methadonna

That’s why there’s two spoons: one bite for Alina (after she lands a seven-triple sequence); the rest for Eteri and Eteri’s amazing monocolor shattered-dreams-and-souls coat.

Have you watched Adelina Sotnikova skate? Or Bradie?

If it had to be done (it didn’t), I think we know who should have skated to Cinderellla. : Eteri [dumps 10lb sack of birdseed on the rink]: Sure, you can skate in the gala, just as soon as you finish picking up each of these seeds. In Olympic Athletes of Russia, coach medals you.

Am I a bad person for coveting her coat? Even though it’s Evilteri? And I live in Florida?

I watched them do the hockey medal ceremony right after the final women’s hockey game, and my first thought was, “Does this mean they don’t get the cute stuffies?”

Sooo funny ... I was literally just writing how there must be some weird phenomenon with Dr. Zhivago, where I hear the name and think, “Oh, there’s another one that’s ready to be put down” and then hear the music and think, “I love this music, and it’s so perfect for skating: why doesn’t it get used more often?” I think I have a mental disconnect between the title (and the various incarnations thereof) and the actual music.

No. I forget whether it was during the event or Olympic Ice, but, while raving about Pap and Ciz, Tanith said—with great and sincere admiration—in partial explanation for the “inexplicable magic” that is their performance (inexplicable is the accurate part to me; I get that it may be technically proficient but I find nothing about it that pulls me in), something like, “They said that it really was the music that did it for this program. That they just let the music speak and determine where they should put the different program elements.” And, I’m no skater, but my mouth just about dropped open at the idea that this was, like, some sort of revelation, because I would think that’s ... the bare minimum of how it works?! I know in ice dance, they have very specific elements they have to incorporate, but... doesn’t the music determine WHERE you place them (unless you’re not!Russian and care more about bonus points than artistry, in which case: why are we bothering skating to music? It’s like how MAG gave up the pretense on floor but WAG hasn’t and it’s still pretty much background noise for most programs), and then you choreograph the rest of the program around that? If I didn’t misunderstand Tanith’s statement and utter amazement and admiration at this revelation (and it’s certainly possible—shit, I hope to hell—I did), then that’s a major reason so many programs seem so empty/unartistic today. (And, I’d say it was less about the code of points than a serious breakdown in understanding music and choreography, but I guess if you incentivize backloading, you de-incentivize choreographing a program that makes use of the music). But that fails to explain to me why this would be so revelatory to Tanith, who had really impressed me when talking about coaching staff making her study various paintings to improve her artistry and interpretation and applying that to how some specific skaters could improve their performances (she was far more specific than this, which is why I find it questionable that she would have just been handed a piece of music, choreography, and had no concept of how one informed the other, or should have). But, back to your question, apparently, unless you’re Pap and Ciz, no, and I think they’re choreographing more to Where Does The Bonus Period Fit rather than where does the music fit.

I don’t GET it. I totally see both sides of the “Warhouse Music” coin (as much as I don’t need to hear Carmen On Ice for another three quads, I also understand why certain piano concertos or operas or ballets or plays are classics, tackled over and over again by both the best in the world and those ... working toward being good. I also appreciate a risk taker who tries the new or unexpected or innovative. And I really appreciate those who can do both. But doing AC/DC and Carmen in the same competition? My brain does not compute. I am not a personal fan of AC/DC (or metal, in general), but I had to have serious love for the program (well, really, the costume; she’s beautiful but but just not a big enough skater/presence to pull the program as a whole off) just because of how strongly the costume, especially, flouted every convention of “ladies” (grrr) skating. And, then, it was like, hey, all those cliches I thumbed my nose at in the short? Can we cram each and every one of them into the long? Like, the only thing she could have done to up the ante—and then I at least would have believed it was satire and it would have ironically made more sense in tandem with her short—were if she had done a Carmen-Swan Lake medley. (Although at least the dress was on the chic side of typical girly skater dress and not the overly bedazzled/feathery/garish side).

Question for the scoring experts out there: does it make sense that a fall gets the same point deduction whether it’s in the short or long program, making it a more significant deduction, percentage-wise, in the short than the long? I keep going back and forth on this, as, on the one hand, it seems it should be increased to have a greater effect on the long program (I.e., a fall should have a greater mandatory deduction in the long to even equal the impact it has on the score as losing one point on the short). But, on the other, there are that many more opportunities and reasons to fall in the long (and one fall can be better eclipsed by an otherwise stellar program), whereas a single fall in the short is a greater percentage of the program to begin with and affects the overall experience more significantly, so maybe that is an equitable as well as equal distribution. (And, as the points are simply added and the placement in each program is no longer relevant, save for the groupings in the final (and the not-acknowledged impact on judging that can have) and the less measurable effect it has on an individual athlete’s mental approach heading into it, maybe it’s mathematically irrelevant anyway?). Can the Scoring Smart Peeps tell me what to think, please? Kthnx.

Gawewwwd. Among all the talk of overused skating music in these Games, I’d just been thinking, “Maybe I missed it but we haven’t had to hear one damn POTO crap in seven events.” So what do we START the night with? (Sorry, I’ve irrationally hated that show since HS in the early 90s when every other girl I performed with who thought that, because she COULD hit the high notes in it, meant she SHOULD, and that she could do it well, and we should all be subjected to it at every solo opportunity possible. Hate.).

Stoicism.

