Game Change

“Tell everybody waiting for Superman
That they should try to hold on best they can
He hasn't dropped them, forgot them or anything
It's just too heavy for Superman to lift.”
Flaming Lips, “Waiting for a Superman”

Perhaps inspired by the Flaming Lips (I know I am a huge fan), Davis Guggenheim titled his documentary on failures in American education “Waiting for Superman.” It portrays several students hoping to win a lottery that would allow them to attend Harlem Children’s Zone, a charter school. I do not think charter schools are a panacea, and advocates of public education criticized the documentary for claiming that money is not the answer while virtually ignoring the fact that public schools are woefully underfunded and that Harlem Children’s Zone received scads of private money.

IU senior guard Verdell Jones injured his knee during a victory against Penn State in the Big Ten tournament. It might be a game changer in terms of how they’ll do in the NCAA “March Madness.” They’re seeded number five. Realistically, however, the team probably was a year away even with Jones healthy, but potential superstars Jeremy Hollowell, Kevin Ferrell, and Hanner Perea are among the 2012 recruiting class that experts rank as one of the nation’s best.

Anne Balay needed boxes to help her parents move into an assisted living apartment, so I offered her a half-dozen empty Steel Shavings containers. How sad when the ravages of time force seniors to give up their independent lifestyle, and they become a burden to their children. Wayne Coyne supposedly wrote “Waiting for a Superman” for the album “The Soft Bulletin” while his father was critically ill.

In a trivia game at a Chicago bar Brian O’Camb correctly knew the population of the fictional town Twin Peaks: 51,201. Creators David Lynch and Mark Frost wanted it to be 5,120, but ABC feared a backlash from those thinking it was poking fun of rural yokels.

Fellow grad student David Goldfield can’t attend Ray Smock’s lecture; he will be in Greece and was sorry to be missing it. I called Walker Rumble, whom I hadn’t heard from in many years, and he replied, “What splendid news about Ray. It would be worth a plane ticket to hear him speak in that droll way he had.” Ray commented: “I never heard anyone describe my speaking style as ‘droll.’ Sometimes a new perspective is a good thing. Droll has a positive connotation in ‘dry amusement’ and a negative one in ‘buffoon.’ Let’s hope I lean more toward dry amusement than to the alternative.” I told him, “I believe droll is a positive adjective. I think of Walker Rumble as droll and am sure he saw it as an admirable trait. Like with Jean Shepherd, there remains in you a Region (Harvey, IL) quality that rebels against stuffiness and pomposity. But that does not interfere with your seriousness of purpose or good political judgment.” Ray responded, “You are too kind. But I accept your interpretation of droll. It is a Harvey characteristic, now that you mention it. And Tip O’Neill always said, ‘never forget where you came from.’” Ray was House historian when Tip was Speaker and sparring with Reagan in a valiant effort to save liberal programs of the previous quarter-century.

A driver rammed into four Lake County officers, wounding three of them and killing Deputy Britney Meux, the mother of a five-month-old daughter Savannah. A Lew Wallace graduate and former marine, Britney was also working on a degree at Calumet College. Realizing that he was the object of an extensive manhunt, the 42 year-old driver after consulting a lawyer turned himself in. He evidently has a history of alcohol-related violations. Officer Delano Scaife is still in critical condition.

Henry Farag sent me a short story called “Spit Shine” about getting one’s shoes just right before going to dances at Chapel of the Dunes in Miller during the 1950s. I told him my niece Lisa and I were going to the Star Plaza concert featuring Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt and, working with Tina Gibson at the box office, he arranged for us to have third row center seats. Tina is a former student, and her husband John is with IUN’s Business division.

Lisa and I decided to have a drink at Old Chicago, located near the Star Plaza. I dropped Lisa off at the door with instructions to find, if possible, a stool or two at the bar while I parked. I grabbed the only space left and found at least 50 people waiting to be seated. Fortunately Lisa had somehow secured a small table in the bar area for us. Arriving at the concert, a lady scanning our tickets said they were invalid. Fortunately Tina was at the box office and straightened things out on the fourth try. It was pretty funny how we kept getting turned back. We found our seats just as manager Charley Blum was finishing a spiel about coming attractions.

