I watched the Scripps National Spelling Bee last night. The final few kids were not the nerdy gems I expected. Second place went to 12-year-old Sidharth Chand, a polite South Asian kid with a moustache. He had the outcast edge in my rooting heart. Chand tripped up on prosopopoeia, a word that you do not know as a grown man or woman with body hair that sprouted on time. Do you feel guilty? God allowed you to develop normally, and you don't know how to spell prosopopoeia. Chand did not cry after his blunder; he is a dignified mustachioed champion in my eyes.
He is especially dignified when compared to last year's idiot champ, Evan O'Dorney. This one seemed to be home-schooled off his bespectacled ass.
Many of you might remember 1997 champion Rebecca Sealfon, the grand marshall of the nerd parade. Sealfon had the strange habits of smelling her fingers and shouting into the microphone like it was a muzzle. In the words of one commentator, you never knew what would happen when she went to the mic, but you knew it would be awesome. She certainly meant nobody harm like O'Dorney seemed to, so she is my favorite spelling nerd.
Watch her most famous celebration and the ensuing interview below.
"Many children are in grief because they lose."
~Rebecca Sealfon
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Lleno on prom night
My girlfriend sliced strawberries into sparkling white wine to begin our night. Richard Gere told Julia Roberts that the fruit brings out the flavor, so we tried ourselves.
The occasion was our last high school prom. I intended to ask her last night in Libertyville form by dropping a messenger golf ball in a putt-putt hole. "Prom?" the golf ball would ask hopefully. It never got a chance. My planning was fine, but the execution fell embarrassingly short. I blamed the weather. Shit. In six years since my last dance, I am rustier than Quentin Thomas after a steady rain.
We swigged our drinks in haste to speed to a pre-dance dinner with our 68-year-old assistant principal, dressed in a white suit and tie, pink shirt, black top hat and a cane. He is the color of our school and fashion's cautionary tale. Most days his belt encroaches his belly button and his tie hangs loosely to his upper thighs. I figure I will look a lot like him someday. He also started balding when he was 24. But you know, he looks good. He told us the story of how he married his wife, who had previously been a nun. He loves to tell that story. I like to hear it.
Another math teacher sat opposite me, and we talked poker. He said he played well until he read a poker book. I knew exactly what he meant. I spent the next couple minutes trying to get the following parallel statements out of my head. If you read a poker book, you will suck at poker. If you read a book, you will suck at writing. I also used to think playing golf would kill a baseball swing, but a broken face will kill it faster.
After dinner my girlfriend and I tagged along with another teacher to her student's Quinceanera. We drove past the place about four times but eventually found an expansive yet quiet neighborhood of trailers. Self-consciously dressed for the prom, we approached the family as they prepared the grill, which lay behind a set of long, folding tables underneath a blue plastic tarp. Five little children ran happily around, beating sticks into the ground and smiling at us. One little girl stood still and frowned at me for five minutes. The birthday girl was not present.
"She went out to brush her hair," her affable father explained. "She'll be back in a few minutes. Would you like something to eat?"
"We all just ate," I explained. Five minutes later he had set a hearty plate of chicken and rice before each of us. My food somehow disappeared within a few minutes. He attempted to feed me more, but I pleaded out of it with awkward English. I was lleno and felt like Alex's hapless parents in Fools Rush In. I am still terrified yet capable of speaking Spanish.
The Quinceanera arrived and spoke quietly with her teacher for a few minutes. She looked like she was going to the prom like us, but instead she was ready to see 100 family guests.
"You can stay for the cake?" she asked or explained. I'm not sure which.
"We have to go because we are supposed to be chaperones at the prom," our friend explained.
The girl said something in Spanish to her mother.
"You can come back for cake tomorrow," she explained imperatively. The final settlement was that she would bring leftover cake to school Monday, but I honestly knew the family would have been delighted to have three 24-year-old teachers drop by for any part of their weekend. I was kind of touched.
Prom was cool. Being a chaperone is about seeing your kids dressed up and on their best behavior. Every now and then a teacher would get geeked up, move some limbs around and perspire a little. But I frown on it.
I'm kidding. I got down a bit.
The occasion was our last high school prom. I intended to ask her last night in Libertyville form by dropping a messenger golf ball in a putt-putt hole. "Prom?" the golf ball would ask hopefully. It never got a chance. My planning was fine, but the execution fell embarrassingly short. I blamed the weather. Shit. In six years since my last dance, I am rustier than Quentin Thomas after a steady rain.