(I’m a few skates behind). Tanith just taught me that Pap and Ciz’s choreographer picked that (non-pop-n-sizz) music to “remind everyone that they’re really young.” Did their costumer pick that dress to remind the casting agency for the fourth non-equity bus-n-truck tour of Tarzan that, after they’re handed the gold and finish the post-Olympic Ice show circuit, she’s available? ETA: I wrote this before the wardrobe malfunction. Even though there was basically nothing before the wardrobe malfunction. I guess she’s keeping her options (and top) open: if skating and Tarzan don’t work out, there’s always Super Bowl Halftime Show headliner to fall back on. Silly Madison1 only has NBC anthropomorphic peacock and Pride parade float on lock. (Not trying to pick on the women; we just already learned at the team event that the men go shopping for a new a partner, when they described (forgot who: may have been in pairs but) one who “went to Russia, had three to try out, but just knew he’d found her and really lucked out with this one,” word-for-word, like, interchangeable with some retrograde mail-order bride catalogue story to be featured on the upcoming 1983 season of 90-Day Fiancé). Addendum: even if her top had fallen completely off, I think she’d still have had more coverage than Hubbell. I don’t personally care if they want to go out there naked (for many tonight, it would have been a sartorial improvement), but I thought there were explicit (fsvo explicit, just like the new scoring system, not like the costumes. So, same thing) rules wrt exposure and such. And Madison2’s egregiously seems to violate that in both letter and intent. She should lose at least 0.06 points. Maybe I missed it because I was so dazzled bored by her performance, but I didn’t think Madison2’s costume had the illusion fabric covering her torso; the only illusion I saw was whatever kind of “magic” got that contraption to stay on and in place.

Someone (Shannon? But I think Metta said it was done in good fun. I kinda cracked up when they got two and squealed that they had gotten “a girl owl and a boy owl”*, but I was simultaneously bemused and dismayed when they originally informed Metta that “the(first) owl has a name; it’s [and I think it was superfan Ross who first missaid] Orville” and then someone else (Brandi?! Maybe another woman. Probably Mar.) corrected, “Orwell.” And Metta, without skipping a beat said, “it’s a boy?!” Ive tried to wank that the latter was a satirical response and not the most pathetic bit of homophobia on display I’ve ever seen, because, if the former, it was brilliant timing for a man who’s had no problem mocking toxic masculinity vis a vis his own cuddling wif a stuffie for the season; if the latter, it’s pretty damn rich to suddenly act like, OMG, Ima catch Teh Gay from ... see above. But, I’ve chosen to believe that most of Metta’s “cluelessness” is performative: he seems to be a sharp and clever guy and obviously a competitive one, and I think that, when he realized at the start he was at such a severe competitive disadvantage (and, likely, truly homesick), he did want to bow out, but when it didn’t work, he caught onto the fact that this was could be his strategy). What I can’t explain away? Not a single person in that room seemed to know the origin story. Had someone just said his name was Orwell, I could see that no one else would get into it further, not wanting to sound pedantic or condescending, because, duh, of course everyone else would know WHY that was his name. But when it was missaid as Orville and then corrected to Orwell, several repeated “Orwell?”, the name sort of rolling around in their mouths like a new, non-Latin-based word made up of sounds that don’t exist in the English language, not even the recognition of, oh, like “‘George’? That’s really funny.” I mean, this isn’t high- level education stuff; I don’t think you even have to have gotten through eighth grade to have a basic awareness, nevermind a doubleplus good one, of Big Brother’s influences on modern culture and the everyday allusions to it, especially if you are working in the arts (so, I can give a pass to Brandi, Metta, and—on the language side—Ari), nevermind the entire game you’re playing (twice, Brandis your pass is doubleplus revoked). But, Ross? Mari? (I can’t recall if James, Mark, or Omi-Oma were there, but I suspect they’d be far more knowledgeable, so probably not). I weep. *Although, unless they came with veggies for Brandy (at least, cis-girl owl and cis-boy owls), I’m trying to figure out how they know: shit, one of the first overt memories I have of learning about sex/gender was with a teddy bear I had, who came with a removable lace dress and what looked like an unremovable bodysuit in red and yellow patchwork, and saying to my mom (while it was in its dress), “Look, now it’s a girl,” removing its dress, “and now it’s a boy,” and her explaining that, no, whether it wore a dress didn’t determine have any make it a girl or boy any more than if I did. This was the late 70s. Is it that gender has become more complicated or have we regressed? I was holding out hope for Marissa after her “God is in the tub” moment the other night, but after the great camera pan last night of other people in frame having a good conversation, her interrupting to share an inane and self-absorbed detail, and then, when they didn’t play along with her rudeness, she tried to overtalk them by nattering on, louder, when there was no substance to expand on in the first place (and, although I’d been annoyed by her chattiness before and noticed it more from here, this was the first time it really bothered me in its innate rudeness, and, so of course, I couldn’t stop watching it, and she did it time and time again. By then, I was so torn between being offended by her doing it, being second-hand-embarrassed for her doing it, and truly just feeling sad and emoathy for her doing it, as I know that I can either shut down or over talk when it comes to anxiety and not feeling confident. But I don’t think I talk OVER so much as overtalk, and so if the first time I did what she did, accidentally, and got the reaction she got, I probably wouldn’t say another word all night and possibly would have found myself a whole to crawl in. So maybe I’m giving her too much credited).

