Month: November 2011

I wanted to share a couple Veterans Day links. First, PostSecret’s Soldiers Secrets. Painfully honest, and touching. And some snapshots and stories from the Home Fires section of the New York Times. All the stories were moving, but the first picture and story, Tessa Poppe’s, was so sweet.

A flag on Perry Street.

I admit I haven’t been following the story until I woke up this morning and saw on the news that there was a riot in response to the firing of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. For those of you who also haven’t been following the story, briefly:

A Penn State graduate assistant named Mike McQueary witnessed an assistant football coach named Jerry Sandusky rape a boy in the locker room shower in 2002. McQueary told his father who told him to tell Paterno, who then told athletic director Timothy Curley and the senior vice president of finance Gary Schultz. All Curley and Schultz did was tell Sandusky, “who mentored children through a charity program, not to bring children into the football building.” (From Gothamist.)

“Despite a powerful eyewitness statement about the sexual assault of a child,” the Pennsylvania Attorney General said, “this incident was not reported to any law enforcement or child protective agency, as required by Pennsylvania law. Additionally, there is no indication that anyone from the university ever attempted to learn the identity of the child who was sexually assaulted on their campus or made any follow-up effort to obtain more information from the person who witnessed the attack first-hand.”

It is beyond comprehension. A total of nine boys have come forward to say they’d been sexually assaulted by Sandusky. So Sandusky has been charged, as well as Curley and Schultz who were charged with perjury and failure to report, and the president of the university stepped down. And now Paterno has been fired.

The rioters and other protestors and supporters are saying Paterno has been scapegoated. They might have a case if he was the only one charged, but he’s not and even if he was, he’s still guilty of not calling the police. A child was raped. And his response was to tell the school athletic director and vp of finance? And when he saw that nothing was done, he just left it at that? You can continue to love and support someone while also acknowledging that they did not do the right thing. All three of them are guilty and all three are suffering the consequences. With all the wrongs in the world, and there are so many terrible things happening all the time everywhere, this is what you riot about? Come on. Pull yourselves together. Reach out to the families of those children (now adults probably) and show them some support. Do some volunteer work somewhere.

I have mixed feelings about McQueary. I wish he had done more, and deep in his heart he must also wish he had done more. But he was young, and intimidated to a certain extent—I think the Milgram experiments explain his lack of response. Which brings me to another guilty party here: McQueary’s father. His father was the first adult who didn’t call the police. He utterly failed his son in that moment, and set a terrible example. I just can’t judge McQueary as harshly. Update: I’ve since learned McQueary was 28 at the time, and the boy he saw being raped was 10. I no longer cut McQueary any slack.

This is the picture from the our 2011 holiday concert program. Among other things, we’re singing Randall Thompson’s Peaceable Kingdom, which I thought was appropriate given the subject above.

Glee has been losing me lately. I keep watching because I love the music and the actors, but the storylines they’re given. Ugh! But this week’s episode was so sweet, and the music so spectacular. In a way, the music from West Side Story is so fail-proof you could croak it out and still recognize its beauty. (Written by the wonderful, but rhythmically sadistic Leonard Bernstein.) But of course they did better than croak it out.

The whole reason I’m bringing this up though is to talk about the kid who sang the lead in the Warbler’s rendition of Uptown Girl. He is so charismatic it was like a talent explosion. It reminded me of when we were first introduced to Darren Criss, he had that same breath-takingly dazzling effect. His name is Curt Mega. Make him a main character, please!

I loved what they did with Uptown Girl, I watched it three times, but there was something missing from the soundtrack. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s not an issue with the singing, it just felt thin, or hollow or something, I don’t know. But my ear was expecting something that just wasn’t there.

This is looking in the window of the relatively recently opened Jimmy Choo store on Bleecker. I couldn’t wear any of these (or afford them) but every shoe in that window is a work of art. I would like to go back and take shots from inside, because the pictures I got don’t capture the gorgeosity of these shoes. Those ones on the upper left for instance, you are not getting the subtlety and range of the colors, or really seeing the embellishments.

Once Upon a Time got a little better. There was a lot less of the unscary and annoying evil queen, and more Snow and Emma. I’m also enjoying the chemistry between Snow and Charming. I just wish the show was funnier. A serious missed opportunity with the trolls, for instance. They weren’t scary, as per usual, so they should have tried for funny. Come on. Monty Python? I’m still enjoying Grimm a lot more, although I hate to say it, I think Once Upon a Time has stronger actors, and I wish I liked the main character of Grimm more.

Update: Once Upon a Time is continuing to get better, while Grimm, which hasn’t been on in a while, was starting to lose me a little. Now I’m wish Grimm had more sidekicks, like the Buffy scooby gang.

Earlier Grimm vs Once Upon a Time report.

Look at Finney hugging that old iBook. The minute I bring it out he’s up on the desk, throwing his body across the keyboard. (It’s very warm.)

The first and second place women’s winners. Sometimes people would run by with news cameras following them and I could never figure out or recognize who they were soon enough. I later learned that Apollo Ohno and Ethan Zohn were running, so two of the times it was them.

Someone who loves Liz. So sweet. I would have felt like I died and went to heaven if I was running and someone held up a sign like that for me. Oh, that second sign is for her too. Nice.

These girls were across the street from me. Every girl but two has a phone in her hand. I don’t think I ever saw them cheering. But they might have. I wouldn’t have noticed once it really got going.

Because it’s me, I also noticed the pigeons. Who were watching too. One spent some time on the track/road, and he kept inching perilously close to the runners. I was afraid he’d eventually go splat, and I wanted to ask one of the cops to shoo him away, but then I was afraid the cop would be insulted at the implication that it was his job to shoo away pigeons.