A Few Hours Post-Heartbreak

At this time last night, I was seriously considering if I should stop following all sports all together; it seemed then all any of them did was break my heart.  I’m still not entirely sure I was wrong.  I’m aware I ought to be happier for all the bronze medalists; they were all people I hoped to see medal at Worlds at some point.  Maybe I will be, once I get over the heartbreak that was Adam, Jeremy, & Alissa’s fates, and our getting the third spot back in neither singles discipline.  Also my annoyance at Alena Leonova medaling, which twists the knife in, if only because certain Russian fans will now become unbearable.  Though it could’ve been worse; it could’ve been Michal Brezina.

I suppose also I ought to be indignant on behalf of Daisuke Takahashi.  But when I still haven’t seen either his or Patrick Chan’s performance since I was too mad to watch at the time, still don’t particularly feel like seeking them out, and therefore have only tweets to go on which seemed to argue both sides of the debate, I find I don’t really give a *censored.*  I’m more interested in the question of what happens now, if the ISU decides the booing crowd is bad enough for publicity to do something.  I’ve the sinking feeling they’ll do the wrong thing, whatever they do.  Hopefully it won’t be to puff up Plushenko more; that’ll just make the problem worse.

An even more interesting question, I suppose, relates to everyone now writing Alissa Czisny off completely.  The problem is, it’s one thing the men, with both Evan and Johnny looking serious in their comebacks(though I suspect without the third spot, Johnny won’t make it back to Worlds).  But while people have even been making comments about how Kimmie could come back if she wanted to, there’s noone intending to come back, and while for a moment on Twitter people started fretting if we’d even have two spots next year, thanks to Ashley that was taken care of, and even assuming her for one of them(and remember, Alissa was looking equally good this time last year), who gets the other one?  Mirai’s a dicey prospect at best.  Gracie Gold is young and untested.  Christina Gao’s yet to prove she can go the distance.  None of the other junior prospects has done well enough to be relied on.  Even if Rachael continues skating for the fun of it, those days are obviously over for her.  The most obvious choice would be Agnes Zawadzki, but there’s no denying she still has major consistency issues, or Caroline Zhang, but will the judges ever fully embrace her again?  And you can’t see either of them making top five at Worlds, not really; with Alissa or Mirai or maybe Gracie that’s at least a possibility. We’ve got one more year to fix this before the next Olympics; the right person must be sent to Worlds next year, but when there probably wasn’t a right person this year anyway, then, well, who?

No real reaction to pairs or ice dance, oddly; maybe because I’ve been at work for almost all of both.  Maybe later.

Dancing With the Stars, Season 14, Week 2

And the cracks were bound to show.  They were there last week, no denying it; it was just they were kept to a minimum and made up for.  But in the second week, there was bound to be a bit more fumbling, some of which personality could still cover up; when the celebrity’s singing along like Sherri was; she can make a pretty obvious mistake and get away with it no problem, and some of which will doom you hopelessly.  Poor Martina.  These dancing with celebrities shows just aren’t good for tennis players.  Interesting they are now showing the bottom two again, and Karina and Gavin are in it; even after winning the trophy she’ll never be a big getter of votes, and while he’s an artist you actually still here on the radio, I think his current hit has been overplayed on the radio a bit too much.

Some, on the other hand, got better.  I actually don’t think Len undermarked the football player last week; his technique was questionable then.  But this week he got rid of a lot of that.  Same with Jack Wagner, though he didn’t benefit in the scores nearly as much as he deserved.  But it’s Katherine and Mark who are rising to the occasion so far.  It was a bit odd, since I could’ve sworn that song was a mambo song back in Season 6, but Mark did much better choreographing a jive to it now than Derek did then:

Derek’s certainly doing okay with his own partner too, but if the Hough-Ballas dynasty is to resume this season, I think it’s going the be the Ballas half taking it back up.

Much Ado About a Picture

Who is this mysterious regency lady?

Attended a Jane Austen Society luncheon/lecture today about the Austen subject of the hour: the Byrne portrait, a miniature(though the images of it going around make it look more like a bigature!) that claims to be of Austen on the back, and its current owner has been hawking it as a recently noticed authentic drawing of her, when we only have two sketches by sister Cassandra, only one of which shows her face, though a number of people, including my mother, are rather skeptical.