I think it was Hubble/Donahue’s phrasing that made it so off-putting. I’m generally as anti-nationalist as they come, and as much as there’s a part of me that deep down kind of digs the idea that, as an individual (or pair; so just mean rather than one cog of a for-this-event team), there are athletes who aren’t really “doing it for their country” (especially since “their country” seems to have a pretty fluid definition for the Winter Games, I’ll concede that, especially if you’re being sent by the U.S., with the inherent privilege that comes with access, support, and resources, plus the freedom to choose to go out-of-country to benefit from the resources there and then still be financed to represent the U.S., you’ve got to play the game a bit. That doesn’t mean you have to be Yay America is the Best Evah—I think Adam has effectively walked the incredibly fine line of making it clear he was using this opportunity to have a voice to make his discontent known but that he was doing so because he had hope it could effect change—but you don’t have to bite the hand that feeds you, either, and, ironically, in what will be viewed as far less political, far more neutral, far less charged, far less newsworthy, far less “un-American” by so many in this country, especially those who conflate American values and “Christian” values, H/D’s statements came off to me as a far greater FU, U.S. And they didn’t have to. They could have shown allegiance to their coaching team, respect for and high hopes the teams with which they train, AND acknowledgment of their fellow American competitors AND TEAMMATES by simply answering the question better. And, maybe that’s all it was: poorly chosen wording. But, it was also essentially an inevitable question, and so it’s one they should have been prepared to answer with some finesse. All they had to was begin as they basically did—acknowledging how moving to Montreal to train with these two outstanding teams and wonderful coaches had both inspired and improved them. BUT, then acknowledged, as much as an American sweep would be a storybook ending, the results of the last eleventy competitions from them along with the continued effort to only keep getting better that we get to be inspired by in practice each day makes us know that, realistically, our training mates* are the two teams most likely to earn the gold and silver (hell, they could even submit how honored they feel to be able to work with/be driven by such great competitors each day), and that realistically, they know that they are aiming for bronze. And here’s where the little massaging comes in: we know we have a lot of competition for that spot, and, as competitors, of course we want it to be us, but it’s thrilling to know that two of our greatest competitors are also Americans and we want them to do their best too and give us a run for our money and push us like our trainingmates* have, so, no matter what, we can be proud of an American team on that podium *small chuckle* although obviously, if there can only be one, we want it be us, and sharing the podium with our international trainingmates* would be quite the honor and make us all proud, but, hey, it’s the Olympics, the unexpected can happen, and maybe we can see a great upset and see more than one American pair up there. Really, given the possibilities for a great, successful competition among our teammates, the top contenders with whom we’re lucky enough to train and consider friends, and *endearing smile* of course ourselves, we feel like we’re really in a win-win position. Unless those not-Russian fuckers get bronze and that sucks. (No, don’t say the last line). They can acknowledge the reality that the other two will, short of a spectacular disaster (and we’ve seen it’s possible!), will be gold and silver, so it’s really the race for bronze, and, duh they want to win it more than they want not-themselves to win it, and they can even acknowledge that, should that occur, that’d be cool that it would be their whole little training group (and, really, if the others are seen as the given for G/S, they’re just rooting for themselves: so, same), but they can do it in a way that doesn’t seem like they’re at some competition among training centers and not nations. ‘Cause that show is on Lifetime. *(trainingmates, not teammates: just that one word probably would have made ALL the difference in its reception. even “training mates and friends” if they didn’t want to undermine the relationships they have with their Montreal stablemates, but teammates has a specific connotation here, whether it’s what they intended or not. While, they’re training, their coaches may well play up the idea that they’re one team who pushes each other to be the best, but it’s a word that denotes and connotes different things. When Nathan referred to consulting his “team” after the short, it was clear he meant the group of people who worked with him to get him to those four and a half minutes on the ice, because of the context; no one thought he was going back to Bradie and Karen to figure it out. And if he were at home, in a training context, his “teammates” could well refer to other athletes working together with the same core team. Context. At the Olympics, if refers to his teammates, I have no doubt he gets that his teammates are the Americans he’s skating with and against, whether it’s the Knierims trying to earn back the points that they expected he would and they wouldn’t in the team skate or Vincent, with whom he may be in direct competition and have so little in common he’d rather chat on his phone while Vincent works out space-time-continuum problems in his head, because, in this context, that’s the team of which he’s a part, and its use would connote such).

