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  • Books Overview / Da Vinci

    I don’t claim to be some kind of literary expert, or even to read all that much, but I do enjoy a good book and will not hesitate to share any interesting reads in this space. I just ask that you not treat me as the New York Times Book Review — I’m just a guy who likes to read from time to time.

    I’m also not ashamed to admit that I liked the Da Vinci Code. For some readers, I may have immediately lost all credibility, but let me explain for a minute before you assume my complete ignorance towards the written word.

    The way I see it, there are two elements to a great book — the writing and the storytelling. Dan Brown’s writing is not good — but the guy is one heck of a storyteller. Sure, he uses a ton of cliched suspense tactics and makes some questionable assumptions based on historical myths, but the book is one hell of a page turner. Obviously, it would be nice if Brown could have taken his writing to the next level, but not everyone can be Michael Chabon. The best book I’ve read in the past, say 5 years, is, without hesitation, Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. This is also an engrossing story, but, unlike Brown’s book, it is also incredibly well-written. Just a mind-blowing read.

    I recently read this book called Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code by historian Bart Ehrman, the point of which was to pick apart the logic behind Brown’s book. And while it is certianly in vogue to prove Brown’s FICTION wrong, this book shed little light for me on the actual events on which the DVC was based. One example was particularly illustrative of my frustration: Ehrman calls out Brown’s description of the Council of Nicea. According to character Leigh Teabing in the DVC, the council was where Jesus’ divinity was first decided — Teabing implies that this divinity was in question before the council. According to Ehrman, however, everyone who attended the council already believed Jesus was devine, it was just the details this divinity was decided that were in question. Without explaining this in excruciating detail, the jist is that all Christians at this time believed that God was the one and only all powerful being, and the fact that Jesus was ALSO divine calls this all into confusion. So, a bunch of people got together and devised the holy trinity, a compromise of divine proportions.

    My issue with this is that, although Ehrman is correct in pointing out Brown’s creative rewriting of the story, it does little to change the overall point of Teabing’s story — that a bunch of human beings gathered around to decide how a man was divine. If you truly believe that Jesus was a diety, then it would also be logical to believe that humans don’t get to decide in what way he was divine. He either was or was not, and the fact that there had to be a council of men to decide this calls it mere existence into question. Ehrman uses this particular example as a foundation for much of his argument, and it seems more like a nit-pick than a major flaw in the novel.

    I’ve strayed from my original point that DVC is simply an entertaining thriller, but I suppose the additional thought is that it is just a silly to hate the DVC simply because that’s the “in thing” to do as it is to take Brown’s fictional assumptions at face value.

    (Read Kavalier and Clay first anyway.)

  • Old Navy Ruins Young MC

    Holy crikeys that Old Navy commercial using Young MC’s classic rap “Bust a Move” is friggin annoying. I’m boycotting Old Navy until that’s off the air.

  • The O.C. Recap 4/14/05

    Is it just me or did the O.C. really suck tonight? (Except, obviously, for the Julie Cooper 80’s-rock fest.)

    First off, I’m really getting tired of this Sandy-Kirsten Cohen are fallible humans crap — it’s completely unrealistic and out of character for both of them to have these crises of faith, and the fact that they just so happened to occur one right after the other is preposterous. (Ok, Ok, so anyone who watches this show can’t expect realism, but this is pushing things a bit too far.)

    Normally I can’t get enough of Seth acting like a complete idiot, but the whole “hiding his relationship with Ms. Young” thing just seemed lifeless. The concept was typical, but it just wasn’t really handled like the Seth we know and love.

    Bottom line is that I normally can’t think of anything better than an episode of The O.C. that features a raging party, but tonight just fell a bit flat.

    At least Tru Calling is picking up, despite any attempts from Brandon Walsh to bring it down. (And, none other than the Old 97s in the background of one scene!)

  • The World Would Be a Better Place if “Sex and the City” Did Not Exist

    Don’t get me wrong, this was a good show. It was entertaining, especially at the beginning, well written, acted and produced. I would rarely say anything that provided so much entertainment and laughter for so many people didn’t make the world a better place, but quite frankly the negative effects of this particular show, which are as strong as ever at this very moment, far outweight the postive forces that it, at one time, projected.

    The simplest explanation for my feelings is that Carrie Bradshaw is a horrible, vapid person. Merely floating along between meaningless relationships and shoe purchases, Bradshaw had little to sustain her trite life. (That this woman gets paid to write for a living ventures into the realm of science fiction.) I’m not one to preach the virtues of true love or anything sappy like that, but Carrie’s inability to carry on a normal relationship with pretty much anyone further illustrated both her own (and the show’s) inadequacies.

    Having disasterously bad humans in a TV show is nothing new — George Costanza, a prime example, is one of the most appalling people ever created, yet he provides nothing but hilarity for Seinfeld watchers. This is because nobody wants to be George Costanza — we just want to laugh at him. Carrie, on the other hand, has somehow become a character that many women emulate. To recap: A dumb, unsubstantial woman who has very little of consequence to offer to the world has become a role model for thousands of women.