New Pairs!

Of course there’s been video footage of Caitlin Yankowskas & Joshua Reagan out for a while, but that was an obvious tryout to have for them both, and we couldn’t assume anything; as her story this year noted, a pair can skate together eight years and still bail on it.  But once the announcement is officially made, you can be fairly confident a partnership’s happening.  And whatever fears there might have been when Cain & Reagan abruptly ended, it genuinely looks like this was done above board enough.  This would’ve been wonderful enough news, but the complete unexpected news is Taylor Toth’s got a new partner too, and it’s a skater who this definitely opens great new hopes for:

It's a match!

It was hard the way things went for Kiri Baga this year; 10th place at Nationals and no spot on the international scores list is hard to recover from, especially with the ladies field in the U.S., a cutthroat place even in the recent “weak” years(and now we’re getting top-heavy again).  But if she proves a good pairs skater, she might just do very well for herself there.  And when Taylor Toth is one of the best people in figure skating, it’s good to see two such people look for success together.

Now we just need a partner for Ashley too, maybe a slightly taller one since she is on the tall side, and Donlan & Speroff to not split anytime soon, and we’ll have a pretty good pairs field, all thing considered.

Dancing With the Stars, Season 14, Week 1

And they’re all good.  I’m not sure that’s ever happened on Dancing With the Stars, that in the first week, that everyone was easy and enjoyable to watch.  Not all of them were quite so good with the technique, and that may be the factor to separate them later, but everyone was good overall, and as was said multiple times last night, it’s a good thing we get a second week with all of them, and you kind of wish for three(I have the sinking feeling, by the way, that despite being far better than Monica Seles Martina Navratilova won’t last any longer than her).

No runaway frontrunners, certainly.  Two contestants arrived with the their technique already good enough to stand out from the four-point cluster everyone else is currently crowded into, but we can’t assume they’ll stay there, especially should some of the others improve(and there probably will be ones that do).  Though here I must say one thing: no matter what Carrie Anne might claim, Elizabeth Jenkins did not do the best first week dance ever last night, and no, that’s not because Jaleel White did instead after her.  Kristi Yamaguchi still holds that honor, as well as I believe that record, kthxbye.  But best overall first week ever?  Yeah, pretty much.

Personally, my favorites so far are Roshon Fegan and Chelsea(and no, Len, I don’t care about the hip hop), but that’s just me; it’s so subjective which of the dances you want to give the accolades to:

Only a week to Worlds already?

Since suspending my news broadcasts I’ve lost all track of time.  But now we’re at risk for losing Nathalie & Fabian, and have lost our last Finn(so now even if Laura Lepisto does come back, how far can she make it?), and perhaps I should try some predictions:

Men:  Or, who gets the bronze?  I’ve decided to go with what I want to happen there, my predictions for the podium: Patrick Chan, Daisuke Takahashi, Jeremy Abbott.  Also looking forward to: holding up hope Adam lands the quad lutz.  Though I’ll settle for them getting that third spot back.

Ladies: So having predicted Jeremy to make the podium, do I dare predict Ashley?  But actually, I’m going to be daring and predict Carolina drives everyone crazy by winning more or less fair and square, but I don’t dare put Mao any lower than 2nd, so who does that leave for bronze?  After Challenge Cup I’m wary of predicting Alissa, so it’s Ashley, Leonova, or one of the two Japanese girls.  Murakami might not be ready just yet, and Leonova’s still a mite unpredictable, but the kind of year Suzuki’s having, I think she’ll take the edge, so: Carolina Kostner, Mao Asada, Akiko Suzuki.  If Ashley gets stuck in 4th, hopefully Alissa will make the top 9.  Also looking forward to: is there even a slight chance Ksenia proves everyone wrong?  It’s probably her last chance…

Pairs:  And the questions for both the couples competitions are which order the top two finish in, and then who wins the bronze.  I suspect Volosozhar & Trankov are more likely to finally pass Savchenko & Szolkowy next year than this one, and the Germans have such a glorious free skate this year this ought to be their fourth title.  Bronze is a thorny question indeed, but Duhamel & Radford’s jumps, sadly, are too unreliable, and for some reason I suspect neither Pang & Tong or Kavaguti & Smirnov will be up to it, so it’s Sui & Han by default: Savchenko & Szolkowy, Volosozhar & Trankov, Sui & Han.  Also looking forward to: hope Duhamel & Radford skate that long program well, though.