There are only two men’s pods’ being filmed. Whether there are more that are at the same security level, I don’t know. (If Tebow really is the highest ranking Blood in those two pods, I suppose there’s the argument to be made that he should be in a higher level security pod anyway). But, though it pains me to defend Matt in any way—and I’m not even sure if he recognizes this consciously himself, if he DOESN’T end up in any real problem with Tebow, I don’t think having Tebow in Andrew’s pod would be of any greater threat to Andrew than any other, current gang grouping: Andrew (much to Alphaman’s previous chagrin, is a peaceful (“soft,” per his loving, breath-taken-away, falling-on-his-sword father, dude, who has thus far managed to more or less stay out of the crosshairs of drama; even as his being perceived as gay threatened to make him a target, he managed (somehow; too bad they don’t have things like cameras to show us or even narration to tell us) to fly back under the radar (without sounding like an asshole homophobe or reactionary misogynist in the process. I mean, in the outside world, would there have been a more ideal response? Yes, and he even acknowledged that, but I can’t fault someone for not leading a revolution in jail when they handle it in a way that, imho, at least makes progress). The threat to Andrew, wrt Tebow and Matt, at least from Matt’s POV, is that Matt (being So Alpha), is at the end of his rope with Tebow and fears he’s going to end up beefing with Tebow. And, if that happened, the other Bloods (with or without Tebow’s physical presence) would then attack Andrew to retaliate against Matt (as Matt would likely be in a hotel but they’d assume he was in solitary, and, although he’s obviously not affiliated, gang-wise (where, if there were an issue between two members of two gangs and then the initiator was moved, the other gang would retaliate against someone else in the gang, regardless of their involvement), Matt’s essentially affiliated with his son, making Andrew a reasonable proxy for retaliation should MATT cause a problem. The reason this is all beyond ridiculous is that a) Matt, alpha though he may be, is a grownass man (and a religious one and one trained in self defense that I thought (maybe I’m mistaken and MMA is more like boxing than karate or ... anything else that I basically know nothing about) was first about discipline and respect (except he’s obviously a manchild because, as much as I’ve ranted (at Rap Game) about kids proclaiming how Swag they are, thhey’re... kids. I have a lot more tolerance for 12-year-olds covering their bags and homework with affirmations of their swagness than rich grown ups telling me how classy they are on Real Housewives or preacher fighter-trainer dads of eleventy grown children telling me they’re so alpha while simultaneously putting one of (lovely, on-a-great-path) young adults YOU raised in an environment you want to change him while simultaneously bemoaning your hyperbolized choice to put your child in danger for the very reason you wanted him to be there and b) Matt may not have lived and known the life of many of the inmates in the same way Johnny did, but in other ways, he knew what happened inside the walls of a jail (or prison? I forget which he said) possibly better, and he certainly knew better how he’d react to it; he’s not naive to jail politics because he worked as a chaplain, and he’s not naive to what it could do to his temperament, as it sounds like it already burned out a well-intentioned man wanting to do good before. So, at this point, I have to believe the guy has either completely lost his shit or he’s playing everyone to try to make good television. How come the Narnia wardrobe door between the two pods was never even mentioned last season? I get that, with this season’s “family twist,” they may have wanted to minimize its presence last season, but now they’re editing it to seem like constant communication/contraband passing occurs there—like, maybe start building a wall there, first, if we wanna limit drugs and Cheetos smuggled through borders?—and I don’t even remember seeing a glimpse in the background during phone calls or anything last time (although, now, the minutiae- obsessed-part of me wants to rewatch the whole season just to catch a glimpse).

So, that’s why they started letting lyrics in? With that much Puccini overuse, listing the Phantom overuse was already at risk of becoming both redundant and indistinguishable? ;-) * *Yeah, yeah, I know, I wrong Puccini operas (although extra credit to anyone who ever used Brigadoon to complete it. But negative points because...fucking Brigadoon). Well, maybe after the big Live For TV Theaterical Performance (or whatever they’re calling it this year) of Jesus Christ Superstar on Easter, JCS will be the new quad’s Moulin Rouge, while all the Carmen and Turandot types all simultaneously try to switch it up and move on to Mendelssohn and Strauss and, like, same thing.

Well, Annndrea, I can’t explain witchcraft. *But, I can. It’s like John Edwards asking if there’s someone there who has a person of significance with the first initial M. You could chant fall, fall, fall at almost anyone doing a quad and see your power manifest right before your eyes. (But, as long as they spun around four times before they did, your curse is reversed).

It’s not just the points system: I think the aspect of the green/yellow/red that can be kind of confusing or counterintuitive is that yellow isn’t inherently better than red, nor red necessarily worse than yellow. Yellow just means, hang on, we gotta recheck this thing and figure out how it’s gonna be classified (maybe wrong term) and/or then assign its GOE. Red means it’s already clear and it’s getting a negative GOE. Once they return to review that yellow, it COULD be scored better than those that were immediately red (or green for that matter), or, they could be downgraded AND given a lower GOE, like, a darker red, so to speak. I’m no expert like so many here, so I hope that made sense, and maybe I projected my original misunderstanding onto you and that wasn’t what you meant to begin with, but I know it took me some time to figure out that the yellow was really a place holder and not a measurement. Because we so closely identify it with the stop light signal symbol which has become such a metonymy go/slow/stop and then good/okay/bad, I think it became misleading (even though the slow/yield connotation isn’t wrong) that they should have replaced the yellow with, like, gray or something, to dissociate that inaccurate but logical conclusion.

I actually texted my sister the second he got on the ice*, “Patrick Chan already looks like Data: who thought it would be a good idea to dress him up in a Star Trek costume?” *We have little in common and sadly aren’t that close, but one of the things we always did together as kids was watch gymnastics and skating and share our based-on-nothing love and love-to-hate heroes and villains, screaming our otherwise-rarely synced views at their televised images at our sole color tv. We don’t often talk/text just to shoot the shit, but we have during big competitions, apparently far less recently than I recalled: I was kinda devastated to learn she had no idea who or what I was talking about and didn’t even know about the team event. (Made me so thankful for everyone here!). I explained it as she finished putting her kids to bed, and she turned it on just in time to see Kostner skate. At the conclusion of which, she said, “Well that was enough to put me to sleep. Except now I’m gonna have nightmares about that outfit. You suck.” Knowing it would take the whole night to still not be able to explain how the next one up would be the team of the country banned from the Olympics anyway, I couldn’t really argue that she should stick it out (I have immense respect for Kostner, but that really was a snoozer). Apropos nothing except skating and my sucking, as kids, while my (younger) sister was 99% of the time the one to torment me (mainly because I’d never dream of hurting her back; I mostly unintentionally tortured her by constantly trying to push a relationship that she never wanted), one of the one times I did do something intentionally “mean” to her (because I thought it was funny as hell ... and 30?!) years later, not gonna lie, still kinda do was: I think it must have been around the 1988 Olympics. Two of the biggest names from pop culture we had around our house were Debbie Gibson (ah, the ‘80s) and Debi Thomas (tear... and, also, ah, not knowing it wasn’t “Debbie,” which would have ruined the whole bit). I convinced my sister that their real names were reversed—Gibson Debbie and Thomas Debbie—but they decided that it sounded better the other way around, so they got them changed, and they were actually sisters. I don’t know why, but I thought this was some damn funny shit, playing “her sister’s” music to get psyched up before Debi competed, the whole shebang. Then the rest of the world and we moved on to the next singers, the next skaters, and I didn’t really think about it much for, oh, a few decades. And, I kid you not, we were adults (it may have been as recent as when Debi Thomas’s mental health struggles first became well known) that I was recounting this silly little moment from our childhood to someone (with my mom and sister present), and my mom is cracking up, all “[Methasister] never even questioned one of the most ridiculous things you’ve ever said!” At which point, my poor sister (in her 30s now, mind you), piped up, like someone just let her in on the fact that the world isn’t flat, going, “Wait, you mean they’re not really sisters?” ETA If this were all today (or social media of today was back then), maybe there’d be an entire Secret Debbie Sisters Blog and mythology. Thankfully my mindfucking was limited to my family and not unleashed to be exponentially proliferated by the true crazies of teh Interwebz.

