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The Art of Mangold Hurling
This is not a Dr. Seuss book, but a match made in the world of international root tossing. I’ve written twice now about my passion for the International Rutabaga Curling Championship at the Ithaca Farmer’s Market. Well, this week, the commissioner of the Rutabaga Curl was contacted by the Acting Chairman of the Ancient Order of Sherston Mangold Hurlers. Nope, I’m not making this up. Apparently we’re not alone in our love for the sport of root vegetable throwing. However, unlike the 14 year history of Rutabaga Curling, Mangold Hurling dates way back to the 18th century. Sadly, despite this rich history, Sherston represents the only remaining functioning Order in the UK with an annual hurl.
Well not only did the Sherston Mangold Hurlers reach out, but they invited a delegation of Ithaca Rutabaga Curlers to visit Sherston for their competition in October, in exchange for a return delegation for our December event. And it sounds like the wheels are already in motion for the trip. How great is that? Thanks for the outreach Sherston. It’s nice to know that we have a brotherhood across the pond. We look forward to hosting you later this year.
A video of the 2009 Sherston Hurl:
Three months into parenthood today, and over the last two weeks we’ve had a lot of fun watching Eli discover his voice. What started as some loud yelping, has begun to turn into laughter and some pretty unique ‘words.’ His favorite so far seems to be “Angooh.” We’re still working out the translations for his chatter. Below is a video from today. He sounds a little like a parrot, no?
This was our last weekend before Rachel’s return to work and we wanted to spend it as a family somewhere warmer than upstate NY in January. So we took a short trip down to Sarasota, Florida to the home of Eli’s late great-grandparents on my mother’s side of the family.
Every morning we took the same 3 mile walk my grandparents used to take for years together. We visited our Aunt Irene, and introduced Eli to his great-grandfather’s 100 year old friend Johnny Pipers. At my grandfather’s funeral, it was Johnny Pipers that brought the tears out when he whispered, “I lost my best friend.” We were invited to a happy hour with my grandparents’ old friends from the community. The universal topic of conversation from those friends was that of the devotion and love between my grandparents. And as if to reinforce the topic, I found a huge box of letters that my grandmother kept in her closet. The box held love letters and poems that my grandfather had written to her for over 60 years.
Eli- If this blog is still up and running by the time you can read and understand what I’ve written, know that on this weekend in 2010, you visited the home of two people I miss very much. Two people that I really wish you could have known, and would have loved to meet you. Now I hope your mother and I can be even close to the model of love and friendship that these two were.
Oh…the picture. Yeah, that was your mom’s idea.
If you’re avoiding seeing ‘Precious‘ because the movie seems too heavy or depressing, do yourself a favor and go anyway. Yes, it’s heavy. We saw it on Friday at Cinemapolis with an audience discussion after the film. And by the time the movie was over, Rachel had a splitting headache and the whole audience needed a collective deep breath. But as disturbing as the story is, it forced me to think about a side of our communities often overlooked as someone else’s problem. This movie strips that away. It forces you to look, and forces you to feel the emotion of domestic abuse. Our discussion after the film featured a school psychologist, a community organizer and a member of our local advocacy center for domestic violence. Nobody left the theater after the film. 20 people stood up and spoke about what this film meant to them. How often does a movie bring out that kind of reaction?
The film itself was incredibly well done. The acting across the board was outstanding. Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) and Mo’Nique (The Mother) deserve academy awards. Lenny Kravitz and Mariah Carrey suprised me. My only complaint was with the casting of Paula Patton for the teacher. She’s beautiful, she’s a good actress, and she did a fine job with the role. But she didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the movie. She looked like she was ready for a modeling shoot in every scene. And then one of our audience members noted that in the book ‘Push’ which the movie is based on, the teacher is heavy with much darker skin and dreadlocks. In the book, Precious relates to this teacher in large part because of her looks. I wonder why the producer took the liberty to change the look of this central character so much. Perhaps because Precious herself wanted that type of body and light skin? Regardless, it came across as a mistake in an otherwise near-flawless movie. Oh, and the movie ends on a fairly positive note. So don’t worry about walking out and needing counseling. Just go see it. Two heavy thumbs up.
The Real Mandela & Pienaar
Rachel and I went to our first movie at a theater since parenthood. We were planning on seeing An Education, but the theater was closed. So in a late change, we went with a recommendation from my mother and saw Invictus at another Cinema. And while our initial Netflix rating would have been a three star out of five, the movie has been nagging at me ever since. It’s a similar feeling I had after watching two of Eastwood’s other films (Mystic River and Gran Torino). They were dramatic, they were well shot, they had emotional music, and they had a feel of grandeur. But something was missing. When I told my mom this, she said I was too critical. I actually conceded that she was probably right. I mean, like I said, this was our first visit to a theater since the baby. I’m a little edgy, with the lack of sleep. And the person in the seat behind me was chewing the ice in her fountain soda. So maybe the film really was great, and I was just in a bad place while watching it. But then my favorite sports columnist weighed in on the exact subject and I’m pretty sure he nailed my frustration with the film.
Read Bill Simmons’ review of Invictus HERE (as well as his selection for top sports movies of the decade)
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