We swigged our drinks in haste to speed to a pre-dance dinner with our 68-year-old assistant principal, dressed in a white suit and tie, pink shirt, black top hat and a cane. He is the color of our school and fashion's cautionary tale. Most days his belt encroaches his belly button and his tie hangs loosely to his upper thighs. I figure I will look a lot like him someday. He also started balding when he was 24. But you know, he looks good. He told us the story of how he married his wife, who had previously been a nun. He loves to tell that story. I like to hear it.
Another math teacher sat opposite me, and we talked poker. He said he played well until he read a poker book. I knew exactly what he meant. I spent the next couple minutes trying to get the following parallel statements out of my head. If you read a poker book, you will suck at poker. If you read a book, you will suck at writing. I also used to think playing golf would kill a baseball swing, but a broken face will kill it faster.
After dinner my girlfriend and I tagged along with another teacher to her student's Quinceanera. We drove past the place about four times but eventually found an expansive yet quiet neighborhood of trailers. Self-consciously dressed for the prom, we approached the family as they prepared the grill, which lay behind a set of long, folding tables underneath a blue plastic tarp. Five little children ran happily around, beating sticks into the ground and smiling at us. One little girl stood still and frowned at me for five minutes. The birthday girl was not present.
"She went out to brush her hair," her affable father explained. "She'll be back in a few minutes. Would you like something to eat?"
"We all just ate," I explained. Five minutes later he had set a hearty plate of chicken and rice before each of us. My food somehow disappeared within a few minutes. He attempted to feed me more, but I pleaded out of it with awkward English. I was lleno and felt like Alex's hapless parents in Fools Rush In. I am still terrified yet capable of speaking Spanish.
The Quinceanera arrived and spoke quietly with her teacher for a few minutes. She looked like she was going to the prom like us, but instead she was ready to see 100 family guests.
"You can stay for the cake?" she asked or explained. I'm not sure which.
"We have to go because we are supposed to be chaperones at the prom," our friend explained.
The girl said something in Spanish to her mother.
"You can come back for cake tomorrow," she explained imperatively. The final settlement was that she would bring leftover cake to school Monday, but I honestly knew the family would have been delighted to have three 24-year-old teachers drop by for any part of their weekend. I was kind of touched.
Prom was cool. Being a chaperone is about seeing your kids dressed up and on their best behavior. Every now and then a teacher would get geeked up, move some limbs around and perspire a little. But I frown on it.
I'm kidding. I got down a bit.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Radiohead and books
Radiohead made their Charlotte debut tonight. The hillbillies finally came to their logical home: the American South. I waited for 11 years since OK Computer to see these guys. I could hear Thom’s depression in “How To Disappear Completely” before I ever read about it. I have quoted cryptic lyrics about lions eating me for the benefit of others and laughing my head off my body at the bottom of high school student government agendas. I fell asleep, night after collegiate night, to the piano cover of “Let Down.” I am a fan.
The show was excellent, but I was never farther from a stage.
I have read quite a bit in the last five months and can confidently recommend Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, an account of his frightening yet optimistic venture on the Appalachian Trail with a hapless friend and many strangers.
Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is decent, quick and still relevant. The most recent edition includes a great interview that adapts the novel to a contemporary meaning. This is not a story about government censorhip like I thought. Bradbury's world became more visual, impatient and vulnerable with the invention and hyperdevelopment of television. People chose not to think. I still prefer 1984 as a story but admit that Bradbury’s novel is more prophetic.
Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel is a big boy book. Like reading Kerouac, reading Wolfe is a chore. He doesn’t just talk about himself; he dedicates entire chapters to the infant years of his life that I know he cannot remember. I’ll read it someday but not this day.
The show was excellent, but I was never farther from a stage.
I have read quite a bit in the last five months and can confidently recommend Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, an account of his frightening yet optimistic venture on the Appalachian Trail with a hapless friend and many strangers.
Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is decent, quick and still relevant. The most recent edition includes a great interview that adapts the novel to a contemporary meaning. This is not a story about government censorhip like I thought. Bradbury's world became more visual, impatient and vulnerable with the invention and hyperdevelopment of television. People chose not to think. I still prefer 1984 as a story but admit that Bradbury’s novel is more prophetic.
Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel is a big boy book. Like reading Kerouac, reading Wolfe is a chore. He doesn’t just talk about himself; he dedicates entire chapters to the infant years of his life that I know he cannot remember. I’ll read it someday but not this day.
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