(I can’t believe, after all my excitement last night, I fell asleep partway through the first program and didn’t wake up until 5:30 AM. I don’t think I’ve slept more than two hours at a time in years (I live with severe chronic pain), and I often go days without sleeping. Then, last night? Out. And, btw, thanks U-Verse for cutting off the long pairs program. I actually like curling, but I don’t need one-hundred-eleventy-twelve hours of it recorded but then you cut off the one sport I care to see most and that you’re making the poor athletes compete at whackass times solely for advertising dolla-dollas my viewing pleasure. Out of some weird respect for their sacrifice, I’d even watched the whole recording(s) this morning before going online strictly to avoid spoilers, only to have to turn to the web to find out how it ended BECAUSE MY DVR—ironically, I’d set Oly Ice to run long because I’d seen some track meet before it was running late—CUT IT. Obvs now I know to set all of the important stuff to record long, but I already have so many conflicts that figuring out what has PT repeats and such I can tape in their stead is like a four-star logic problem. TV shouldn’t be so haaaaard!). Anyway, I have to give it to Tanith Belbin. I don’t recall ever appreciating her announcing before, and I also never really liked ice dancing, but between her bit explaining it more on Olympic Ice and then her commentating, I felt like I understood what I was watching for the first time—what made something a competitively good program versus just something that might appear pretty to the untrained eye (and, as it had always seemed like pairs for also-rans coupled with a celebration of OTT perceived heterosexuality, I just didn’t give a crap)... I’m not sure how I’ve missed all understanding of it before, but I have an entirely new appreciation. That said, I’m all the more conflicted on the whole “Shibs can’t bring the sex appeal because they’re sibs and ew” aspect. Sure, a few of them are actually couples and the romance or sexual tension is (or should be) real. But, as was clearly announced, some of them most clearly are not, like the pairs skater whose spouse is an ice dancer; they obviously (hopefully) have complete confidence in the legitimacy of their own relationship and the athletic coupling/romantic performance as part of the sport as to seemingly have no issue with it: they know it’s acting; they know it’s bullshit. (And, c’mon, Adam may be the only currently out skater, but ain’t no way half those men aren’t...). I’m not gonna lie: my gut instinct is the same with the Shibs, or any time I hear of siblings paired in skating or Latin dance. But, intellectually? I’m not sure why it should be any different. I mean, I don’t need them to play like they’re about to eat each other out on the ice er nuthin, but I don’t need to have V/M do that either: that’s what the Internet is for, duh. But, beyond that? They’re ACTING. Why should knowing who they are off-stage, so to speak, be a limiting factor in what roles they can play on it? On the one hand, you’re (the announcers, not, like, you, dear posters) are straight up telling me that one half of each of two sets of competitors on that ice are married to each other, and, unless out culture has changed more quickly than I’d realized, I don’t think polyamory is widely accepted among the general populace as significantly more moral or normative than incest, so we’re presumably being expected to suspend our disbelief that there is anything more genuine in these portrayals than there is when actors we know are not involved portray couples who are on stage or screen: why would it be so “wrong” for the Shibs to do the same? (Hell, unlike half of these pairs, they’ve been competing together most of their lives; while it’s not something I care about in the real-life practice these performances seem to emulate, a great majority of society at least purports to, and most of these “couples” have partner-swapping for most of their careers ;-) Skating sluts!)

