Sunday, August 12, 2012

The Closing Ceremony Of The 2012th Olympiadic Hunger Games

Through Britain's A Brief History Of Time, when it went from Zoolander to V For Vendetta, launching the tide carrying the H.M.S. Black Pearl captained by Annie Lennox's voice itself, 'tis then I realized I'd already missed the part when Arthur Pendragon accidentally had "relations" with his half-sister, giving birth literally to his hubristic downfall in the name of Mordrid, his biographical son, unleashing the flood that became The Spice Girls, telling us what we want, when every single athlete in the house, all atwitter, exclaimed in a moment of mass hystrionics (keeping with the Mallory spellings here), "What's a 'spice girl'?", and Ryan Seacrest recaps the fortnight's most memorable moments, including but not limited to when NBC couldn't decide whether during primetime viewing to cover Rhythmic Gymnastics, Synchronized Swimming, or The 100 Minute Tin Foil Chew, Bob Costas' face fell off, and was folded up and handed to the Esteemed Representative From Rio, Lancelot Del G'wain von Heydrich ben Meier. [paging those boys from Brazil sfx here]

(The highlight of the evening still being NBC's decision to renew Community, Parks And Rec, and Up All Night. And the weather, of course.)

Full disclaimer: I am and always shall be moved by any and all footage of Freddie Mercury.

13 comments:

Michael said...

Yeah, sure, absolutely NBC. You go right ahead and chop off the appearance by The Who so you can show me an episode of Animal Practice.

David Marlow said...

Whether it was the coverage or my not having access to the other NBC networks, this was the olympics I enjoyed the least. So I just watched Episode 4 of The West, so that I could get really good and depressed.

Michael said...

I watched a little swimming, a little track, and one basketball game (the Gold medal game.) Honest to God Swit, I tear up at the opening ceremonies and the closing ceremonies. I love the concept, I love the pomp, the joyful faces and all that shit. But then come the performance enhancing drugs, and the BMX bicycles (what? WHAT?) and the rhythmic gymnastics and I just lose interest in the event itself.

The West. I friggin' love Ken Burns. A notional treasure. Some call his style maudlin, I call it fuckin' awesomely maudlin. Dayton Duncan is always good for a weepy bit of hand-wringing, William Least Heat-Moon dutifully somber, ...damn I miss Steve Ambrose. When I turned off the TV feed for a few months, I immediately watched, on VHS tape (!!), in order, The Civil War, The War, Lewis & Clark, Baseball & The National Parks: America's Best Idea.~ There are 2 Burns specials that I've missed (until I get my hands on copies or PBS runs them again), Mark Twian and (can't believe I gotta tell you of all people)....Jazz. They're next.

bright said...

How, HOW, was there not an epic Benny Hill chase up and down the Union Jack runways?

David Marlow said...

Then perhaps this may or may not be a pretty good time to tell you that last week in the mail may or may not have arrived Thomas Jefferson and Lewis & Clark? I'm holding off to watch till the winter, for the effect, and also to time them up with the second half of John Adams.

Yes, you missed it, too. It was right before the Dave Allen montage where he was sitting on a stool in the middle of a bombed-out Belfast set, telling racy Catholic nun jokes about birth (and gun) control. There was a lot of booing and such, beneath muffled laughter.

Anonymous said...

Hey I will be on my wayback from Lexington later today and was thinking about having a cup of coffee at The Robert Evans in Piqua. I estimate time of arrival 7 pm-ish. Bright (brightviragoATyahoo)

David Marlow said...

Not ready yet. Plus, I have a thing later. (I have to go speak at a pro-Obama rally in Yellow Springs. Working title: "Hippies Are Almost People Too Already")

Anonymous said...

Ok. When you are you know where to find me. I will also keep asking :). B

David Marlow said...

Then I should probably confess at this time, given the context, that whenever I get frustrated with my lack of patience with regard to my lack of craftsmanship, I take a deep breath and sing Hanson's "Mmmbop". But instead of singing, "Mmmbop!", I sing, "Moonpie!" It should be noted here that I do this also with any and all Spin Doctors songs.

Moonpie would like to go on record as saying that she is vehemently opposed to this practice.

Keifus said...

Holy crap Joe, all I have to say is what the hell happens to the four out of five cancerous shit-encrusted steaks that aren't good enough for WalMart? Probably they up as WalMart ground beef. (Or maybe they're all eaten by that 20% of dentists that doesn't recommend Trident?)

I didn't watch the Olympic opening or closing ceremonies, but I have to agree that there's nothing--nothing!--that Yakety Sax and sped-up film doesn't improve.

A bunch of us are on Facebook, swit. It's a much better experience than I would have thought.

David Marlow said...

3 steaks, WAL*MART steaks, on a WAL*MART-encrusted cutting board: rare, medium, well. And each and every one of these home cooks missed the obvious: YOU BOIL THE RARE ONE FOR THE LEAST AMOUNT OF TIME! JEEZ, GUYS!

Boiling: It's how real americans cook real food for real other americans.

Facebook. In the words of Evil Parallel Universe Spock: "I shall consider it."

Keifus said...

Boiling: it works better for corn than for WalMart ground beef, but on the plus side, it's shown to kill at least 45% of the naturally occurring E Coli.

("Read to by the ghost of Proust." I laughed, I cried.)

You can always photoshop on an evil goatee. Just sayin.

K (who just got reprimanded for laughing out here. Back to misery, I guess.)

rundeep said...

PS Sw. If you come to the Book of Faces, I have started a group called Former Slate Fray Posters. You may post there without fear of reprisal from other people's friends. Or your own.