Stupor Bowl

Thoughts while watching the Super Bowl:

Did I just dream that prior to the game Roger Goodell and Odin held a joint press conference to announce that the waiting period for admittance to the Hall of Fame and Valhalla has been waived for Ray Lewis?

Is the pre-game show over yet?

The hole in the ozone now alarmingly larger after all the hot air expended during Super Bowl week.

What a charming ballad, I thought as I listened to Alicia Keys. For a moment it reminded me of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I think it was the easy-listening version Francis Scott Key composed while chillaxin’ at Fort McHenry.

Now I can’t wait for half-time to hear Beyonce’s hip-hop rendition of Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus.”

For a funnier take on the NFL and Beyonce, read “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.”

There should be commercials after every play. Don’t laugh. We’re almost there.

The tedium is the message when it comes to Super Bowl commercials. Never has so much money and rapt attention been spent on such witless drivel.

Is this the final chapter in the Ray Lewis hagiography?

Those promos are designed to show the network sitcoms in their cleverest light, right? Why would anyone watch one minute of these shows after seeing the previews?

“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence [or taste] of the American public,” wrote H. L. Mencken. And he never sat through a televised Super Bowl.

Can any reporter who gushes over Super Bowl production, commercials, and so-called entertainment be considered a serious journalist?

There should be trash talking and taunting after every play. Wait, never mind.

My DVR’s out of sync: Carson just flagged Ray Lewis for unsportsmanlike conduct toward the dowager countess.

Power outage: A plot to sell more insipid beer and programming?

James Brown and his CBS co-hosts bantering to kill time during the blackout, and it’s not pretty.

Good thing FEMA wasn't in charge of restoring the power.

Hoping for a Don Giovanni-like finale, with the ground opening up at midfield and the game’s commendatore being dragged kicking and screaming to hell.

Clearly the Ravens outprayed the 49ers and God awarded them the victory.

And now the inevitable log-rolling: media coverage of the media coverage, or the bland leading the bland.

God's Will

God told St. Peter to clear his calendar of appointments for this Sunday, his traditional day of rest, so that he can kick back in his private skybox and root for the team that outprays the other in this showdown of (if the hyperactive media is to be believed) biblical proportion. Fittingly, the game pits brother vs. brother, although it's unclear which Harbaugh is Cain and which is Abel. It also remains to be seen how the hagiography of Ray Lewis plays out in the final chapter of his own Old Testament-like career.

Martin Luther King Day With the First Grade

I was reunited with the first-grade class yesterday for an abbreviated schedule, which included a read-aloud illustrated biography chosen specifically for the day. I began: “Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Montgomery, Alabama...”

Amanda raised her hand before I could complete the first sentence. “My cousin’s birthday is in January,” she told us.

I nodded and then continued with the highlights, arriving at a moment in 1955: “Dr. King was arrested during the Montgomery bus boycott and his house bombed. Years later he led a civil rights march and rally in Washington, D.C...

“Wait,” said John, interrupting me, “How did Martin Luther King escape from prison?”

Well, no, it wasn’t like that, I explained. He was freed. There was no jail break. As a result of the boycott, a court ruling ended racial segregation on all public buses in Montgomery.  

Back to the story: “Over 250,000 people attended the rally during the summer of 1963 in the capital and listened to King’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech.”

James, paying close attention to the illustrations, noticed the artist’s method of representing the thousands of people spread out across the National Mall for the event: “He really had to paint a lot of dots in this picture!”

It’s an effective way of showing such an enormous crowd from Martin Luther King’s perspective, I agreed. Now, does anything in the illustration give you a clue that the setting is Washington? I asked the children, thinking perhaps someone would recognize the reflecting pool or a more famous landmark.

No response.

What about this structure? I asked, pointing to the drawing of the Washington Monument. Does anyone know what this is called?

Nothing.

I’ll give you a hint—it’s the Washington...

“I know,” shouted James. “The George Washington Bridge!”

Faint Praise

“Mr. K., you’re our favorite sub,” third grader Nicole offhandedly told me today as she was lying on the classroom carpet during a writing exercise. As I tried to supress a proud smile, Alyssa, alongside her, looked up and amended the compliment: “Our favorite boy sub.” Wait…what? O.K., the “boy” mitigated somewhat the qualified praise. Alexa immediately chimed in. “Are there any other boy subs?” she wondered aloud. Raised up and cut down in one motion.

What I’ve Learned From First Graders

My heart breaks for the parents of the first-grade children killed in Newtown, Connecticut, a week ago and for the devastating loss to their community of so much innocent and vibrant young life. It’s an unimaginable nightmare for every family. How does anyone begin to cope with such inconsolable grief? 

Just the day before the senseless tragedy I had taught a class of first graders in New Jersey. I thought about them when the terrible news broke. I’ve been lucky enough to have stepped in from time to time over the past three years as a substitute teacher for that grade. It is an assignment I always eagerly anticipated because it never failed to be educational while charmingly unpredictable. Here are some of the things those children taught me:

• First graders will animatedly raise their hands when a question is posed, but after being called upon they will invariably have no answer or have forgotten what they were going to say.

• First graders are supremely confident about their abilities, whether it is sports, academics, or the arts, claiming to be the best, the fastest, the strongest, smartest, and most talented in every area of interest.

• It’s toxic to stand behind first graders after lunch.

• First graders will interrupt the teacher’s lesson or read-aloud story to interject some personal comment unrelated to anything they have just heard.

• First graders never complain about the weather.

• If they know a sticker is the reward for good work, first graders will rededicate their efforts.

• First graders do not let correct spelling or punctuation get in the way of their writing.

• First graders consider themselves to be much more sophisticated and mature than kindergartners, whom they call “babies.”

• To hear them tell it, first graders are experts in anything you can name.

• First graders are unblinkingly honest when evaluating others’ appearances but indifferent about their own.

• On the hottest days in June, first graders will become uncontrollably manic during recess and then ask why it is so hot in the classroom.

• First graders will enthusiastically greet you every single time they see you in the course of the day.

• First graders are incapable of walking quietly in single file down a school hallway. Their preferred mode of locomotion is to skip noisily while nudging one another from point A to point B.

• If there is a puddle, first graders will walk through it rather than around it.

• First graders laugh whenever they hear the word “underwear” and consider “shut up” and “stupid” to be bad words.

• When asked if they have any questions, first graders will launch into unrelated anecdotes.

• First graders cannot wait to be a year older (or half a year older) but have no concept of an adult’s age.

• Upon completing some written assignment, first graders love to ask, “Can we color it now?”

• First graders are prone to hyperbolic one-upmanship.

• I have been invited by first graders to go bike riding and fishing with them, to babysit, watch a movie, and accompany them to their T-ball and soccer games.

• First graders will volunteer secrets about their parents that would mortify the parents if they had any inkling that such intimate information was being disseminated so offhandedly.

• Despite all evidence to the contrary, first graders will never admit to being tired.

• First graders believe anything you tell them.