I’ve posted before (in the The Rap Game thread) my amusement/ annoyance at kids who constantly refer to themselves as “swag” (there’s a contestant on there who does so; he’s the same age as the students I spent much of my career teaching, and the last five years or so, I saw them spending more time writing “swag” and “I’m so swag” on their backpacks and notebooks (most of which I bought for them) turned-in work, everything) ... like, if you are, why would you have to say it? I often had to remind myself at least it was evidence that they COULD write). OTOH, these were middle schoolers. I hit that point with Matt and his I’m Alpha (and I’m taking my kid to prison ‘because he needs to be alpha but he’s “soft”: I had thought back then it was code for “I’m afraid he is or makes others think he’s gay,” so that was an interesting addressing (rhymes with aggressing) this epi) back at about episode 1, but this last episode pushed me over the edge with Matt’s self-talk about being alpha, especially in concert with his (iirc) TH about how he could end up “aggressing” [toward Tebow]. Again, maybe it’s my own limited exposure to this particular demographic and I don’t want to extrapolate and stereotype an entire demographic based on such a limited and edited version of television personalities (especially as a) I may have misunderstood/jumped to conclusions that he was also AUB (I think? Or whatever Kody Brown is) and Matt’s actually a more mainstream sect of Mormon [my advanced apologies for my ignorance: “sect” probably isn’t the right word. Type? I admittedly don’t even know if there are different “types” of (what I assume is considered the mainstream, monogamy-practicing) Mormons; I’m thinking about whatever we call the different “types” of Judaism (in which I was raised and am obviously comparably clueless, so while I don’t think my ignorance is necessarily excusable, I’ll own the apathy but hope it’s not mistaken for antipathy or bigotry), where, for, example, there’s reform(ed?), conservative, orthodox, etc, and then, even with each type, there’s levels of degree (like, I grew up attending a conservative temple, but it was much closer to reformed ones insofar as issues as (almost) equal treatment of female and male congregants (sole difference I can recall is girls could be bat mitzvahed at 12 whereas boys had to be 13 for their bar mitzvah (some questionable sexism that worked for me because I was ahead in school, and though long over buying into anything I was being taught about religion, was willing to go through with what I saw as a performance to please my mom (who ironically cared more about this Important Religious Right of Passage for me to prove she could pull it off as a newly single mom—my father (the reason we were at this awful temple to begin with) had left a week after we got our Bat/ Bar Mitzvah dates, leaving us not only pretty broke the first “broken family” at the temple, which they dealt with by .,. not only not supporting us but making it clear we were now unwanted trash (uh, I guess there was more sexism, if not of the scripturally interpreted type, than I recalled... ;-)—but I don’t think I would have been willing to play along for a whole extra school year as I’d have had to were I a boy; girls’ and boys’ requirements and expectations for their ceremonies, however, were the same. Whereas, even at another conservative temple that was nearby, girls could only have their Bat Mitzvah on a Friday night as they could not be on the bima (stage) or read from the Torah on a Saturday, which was for the boys/men, and the difference of degree of importance placed on the two ceremonies was markedly different and, even to my 12/13-year-old self, so glaring offensive that I only would attend out of respect for my friends/jr. high social obligation (and then usually tried to spend as much of their kiddish (post-service social hour where tweens get to have pastries and bad wine in the name of religion) not-as- respectfully using my same 12/13-year-old understanding of feminism to express such views to every religious leader I could find. Because I was deferential like that). Ummm...sorry, veered way off-topic there but was trying to express what I meant by whether there were “types” of what I think is mainstream Mormonism (is this the same as FLDS?), as opposed to degree of observance... ANYWAY] or b) their similarities are better explained by their shared narcissistic personalities with 15-minutes-of-fame-desire-disorder comorbidity than the coincidence of their (maybe) shared religion, but it’s fascinating to me that these two similar (to me) men—with their unkempt, long hair (I understand Matt says he played up the look to aid his prison aesthetic, but he obviously didn’t grow it long in time for the show, maybe just assisted the unvarnished-masses look of it, making it likely it usually looks even LESS ... alpha-y), their self-styled “intellectualism” (I do believe Matt IS quite educated, and probably smart; I also believe he thinks his own belief system, certainly inextricable from his education but also quite possibly well-developed based on little but his own rational and irrational thoughts and fears, make him the smartest man in any room, completely separate from intellect or education), and (although Matt’s MMA experience may in fact make him a true force to be reckoned with in that type of arena, or maybe—though I’m not sure, as I thought it was the type of fighting that required both parties’ respecting the rules of the sport; I admittedly don’t know enough to say, though—ultimately victorious if he truly had to defend himself in hand-to-hand combat in jail but probably less useful with a rock-in-a-sock or shank, which I don’t think he’s SO Alpha to consider; similarly, wasn’t Kody Brown some Southerneastern Northwest Utah wrestling champion who thus had to keep a full gym’s worth of mats in one of the McMansion garages, instead of his alpha sports car that he had for his 57-member family?), neither has the *appearance* of a hardbody or athletic type nor the innate nor false but convincing machismo of a tough guy that’s going to garner respect from anyone but an inmate who respects [what he believes is] a convict* or a sisterwife who respects anyone with a penis more than anyone with a vagina, and anyone who isn’t herself over anyone who is, I find it both hilarious and unnerving that these are the sole two men I’ve ever heard call themselves alpha, let alone incessantly. And I don’t know if Kody Brown has actually ever used the term “aggressing” (nor am I sure it’s any more a word than “conversating”), but I’ve now convinced myself he has as sure as Matt’s convinced himself he’s classy swag alpha, and I’m convinced that they’re, if not doppelgängers, soulmates. *I caught an episode of watch-along (where previous cast members provide meta-commentary on last week’s episode as they watch) for the first time this week (da fuq? Why does my DVR pick up every other show’s “super-size” repeat or “social thread” repeat as a new show that I have to notice and manually cancel, but this, which was actually marginally interesting and at a time that wouldn’t bump something valuable from my carefully orchestrated DVR schedule, was never on either of our radar? Now I finally notice it when I have a thousand eleventy hours of Olympics to record and almost as many of Celebrity Big Brother? Not Cool!), and I was fascinated by how all of the Formers not only explained why no one was gonna mess with Matt (old dudes generally get respect, even from young disrespectful-seeming “punks,” which, yeah, shoulda known, although I always heard about the whole inmate v convict mentality divide relating more to prison than jail, but I guess, esp for someone like Tebow who, young as he is, spent two years in prison), but that THEY (the Formers, themselves) seemed to think quite highly of him (I forgot what term they used. A distinguished man? A gentleman? Something like that). I kept trying to figure out if they’d have already had contact with him after filming doing post- wrap interviews or something to affect their POV (because I tried to view him from their perspective, and, save for the “respect the elders” shit, I couldn’t), but they were dragging most of the others, so I don’t think it was just a matter of respect or empathy for the toll they understand from their shared experience. Then, I had a little conspiracy theory thought, and I had to wonder: remember when a bunch of them tried (are still trying? Don’t know) to set up that pricey side hustle to prep people who I guess are rich and have warning that they’ll be going to jail? Well, I think that the panel consisted of mostly if not solely members of that group: if so, maybe Mr. Alpha “consulted” with them BEFORE ever entering the jail. (As the CO trainer for the New Mexico prison that had the rookie show, who also became one of the trainers for the faux inmates, was in on their gig, it would make sense that they’d get better hook ups with the commentating gig AND that, either, once Matt was well through the process, he’d “happen” to get connected to them OR he’d connected (or, as a former prison chaplain himself, knew some of) them and then got “recommended” to the show. Since he didn’t even realize he wouldn’t be in the same pod as his son, despite the fact that a) their cover story had them as co-conspirators in the same crime, and all you’d need to do is watch one episode of Lock-Up to know you weren’t going to be bunkies (nevermind FORMER PRISON CHAPLAIN: ETA: I no longer believe this “shocking twist” in his story) and b) three seasons of this show (even two, assuming they knew nothing of the prior season before entering) suggestes men are generally divided by age, nevermind that he looks like he’s losing his mind in there, they clearly did a shite job prepping him, so, both to cover their asses with him and (if they want any future customers), they have to rewrite the narrative that he’s the success story of the season. At least, if a single thing I just wrote has a bit of truth. As it’s all entirely based on spec., I guess it’s also possible that they really don’t thing he’s a faux-Alpha,faux-aggressing, narcissistic, devolving lunatic and just respect him, straight up, and that there’s also no conflicts of interest with the business, the consulting of the trading officer, the casting of them for commentary, the hiring of Sheri as a CO, and potential casting. It’s totes possible.

