Tall Tale

The second graders took turns today presenting their animal projects. Each student had chosen one creature (tiger, elephant, gorilla, cheetah, dolphin, penguin, cat, dragonfly, etc.) and then mounted on their posters the photos, illustrations, and information about the habitat, diet, lifespan, and other fun tidbits of their animal.

During one presentation we learned that the snow leopard could be found in the mountains of Nepal, and specifically in the lower regions of Mount Everest.

I interrupted the speaker to ask if the children knew anything about Mount Everest. They did not. It’s the tallest mountain, I told them.

Hold on.

“No,” said Quin. “It’s not.”

Really?

“There’s a mountain on Mars [Olympus Mons] that is 21.9 kilometers. That’s higher than Mount Everest.”

O.K., I said. I should have qualified that. Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on planet Earth.

“Yes,” agreed Quin. It’s the second-tallest mountain in the galaxy.”

The Envelope, Please...

With the Academy Awards being presented tonight we dug into our interview files to recall the favorite films of these sports and media personalities:

Marv Albert: The Shawshank Redemption and Million Dollar Baby

Sandy Alderson: Risky Business
Ronde Barber: The Fifth Element
Billy Beane: It’s a Wonderful Life and Braveheart
Elton Brand: A Clockwork Orange, Little Miss Sunshine, and The Long Kiss Goodnight
Seth Davis: It’s a Wonderful Life
Boomer Esiason: We Were Soldiers
Ari Fleischer: The Lord of the Rings and Risky Business
Walt Frazier: Dances With Wolves
Peter Gammons: The Deer Hunter
David Halberstam: The Bridge on the River Kwai
Keith Hernandez: Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca, Shane, and The Ipcress File
Grant Hill: Coming to America
Jack Kemp: A Man for All Seasons
Steve Kerr: The Shawshank Redemption
Mike Krzyzewski: Legends of the Fall and Braveheart
Al Leiter: The Shawshank Redemption and Forrest Gump
Ronnie Lott: One on One
Rich McKay: The Godfather
Alonzo Mourning: Men of Honor, Coming to America, and The Color Purple
Jim Nantz: The Deer Hunter and Dances With Wolves
Phil Simms: The Godfather
Emmitt Smith: Gladiator, Titanic, and Message in a Bottle
Annika Sorenstam: Gladiator and Forrest Gump
Erik Spoelstra: Gladiator, Remember the Titans, and Fletch
Roger Staubach: Hoosiers and The Sound of Music
Joe Torre: The Godfather
Jerry West: Apocalypse Now, Band of Brothers, Seabiscuit, and Finding Forrester
Mary Wittenberg: Chariots of Fire
Kristi Yamaguchi: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, and Roman Holiday

Making a Spectacle

My eyeglasses have been a topic of conversation more than once among the elementary school children I teach, whether it is the dark shades (which the younger children deem “cool”) or the bifocals with the defined lower lines (which they sympathetically think are cracked lenses). Yesterday, it was something else.

“What do you look like without glasses?” asked the second graders.

I pushed the frames up to the top of my head. What do you think?

“You look different.”

Everyone tells me that, I told them. Do I look more intelligent or less with them?

“Let’s see it again,” they said. “Put the glasses back on.”

I did as I was told.

“More intelligent—and older,” they concluded.

You see my dilemma, I said. Do I want to look smarter but older, or younger and less intelligent?

“Wear the glasses,” they said.

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.