By the way ... pt. 1

• To answer a couple of questions, I found the keys the next day in my bag that I intentionally left at the office. No, it was never worth getting upset. By that point, it was out of my hands. Some days are like that.
• If you haven't done it yet, celebrate the 20th anniversary of Bull Durham (June 15, 1988). Drink a beer. Grow fungus in your shower shoes. Dance with a clown. Or just go to espn The Magazine. I linked to the first page, an interview with Ron Shelton. Day 2 is Tim Robbins and Day 3 (today) is Kevin Costner. I was three weeks out of college, had two weeks as a fulltime sportswriter under my (garter) belt. Annie Savoy was -- and still is -- inspiring. There were at least a half-dozen times this youth baseball season I was telling my daughter "Don't think, just pitch." (She would have thought I was nuts if I told her she was breathing out of the wrong eyelid). And at the batting cages on Friday, I wasn't pulling my hips out, but I was turning my hands over.
• Crash's answer to Annie's question "Well what DO you believe?" is still my favorite movie line(s), but "I Believe in the Church of Baseball" is right up there. In part because I can still remember the first time I went to Fenway Park -- walking up the ramp into the bleachers at twilight carrying the book (Sartre) I had to study for the next day's French 201 final. You exit that dingy walkway and the field just bursts into view, green and bright and beautiful. A true church of baseball.
• Finally, not everything I write will touch on Bull Durham. Honest. I just wanted to get something up tonight, meet my goal of posting at least once a week and hey, an anniversary's an anniversary. Check back soon.

-Michelle

Sing the Body Electric

Maybe that should be Sing the Body Digital -- But Walt Whitman was way before digital. For that matter, electricity was pretty new in his day. Uh, let's just say the man was way before his time.

"What position did he play?" "You could say he pitched for the Cosmic All-Stars."

I have found that I can link just about any thought or any situation back to the movie "Bull Durham." (Try me! Or try it yourself!) And of course, early on, when Annie asks Eppie Calvin to stay the night, it's so she can read him poetry. Whitman. "I sing the body electric ..." The next morning, his nickname's Nuke, because reading poetry is more tiring than, well, you know. And if you read the poem, you know why. It's 19th century erotica.

You could look it up.

But I digress. In my house, we sing -- electric, digital, a capella, too loud, whether or not we know the words. In my car alone, I could give the Solid Gold Dancers a run for their lame (read: la-may). And now and then, it's caught on tape. My kids make me laugh every day and today I'm sharing. It's one of those things they'll point to in therapy in a few years, but I like it. In this video, they pay homage to the Go-Betweens with "Surfin' Magazines."