Ice Dance: And even if they make it, Nathalie Pechelat & Fabian Bourzat may be vulnerable, but it would be too depressing to predict a second disappointment in a row for them.  As for those two above them, after Four Continents, I have the general feeling Meryl & Charlie have had their Worlds on top, and cede it now.  Hey, they had it, and that’s the important part, right?  Virtue-Moir, Davis-White, Pechelat-Bourzat.  Also looking forward to: the other two Canadian teams!  I suppose if Weaver & Poje did take the bronze, I wouldn’t mind that much.

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

It may have a title like a mystery novel, but in fact the villain of the first Thursday Next book is revealed early; it’s more of an action/adventure novel, albeit one with so many innovations of setting you certainly can’t call it cliche.  You can call it predictable, though; what happens with Jane Eyre in this novel may be something that could only happen in the universe of this series, but you still see it coming as soon as the book is mentioned as having a different ending as it does in our world.  The details of that are pretty fun, but the plot really is the book’s weakest point; there are plausibility as well as predictability issues(and not in the universe’s premise, but in how certain  characters behave).

Fortunately everything else in the book is much better.  The character of Thursday Next, for one thing, a complicated and super-competent heroine the likes of which are still far too uncommon in fiction.   But the thing that keeps you reading is the kitchen sink of a world different enough from our own in enough ways there’s something new to learn about it in just every turn of the page, but still remains a cohesive whole with all the changes complementing each other.  It’s especially a delight for the bookish, of course, with jokes like the Richard Horror Picture Show and the valuing of literature as much as avid readers think it should be valued-but the world that results almost makes you want to be careful what you wish for!  Also a take-down of the whole “Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays?” debate with an answer to the question perfect for those with a sense of humour, and even more so for the universe.  Still, one does see a little bit of laziness in Fforde’s choices of books; he mostly uses the pantheon of old dead white authors that anyone who was awake for literature class has heard of.  The descriptions of the later books in the series doesn’t indicate this changes either.  I’m tempted to keep on reading anyway, though.  I doubt it would be that boring.

From what I saw of Junior Worlds

I’m starting to find Wenjing Sui & Cong Han even scarier than I have already, but mostly, I’m just glad Aldridge & Eaton medaled:

Pina in 3D

Of course I’d known about this movie thanks to Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy, but release in the States has been very slow; right now, the Loews in Georgetown has it exclusively in DC, meaning mom and I had to go all the way there.  It was also only playing in 3D.  That might have been just as well, though; it relies on the impact of the new 3D technique far more than most movies that play in multiple dimensions do.  Practically all of it, after all, is made up of performances of dances choreographed by Pina Bausch, and while they might be powerful and beautiful enough to stand in two dimensions, in three they truly are breathtaking.

The Secret World Of Arietty

I read Mary Norton’s The Borrowers in elementary school, and remember it just well enough to note that it and The Secret World of Arietty really don’t have that much in common; a few names, a general concept, and maybe a plot element or too.  Hayao Miyazaki, who’s done this before, of course, in adapting the story has made it a very Japanese one-someone else might have done the actual directing, but this is still very much his movie.  The Japanization isn’t entirely a good thing; one can see quite a little bit of anime stereotyping in his version of the characters, though to be fair, I’m not sure how much of that might also be blamable on the dubbing, which certainly wasn’t the best.  But Miyazaki also brought out the story’s sad elements very strongly, and most of the changes made it sadder too, especially since the tongue-in-cheek framing narrator from Norton’s book is gone without a trace; now the boy’s telling the story himself.  At least one scene will stubbornly pull out your heartstrings enough that in spite of the cliche, you will still want to cry.

The better parts of the movie, thankfully, were untouched by the Americanization.  That would be the visuals: the naturalistic shots and the recreation of the world of the Borrowers, with the imaginative use of human odds and ends in the Clock family home and especially the equipment with which Pod and Arietty go out borrowing, the earlier, slower part of the film the highlight is easily their expedition through the kitchen and into the boy’s bedroom, as riveting as any exploration sequence.  The music as well; they wisely kept all of Cécile Corbel’s Japanese music soundtrack, translating lyrics where needed.