make an appearance, too.)

---

I'm reading Dante's Inferno right now. Great concept: create various levels of hell and populate them. My guess is that he described the literary and historical figures rotting away in hell in terms of people he knew - I'd imagine the temptation to do this would be

impossible to resist. Anyway, the lustful are on the 2nd circle of hell and gluttons are on the 3rd (I guess too much food is a bigger sin than lust, which is really bad news for me.) Getting back to rugby, he doesn't specify where the drunken sots and wine-bibbers are - I reckon they're with the gluttons.

He doesn't locate Senator Jeffords, either.