    Early in the series, my contention could have been disputed by simply stating that all the characters represented the extremes of female individuality, a fair argument at the time. But, as time went on, each character found a man to rely on, and seemed to act as if their rebellous indivuality was merely a phase or a stop along the path to a man’s side. Hardly Girl Power. Samantha, an equally horrible person on the surface, at the very least played to her individual rebellousness throughout the series, that is, until she too (in the last season) gave it all up for a man. (A far better ending would have seen the girls stick with each other and not to any man — this at least would have validated the original premise. Again, see Seinfeld for the blueprint.) I must admit that my bitterness towards the show has selfish motives as well — the industry I work in does deal with fashion on a regular basis, and if i hear one more trend compared to Sex “in” the City, I may barf. How is it that this show has been gone for two years and we still can’t come up with any new fashion trends? It may be because all the fashion movers and shakers out there who should be flaunting their own individuality are instead stuck chasing after the nothingness that is Carrie Bradshaw.

  • Cookie Monster: Say It Ain’t So!

    Sesame Street announced last week that, as part of an ongoing story arc, Cookie Monster will learn about healthy eating through a song called “A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food”. More details from CNN…

    Everyone who grew up with Sesame Street seems to have the same reaction to this news — absolute shock. I certainly felt the same way — how can Cookie Monster not be, well, Cookie Monster? The more I think about it, however, the more I realize that health education in this country is disasterously bad, and that any improvement to that will be a good step towards fixing our obesity problem.

    Obviously, this problem runs far, far deeper than Sesame Street, but if we put our feelings of nostalga aside, it’s clear that teaching children about eating healthy at an early age can only have a positive influence. Let’s just hope that the writers don’t try to focus on faddy low carb dieting and instead focus on strategies for long term healthy living: whole grains, fruits & vegetables, and fish.

  • Outside the Lines: Incentives

    There’s episode of ESPN’s Outside the Lines on right now regarding incentives being added to players contracts. The first case that they discussed is Curt Schilling’s $3 million dollar incentive for winning the World Series. The ever-pompous Jeremy Schapp (or was it Steve Nelson?) suggests that Schilling’s incentive is ridiculous because it essentially pays him extra for doing his job.

    There are certainly many issues that arise when incentives are tied to particular statistics or individual awards, but I see no problem with a player being given a bonus for the performance of his team. In fact, this is preferable. When incentives are tied to individual performance, players and teams can be forced to make decisions that do not reflect the best interests of the team. When bonuses are tied to team performance, a player is encouraged to do everything he can to win. (Seen any bloody “sox” lately?)

    A perfect example of what can happen with individual statistical goals happened this year with Corey Dillon and the Patriots — Dillon was 29 yards shy of his $375K bonus for reaching 1600 yards with one game to go — a meaningless game that had no playoff implications. Dillon, who was pretty banged up at the time, really could have used the week off to prepare for the playoffs, but instead played the game and got his bonus. You can bet Pats fans would have been up in arms if Dillon had further injured himself during this meaningless game, and they’d have every right to be. Perhaps the Pats brass should have sat Dillon and given him the money anyway — that would have been the best thing for the team.

    Back to Schilling — in his situation, the bonus is not technically tied to anything he does individually, but instead to the team’s overall performance (which in reality is the true merit of any great player). The fact that major league baseball took issue with Schilling’s bonus structure in particular (while his contract was initially approved, MLB banned team-based performance bonuses shortly afterwards) is particularly ridiculous. It is still ok as far as the MLB is concerned to offer an incentive based on number of starts, strikeouts or homeruns, but paying a guy extra for winning the ultimate prize is not allowed?

    The fact of the matter is this: a players regular salary carries the expression that the player will work as hard as he can to be the best player possible, but carries no guarantee in line with performance. Sure, it makes sense that a player can only do so much (especially in a sport like baseball), but when it comes down to it, the greatest players win games. Good players on mediocre teams (Jim Thome on the Phillies, for example), may never have the ability to claim a championship bonus, but this is no reason to prevent a team from rewarding players based on overall team performance. In the end, individual players sell jerseys and put fans in the seats, but nothing brings in the cash like a winner. Why shouldn’t players be rewarded for doing what it takes to win instead of what it takes to pad their own stats?

  • Carolina

    What a shame that one of the best tournaments of my lifetime ends with flippin’ Carolina (the Yankees of college hoops) as champs. Cry Roy, Cry.

    By the way, did anyone notice that Felton stepped on the halfcourt line with about 10 seconds left, then stepped back into the backcourt? I’m not sure what the actual rules on this are, but since noone seemed to notice I suppose it was the right call. Does the ball need to advance into the frontcourt for a backcourt violation to occur?

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  • Billy Packer

    Billy Packer just said “that was in Seattle, the first year four teams made the final four.”

  • The Office: An American Workplace

    I caught the first two eps on Bravo over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised. As a huge fan of the BBC original, I had extremely low expectations, especially after the flat out disaster that was the US version of Coupling.

    The biggest difference for me is that “Michael” is not nearly as horrible as David Brent — he’s funny and obviously a bad person, but he doesn’t make you quite as uncomfortable as Brent did on a regular basis. Perhaps this will improve in the future, but Brent had it down from the beginning. I do have to say, though, that most of the actors do a pretty good job with the subtle comedy. I haven’t really bought into the Gareth/Dwight character yet, but otherwise I like pretty much everyone.

    “Diversity Day” was a nice touch — clearly took a page from the training day episode (my all time favorite), but didn’t follow it too closely. Gone was Brent on guitar, easily the funniest moments of the original show. Good for them though — if they had tried to duplicate the original, it never would have worked. They “Americanized” the concept well, bringing in a beautifully bad Chris Rock impression from Michael and some other quality inappropriate comments that US audiences should appreciate.

    I doubt it will ever be as good as the BBC version, but I’m definitely going to keep watching.