Last night was a big night for nerds. Jim Parsons (aka Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory) won an Emmy for best actor in a comedy series, beating out front-runners Matthew Morrison (Glee) and Alec Baldwin (30 Rock), neither of whom would ever be accused of being a nerd. Parsons, however, plays the nerdy theoretical physicist Sheldon well enough to be on his way to icon status. (A physics major I know tells me that people in her class refer to especially geeky fellow students as “sheldons.’) That’s what writing is all about — making it real. That’s true no matter what you are writing.
What is especially impressive about Parsons’ win is that his character was not originally planned as the series lead. Rather, he was the break-out character (a la Kramer on Seinfeld, or Dwight on The Office). But his characterization of Sheldon stole the show. Some even say he has made geekiness cool. If so, that’s the acting equivalent of splitting the atom.
I was surprised that it didn’t get more attention when Bobby Thomson passed away the other day. In October 1951 he was probably the most celebrated person in America (and the most cursed in Brooklyn.) Thomson blasted what was known as the ’shot heard round the world’ — a 3-run homer off Ralph Branca to lift the New York Giants to a 5-4 ‘miracle’ victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers in the special National League tie-breaking playoff series.
Thomson’s home run was one of the most famous in baseball history. More than anything else, I think, what gave it such appeal among baseball fans is that it demonstrated that, in baseball, it truly ain’t over till it’s over (as Yogi Berra would say). Read
I’m a big fan of Broadway shows. So I should enjoy the Tony Awards show. And I do — last night’s show had particularly good performances from La Cage, Memphis and Million-Dollar Quartet. But something always bothers me about the Tonys. More than any of the other award ceremonies – the Oscar, the Emmy, the Grammy, even the MTV Awards – the Tony is an “insider” occasion. The speeches of presenters and award winners both are laced with inside references, and even more with insider “emotions” — a frequent assumption that everyone listening to them understands their cultural references, and maybe even that those who don’t understand don’t count.
It’s easy to understand the homogeneous nature of the Broadway community. They work hard to get to the top — usually a lot harder than in the other popular entertainment forms — and the financial rewards and recognition generally don’t match movies, TV etc. Read
A Thai man dying of kidney failure is visited by his late wife and lost son in ghostly form (Uncle Boonmee Who Can recall His Past Lives.) Two Italian men struggle with the challenges of single fatherhood in La Nostra Vita (Our Life.) A man and a woman are either complete strangers or husband and wife — or both — in Certified Copy. These were three of the big winners at this year’s Cannes Festival, where the jury seemed to be taken by films with some kind of family theme.
In a sense, family themes were also popular at last year’s festival. The winner of the 2009 Regards Jeunes prize went to Quebecer Xavier Dolan for J’ai tue ma mere (I Killed My Mother.) It isn’t a spoiler to tell you the lead character didn’t literally kill his mother.
It’s a lot easier to think of bad Oscar acceptance speeches than good ones. That is why the acceptance speech of best supporting actor Christoph Waltz at last night’s 2009 Oscars was such a delight. Waltz started off with a great scene-setter, an opening sentence that reminded us of his already-classic line from Inglorious Basterds, referring to the combination of the Oscar and presenter Penelope Cruz as an “uber bingo.” He then wrapped the usual recognition of his colleagues into a metaphor about discovering a new continent — thanking Quentin Tarantino (”this fearless explorer”) for “putting together an expedition” and producers Harvey Weinstein et al for equipping it, and then again praising Tarantino for his “unorthodox methods of navigation.” Waltz ended on a gracious note, saying to Academy members ”there’s no way I can ever thank you enough, but I can start right now. Thank you.” Read
When we think of exports, we tend to visualize container ships, trains or planes carrying large, heavy cargo. But former Federal Reserve economist W. Michael Cox tries to correct that impression in today’s New York Times(Feb. 17). While praising President Obama’s State of the Union speech call for the United States to “export more of our goods”, Cox says it would have been much better to have said “goods and services.” As Cox points out, the United States has a $144 billion surplus in services, including an 8-1 edge in operational leasing — handling short-term deals on planes, vehicles and other equipment — a 6-1 margin in movie and television program distribution, and a 4-1 advantage in architectural, construction and engineering services. In total, the United States is competitive in 21 of 22 services categories, with significant surpluses in 12 of them. Read
I’m a movie fan. I’m also an Oscar fan. One of the compensations for cold winters was always waiting with anticipation for the Oscar nominations to come out, when I could compare the various nominees, agree or disagree with the picks, and try to guess which nominated movies were in serious contention. This year’s nominations came out last week, and I still can’t name all of the nominees for best film. There are simply too many of them. Trying to recognize the achievments of more films, the Academy has doubled the number of Best Film nominees, from five to 10 — thereby diminshing the attention paid to each of them.
Who can focus on 10 movies? Who can take seriously that long a list of “excellence” in one year? And who can look forward to an Academy Awards show that will be even longer than usual? The Academy’s decision to double the number of Best Film nominees is a classic mistake in messaging — a failure to recognize that less is more.
What we have here, as Strother Martin might have pointed out in Cool Hand Luke, is a failure to communicate.
Kraft’s four-month battle for control of Cadbury was one of the leading Transatlantic business news stories of 2009. It was fiecely fought. It may be no coincidence that it was a battle of jock CEOs. In one corner was Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld, a former varsity star of four high school sports who decided to attend Cornell partly because of their athletic program. In the other corner was Cadbury CEO Todd Stitzer, a former professional tennis player.
It may be that the competitive spirit one learns on in competitive sports translates into a significant advantage in business. Neither CEO gave up easily: Rosenfeld has turned Kraft into the world’s biggest confectionary company, replacing Mars. Stitzer managed to get for his shareholders a 50 percent increase over Kraft’s original offer last September.
Statistics are like a birthday gift. You never know what you’ve really got until you unwrap them. Take today’s unemployment data (for December). It shows the unemployment rate at 10 percent. That’s still lower than the rate at the peak of the 1982 recession — 10.8 percent in December of that year. But any experienced speechwriter knows that topline numbers are only a starting point, not a finishing line. Read
In the current economic environment it takes some courage to talk about a forthcoming, prolonged boom in the global economy. But Gregg Easterbrook (author of The Progress Paradox) has never been known for repeating concentional wisdom. His latest book — Sonic Boom: Globalization at Mach Speed — can serve as a primer on how to describe global economic change (and its likely intensification) in a way that a broad-based audience can relate to. He acknowledges that there is a paradox at the heart of globalization — more economic growth and opportunity, more stress and insecurity. And he describes both sides of the global economy coin, using both economic data and stories about communities.
This is not just a book about how Shenzhen is thriving. It is also about how Waltham, MA and Camden, S.C. are bouncing back. And it is about the fact that all communities will have to continually reinvent themselves to compete in the heightened, prolonged era of globalzation the author argues is coming. For anyone looking for a deep intellectual explanation of globalization, there might be more apporpriate books to recommend. But Sonic Boom is a valuable resource for anyone whose job includes explaining global economic change.