On stage were two chairs and three guitars, and Lyle and John played without any backup band. They exchanged banter, often related to Hiatt being a Hoosier (from Indianapolis) and took turns doing songs. Dressed in his trademark suit and tie, Lyle basically just sat smiling while Hiatt performed, but John often strummed or sang harmony during Lovett’s songs, which were mostly from his new CD “Release me.” Hiatt did many of his familiar hits – “Perfectly Good Guitar,” “Have a Little Faith in me,” “Tennessee Plates” – but they sounded different without a rockin’ band backing him. It was a great show. I tended to favor Hiatt, and Lisa liked Lyle best. Saturday morning I made blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs for breakfast, and we all enjoyed Lisa’s company.

I gave a copy of Traces magazine to Michael Chirich, and he joked about the cover photo of Karl Malden. I knew by the nose that it was a Serbian, he joked. A Serbian himself, Michael is friends with tamburitza maker Milan Opacich, who has known the Sekulovich family for decades.

I finished “The Hunger Games.” Phil called just as Clove was about to carve up Katniss’s face. Fortunately Thresh, of all people, came to her rescue. The author's target audience may have been teenage girls, but the book totally kept my attention. It’s about time young adult fiction feature strong female characters. The villains in the story are those in power at Panem, the Capitol, who force most people to live like slaves and stage an annual survival contest for their own sport. The Harvard Lampoon put out a parody of Suzanne Collins’s book called “The Hunger Pains.”

“Game Change” debuted on HBO and was riveting. Julianne Moore had Sarah Palin nailed and manages to make her sympathetic, while Woody Harrelson was superb as campaign manager Steve Schmidt. Even though Republican candidate John McCain refused to resort to demagoguery against Obama in the 2008 election, he is called to account for agreeing to select an essentially clueless person to be his running mate. With the Bush administration so unpopular and Republicans reeling from big losses in the 2006 election, McCain’s handlers thought that a woman on the ticket might be a “Game Changer” in terms of attracting women resentful over Hillary Clinton not getting the Democratic nomination. While it was fun seeing Palin baffled by questions from Katie Couric, the real villains in the affair were the political operatives whose negligence put the nation at risk by elevating such an incompetent to a position just a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

Roger Ebert loved “Game Change” and thought it portrayed Palin somewhat sympathetically. He concluded that she “lacked the preparation or temperament to be one heartbeat away from the presidency, but what she possessed in abundance was the ability to inflame political passions and energize the John McCain campaign with star quality.”

James stayed overnight because Becca had a Sunday tryout for “Annie.” We got him to play Sharpshooters, a dice game. After losing the first three games, I won Revolution, a blind bidding game, with a strategy of becoming the Spy and the Priest during early rounds, which allowed me to control the cathedral and to replace an opponent’s piece with one of my own. I ended up controlling three areas.

On March 11, 1940, Hollywood writer John Monk Saunders hanged himself in his Florida home. A pilot during WW I, he was once married to actress Fay Wray. Thinking it would be nice to marry her, playwright Clifford Odets wrote in his diary: “She is mature, adult, a real woman, womanly in a lovely way, very loyal beautiful. Then what am I waiting for?” Answer: “guarantees, like any American boob with pragmatic eyes. Will it work? Will I be happy?”

Chancellor Lowe announced that Chris Young is a Founders Day award finalist along with Subir Bandyopadhyay (Business), Michael LaPoite (Biology), and Diana Larson (Computer Information). Chris also made it into FACET. What a good hire he was for the History Department and an all-around nice guy.

The Merillville History Book Club book for March is about Timbuktu, located on the southern edge of the Sahara dessert near the Niger River in present-day Mali. Marq De Villiers and Sheila Hirtle note that the phrase “from here to Timbuktu” denoted a mysterious, faraway place. Originally founded by nomads, during the thirteenth century it was a major trade center for gold, ivory, and slaves and became an Islamic scholarly center under Sultan Mansa Musam. Its importance declined after the Portuguese demonstrated that it was easier to sail around Africa’s southern tip than to cross the “Dark Continent” by land. Conquered by Moroccans during the fifteenth century and by the French in 1893, at present, though independent of foreign domination, the dusty city is a shell of its former self and relies on tourists for its sustenance.