OMG, you’re so right. The episode reminded me of one of my old stand-by classroom activities (calling it a “lesson” is a bit of a stretch) ... on days when we’d have an early release before a vacation or some other nonsense that would cycle into ensuring fewer and fewer students would actually attend class that day, meaning I couldn’t go on with a sequential lesson for which students would be responsible, I’d often have my students write “pass-around” stories. Each kid at the table would start writing about whatever for x minutes, and then the timer would go off, they’d pass their piece to the kid next to them, read the part of the new story they’d gotten and then continue writing that story, pass, etc., until they all got the stories they’d started back. The goal and expectation was never to have a brilliant piece of writing at the end, but it was a good way to get fairly resistant readers and writers excited and focused on doing both: kids that would whine or curse about writing at all would beg not to stop every time the timer went off (aw, fuck, it was to keep them on-task, busy, and quiet on a day it was pretty hard to convince them, let alone justify, why they should do anything but play with their cell phones or “talk” (“like all our other teachers let us do, you bitch”), when three-quarters of their classmates were being allowed to spend the day roaming the streets...) Anyway, their stories usually started out pretty good, then veered off in some semi-related but vastly different direction than the opener intended (generally, with that very goal), and ultimately concluding in a complete denouement of nonsensical absurdity. Yet, no matter how much I had to work at holding back my frustration for the one who seemed to most sabotage the story with real potential, often thinking the story starter was going to be upset her or his idea was “ruined,” they almost all always thought they had done something brilliant, inevitably picking the table’s most inane one as the one they’d read to the class (but wanting to read them all), asking if I’d make copies so they could each have a copy of each of the four stories they’d worked on (usually, I’d be trying to convince them not to throw out far better stuff—which was all supposed to be saved in their portfolios—but this inanity, they wanted every bit of, they were so sure of their genius). So, I agree that’s what the writing felt like, and then, just as I was questioning how, even if the writers were monkeys hitting randomly at typewriters, Raúl could have gotten himself to say half that shit with conviction (was he TRYING to get himself thrown in jail? How could such a good lawyer defend himself so poorly as a witness? And I’ve already covered his inane Receiver speech to Saint Giver), I read that interview with him where he claimed to think it was brilliant and talked even more about how becoming friends with Saint Mariska outside of the show has affected him as both an actor and a human being. And, unlike in that previous tweet or whatever it was in which he talked about how Mariska is the sun around which we all revolve, and Mariska, she is also the moon(face), or whatevs, where I really thought maybe he was just secretly taking the piss out of her (sorry, ever since I saw her on Inside the Actor’s Studio—at which point, I had still enjoyed her on the show—I’ve suspected she’s...not very bright, and it’s made it harder for me to appreciate even Early Benson, because RL Mariska came across to me as such an icky combination of dumb and desperate-to-be-liked-while-being-extremely-dislikable), he came off in this interview as being completely genuine in his Mariska love (and further notable in his mention of his development of a friendship with her, and not mentioning that he’ll miss anyone else in the cast, mirroring the ending) AND his love for the episode as his sendoff. So, much like my under-prepared sixth-graders, I guess I’m both happy for him and disappointed in him that this is what he’s pleased with. But, just as I never saw could fully see Benson past Mariska once I’d “seen” Mariska, now that I’ve seen a bit more of the current Raúl, maybe I’m no longer so bitter that I can’t see that Chess concert (and I once had either the audacity or naïveté to write a final paper for a doctoral class as a satire of Chess, so, trust, I was bitter). (No, the class had nothing to do with music, theater, or musical theater. I was just obnoxious enough to see if I could get in the message of how academia was just a big bullshit chess game by successfully submitting a bad musical instead of a good formal paper. (I could)). Nah, I don’t hate him yet. But if he shows up next year with a Macy’s Day Parade Balloon Float Face o’ saintyouthful fillers, I retain the right to amend this statement. Otoh, Chess is a fitting follow up to an episode as piecemeal as this one. There’s a reason they’re doing it as a concert and not a full production where the book preferably makes sense and matters. It didn’t originally even have one. Maybe this episode started as a concept album, too. As awful as this episode was? Is This Because I’m A Kinda-Baby-Killer?: The Concept Album COULD be amazing. As a fully realized play, otoh? ::Scrim drops as Saint Olivia Benson gives encore performance of “I Know Him So Well.” Before curtain closes, a second spotlight shows the silhouette of Stone; he can’t help but nod along. Before the curtain reaches the floor, the last image the audience sees is a pair of feet, in shackles, next to Stone. Still in silhouette, Stone’s hands reach down and silently release the chains. In that brief moment between the end of Benson’s glorious song, both a touching tribute to the man she feared she was losing to his insane decision the prison system about which this strongly anti-sexuall-assault show sometimes reduces to a rape joke, and a poignant plea to his replacement that, despite his, well, sole purpose here, he should forget that pesky law and listen to her, because, as the song says, She Knows Him So Well, her voice like an angel...a Saint, even, and the audience’s obvious thunderous applause, that moment of complete silence as the audience takes in everything, digesting the gravity, the beauty found in seeing both the joy and the tragedy, the silence is broken by the unmistakable clanking of the dropping of the chains. Saint Olivia was right all along: how could Stone have not seen it sooner? He cannot send Rafa to jail. Is he ROR, to stand trial sometime later, or won’t he be charged at all? In the game of chess that is the New York City’s most elite ADAs, one never knows if one is truly free. Curtain Closed; audience applauds widely:: Yup, the book sucks. Concert Version, it is.

