"As you may know [PMD 7/20/2008], my main interest in basketball has to do with the coaches' fashion. Of the coaches in this year's Final Four, none is exactly Jay Wright of Villanova or Kerry Keating of Santa Clara, the current standard-bearers, but Brad Stevens (Butler) and Mike Krzyzewsi (Duke) are sharp dressers, and Tom Izzo (Michigan State) isn't bad. Bob Huggins (West Virginia) brings up the rear, but I mean, West Virginia, what do you expect? Every year lately there has been a 'Runway to the Fashionable Four' fashion competition for the best-dressed coaches in the land, but I haven't been able to locate any information about it this year. Other faves of mine are Billy Donovan (Florida) (although I wish he would wear his jackets at courtside!), Bill Self (Kansas) (sometimes charmingly prone to wild colors), Bruce Weber (Illinois), Mark Gottfried (ex-Alabama) (particularly good at shoe selection), Eric Musselman (ex-NBA), Jim Les (Bradley) (an up-and-comer!), and Steve Alford (New Mexico) (best of all the coaches at rocking patterned sportcoats)."
Here is Alford in one of those sportcoats:
I agree with Animalarium that the animation at the first link below, According to Birds by Linde Faas, is exceedingly lovely; the subtle use of quiet is most appealing.
http://theanimalarium.blogspot.com/2010/03/natural-beauty.html
http://www.animationblog.org/2010/03/linde-faas-volgens-de-vogels-according.html
As much as I dislike film critic Dave Kehr, I will admit he performs a useful service with his DVD review column at the New York Times, in this instance drawing attention to Criterion's new box set of the films of rising Portuguese auteur Pedro Costa:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/movies/homevideo/28kehr.html
Maddie Oatman at The Rumpus sat down for an illuminating interview with photographer Mark Murrmann, whose interests take in prisons, politics, and punk rock:
http://therumpus.net/2010/03/investigations-into-politics-and-punk-the-photography-of-mark-murrmann/
http://markmurrmann.com/home.html
Edward Rothstein at the New York Times puzzles over the troubled mission of science museums:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/arts/artsspecial/18SCIENCE.html?pagewanted=all
....which brings to mind The Onion's hilarious piece, "Science Channel Refuses to Dumb Down Science Any Further":
"Look, we've tried, we really have, but it's simply not possible to set the bar any lower," said a visibly exhausted [Science Channel president Clark] Bunting, adding that he "could not in good conscience" make science any more mindless or insultingly juvenile. "We already have a show called Really Big Things, which is just ridiculous if you think about it, and one called Heavy Metal Taskforce, which I guess deals with science on some distant level, though I don't know what it is. Plus, there's Punkin Chunkin."
"Punkin Chunkin, for Christ's sake," added Bunting, referring to the popular program in which contestants launch oversized pumpkins into the air using catapults. "What more do you people want?"
....As evidence of their refusal to further water down programming, network sources pointed to a number of proposed shows they've abandoned in recent weeks, including an animal-based bungee-jumping program called Extreme Gravity, and Atom Smashers, a series that was was roundly rejected by focus groups as being "too technical" and "not awesome enough."
....While they won't be dumbing down their already crude lineup of shows, Science Channel officials assured viewers that the network will continue to cater to the lowest common denominator and will keep airing embarrassingly base content completely stripped of all intellectual integrity.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/science-channel-refuses-to-dumb-down-science-any-f,2897/
Among notables born on this date are President John Tyler, Monty Python member Eric Idle, baseball pitchers Cy Young and Denny McLain, race horse Man o' War, novelists Ernst Junger (Germany) and Marcel Ayme (France), poets R.S. Thomas (Wales) and Yvan Goll (France/Germany), composer William Walton, film composer Vangelis, and actors Dennis O'Keefe, Warner Baxter, Brendan Gleeson, Arthur O'Connell, and Bud Cort. I posted on O'Keefe today at The Blackboard, relating him to some themes of interest to me:
"Transatlantic? Check. He was in Brit-noirs from 1953, and made four by my count: The Fake, The Diamond, Angela, and Lady of Vengeance. He is listed as co-director on the middle two. Angela was an Italian co-production and was filmed in Italy. O'Keefe also made a Spanish noir, El Aventurero, in 1957 -- bet that's rare!
Early casualty? Check. He died in 1968 at the age of 60.
Interesting career arc? Check. He was an extra for a decade in the Thirties, with many appearances but very few named credits until 1938. He acted under lots of different names until he settled on 'Dennis O'Keefe.' I like the fact that he made three 'city confidential' films in a row in the mid-Fifties: Las Vegas Shakedown, Chicago Syndicate, and Inside Detroit. He appears to have done his share of noir-ish TV episodes. His last feature was a northwoods Canadian indie for which he wrote the screenplay, The Naked Flame (1964).
Menswear moments? Check. He was a good-looking fellow, and nice clothes sat well on him. He's dressed very sharp in The Leopard Man."
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