Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
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Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

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Friday, February 8, 2002
00:44 - Well, that's one attack-free day down...	(top)
I watched the Olympic Opening Ceremonies with a bunch of the usual Friday-night friends; aside from the to-be-expected cuts-away to hockey games whenever the Olympics cut to a commercial (and sometimes when it didn't), it was a really enjoyable show. Sure, it's ostentatious and scripted way beyond any hope of being ascribed any spontaneous energy; but oddly enough I didn't much mind. After the Parade of Nations, the long stage/rink show got underway, and it was awfully impressive. It was an artistic interpretation of the history of the American West, with a ceremony by the Five Tribes of local Indians blessing the games, followed by the involved musical extravaganza with skater puppeteers operating huge (20-foot-tall) puppets that had been designed by Michael Curry, the man responsible for the animals in the Broadway production of The Lion King. These ones looked every bit as cool, especially the giant ghostly moose and the bear. Awesomely effective. The sports announcers have got to go, though. I don't need Bob Costas telling me "Oh, and here we have the two Eastern and Western railroads coming down the aisles, to come together in a symbolic gesture commemorating the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Point", or to hear Copland's "Rodeo" come on as part of the musical production only for one of the announcers to quip, "Well! Now it's suddenly become a 'Beef: it's What's For Dinner' commercial," just reinforcing the dismal fact that those ads are now the first thing we think of when we hear that piece. How very American of us to ruin the performance by barging in during a well-choreographed number set to a musical classic and tying it to a TV commercial. I'm always vaguely embarrassed by the Parade of Nations, especially when the Olympics are being held within the US, because first you have a couple hundred nations following their flags with maybe two or three athletes each; and then, at the end of the procession, along comes the USA-- just another team, right? Well, no, they've got approximately 25,000 athletes so as to make sure that these other countries that worked so hard to field one athlete to compete in one event won't have a ghost of a chance. The Olympics are supposed to be seen as impartial and non-nationality-specific, but it always comes across as a showcase for America-- our only outlet for condoned overkill, unchanged since the fall of the USSR, the catalyst for us developing that tradition of overkill in the first place. It's not something we're really prepared to scale back, evidently. But on another note, I had to do a double-take at Bush's little speech declaring the Games open-- because he was standing in among a huge crowd, no Secret Service agents in sight, right down on the field. Usually, as the commentators noted, heads of state are always seated in a heavily-secured box of some sort, and they speak from there. This may be the first time since Kennedy that a President has put himself so ostentatiously out in the open and among the crowd. I guess the security at the stadium was really that tight, that his handlers allowed this to happen. Since the cameras picked up no obtrusive displays of security (like the tanks at the Super Bowl), the reassurance of the image was genuine. So, all in all, an exhilarating show. The jingoism was kept to a minimum (the US didn't march in behind the WTC flag, having been told not to by the IOC-- they had a low-key ceremony with it earlier), though the symbolism of all the rituals (and the commentators explaining how it should all be interpreted) did get a little bit old. Remember back when people could put on a show, and the spectators were supposed to be able to watch it and figure out what it meant for themselves? I guess that's not a luxury we have these days. But all things considered, it was great fun, and a very impressive show. Kudos to all involved. Now let's just hope we can make it through the next two weeks without an "incident".