I dunno; I think “Is this because I kinda-killed a baby?” might be worse. The former, at least, reached episodic television’s pinnacle of WTFness with a mere single line (and her coming out didn’t require years of St. Benson’s whisper-inspiring her to accept The Rainbow of Beauty that is Love). Is this Because I Kinda-Killed a Baby?, however, took 47 minutes from my life—if this show were at all clever, I might consider whether making its audience brain dead were its own meta-commentary on The Issues: at the least, despite the most ineffectually presented court case ever depicted on this franchise, it sure convinced me of both the show’s right to die and the justification, hell, righteousness, of whomever finally pulls the plug on it—and seemed to be playing it as “Is this because I suddenly started showing signs of severe mental illness?” in both Barba’s pre-Ima-kill-dis-baby scene and his manic I Can See Colors And Beauty And Pain (Because, You) ramblings to the prophet Olivia H. Christ at the end. Plus, it’s bad enough Benson got sainted several years back; now she’s The fucking Giver?* Oh, hell no, Saint Rosemary of Whisperwhere; you ain’t that wise. *Otoh, If Barba’s received all of her with-great-power-comes-great-responsibility wisdom and memories, can she die now and he become the Lieutenant/Field Detective/Hostage Negotiator/Patron Saint of Women and Children Everywhere for however long this show will continue airing such paradoxically brain-dead yet pain-inducing tripe? Kthnx.

(Thanks @HartofDixie for posting that video. If I ever cooked, I’d be blaming my passionate onion chopping for the next 30 minutes, but I’ll just have to admit I kinda lost it, watching it). And, after that, I’m really not ready to watch the special I mentioned above, but I [unrelatedly] can’t sleep so decided to do a quick fast fwd to see if, indeed, it was the 20/20 ep., and I guess the Simone movie must have preceded it, because my recording happened to open on the first epilogue frame I’d referenced, so I grabbed a shot of it (and the second/only other one, which was a quote/message from Simone). If the images aren’t clear enough, I’ll be happy (fsvo happy) to transcribe them: sorry, but unlike these amazing athletes, I’m not motivated enough to even get out of bed to get a closer shot with my phone).

They put a text screen up at the end noting that in (whatever month), Simone shared that she joined the 265+ women who’d been abused by Nassar and that on January [25th? Sorry, trying to keep to the general wording of it but already deleted and don’t feel like checking....], Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years plus his previous sentence. In the (more interesting, to me, but they usually are) Biography episode that followed it (I’m glad I watched it first, as it addressed quite a few points in the film that I’d have otherwise assumed were artistic license!), they did address it more directly, but mostly via news clips: when asked specifically about it, Simone seemed completely unable to discuss it. Poor thing; after seeing Ali and some of the others who are as recently affected speak so strongly, it was heart-wrenching to see the normally “happier” one still struggling so acutely (I’d suspected as much when she didn’t choose to give a statement, but her affect was probably an important reminder of both the range of responses and levels of healing these young women are in, and also a harrowing demonstration of the level of compartmentalization that any abuse survivor may need to undergo but especially gymnasts, who are already trained to do so in so many other aspects ... another contributing factor to Nassar’s ability to get so many for so long to comply). Also, there’s a special on Lifetime at 10 tonight called “Breaking their Silence: Inside the Gymnastics Scandal.” All of The promos I’ve seen for it suggest it’s a retitled repeat of last week’s episode of 20/20 (townhall-type interview with Elizabeth Vargas and the same women from the 20/20 one, identical clips of her interviewing Mattie Larson), but maybe there will be some extra footage since they don’t have the requisite 20/20 intro and outro schtuff. But I bet there will just be more commercials...