NFL 2021: The Eagles sour candy the Falcons

When was the last time the Atlanta Falcons did not start the first quarter with great momentum and excellent game-play offensively and defensively only to stumble (even when no sacks or interceptions occur), lose energy traction, and steadily spiral into a score deficit by the middle of the third quarter that could not realistically be overcome?

The Philadelphia Eagles were in Atlanta today and sure showed the Falcons which team’s new head coach could sleep a bit more restfully tonight.  The Eagles’ head coach Nick Sirianni may or may not have deliberately saved his players’ best athletic moves for the second half of the game, whereas the Falcons’ head coach Arthur Smith was undoubtedly hoping that in the first game of the regular season (played at home no less), that the Falcons would break their aforementioned pattern of starting off strong and progressing with lukewarm outcomes.

The first two quarters of the game demonstrated that each team had the offensive and defensive chops to keep the game-play exciting (nevermind all the penalties in the second quarter), but by the middle of the third quarter, it became evident that an Eagles fan would be having a much better time watching the rest of the game.  Two Falcons field goals were all that Atlanta fans had to grasp onto while Philadelphia fans could pride themselves in four touchdowns (courtesy of wide receiver Devonta Smith, tight end Dallas Goedert, running back Kenneth Gainwell, wide receiver Jalen Reagor) and a two-point conversion (thanks to running back Miles Sanders).  With a minute or so left in the fourth quarter, the Eagles put up a field goal.  32 to 6.  Final score.

Get game summary, stats, and play-by-play here.

The game was televised on Fox.  I very much liked the illustrated player portraits that appeared at various points throughout the game.  Will I be watching the Falcons next week?  Ne ne sais pas, c’est possible.

The upside for both teams after week one is that Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts knows he has a good athletic rapport with his teammates and Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan knows where and how he must improve with his.  It is preferable in a competitive sports environment to strive to be better than it is to endeavor to maintain a certain level of performance, right?

I concur, Darius the Great Deserves Better

I picked up Adib Khorram‘s Darius the Great Is Not Okay a year ago and read it over mid-summer.  The sequel, Darius the Great Deserves Better, came out in hardback a year ago and the paperback a few weeks ago.  I adored the first book, not only for its Bette Davis reference, but also in the way it presented the subjectivity of its title character.  Even when the “ums” became tiresome to read, I still liked Darius and felt really bad for how his classmates treated him.

 

Not Okay follows Darius and his family’s trip to Iran to visit Darius’s mother’s family, Deserves Better continues with the story after they’ve returned home to Oregon.  Darius goes from awkward, self-embarrassed to less awkward, but still a little self-embarrassed.  His “ums” decrease a tad — some of them are replaced with “that’s normal, right?”

Although the first book has better writing overall and addresses the topic of self-identity and multi-culturalism very well, the second book is more “fun” to read because there are more opportunities to separate from the interiority of the main character.  The reader can identify with his troubles without being in his head, even though he is the narrator.  There are also more provocations to talk at the book, at the characters, to say things like, “Because Darius, you like ____.”  And yet, some of the conversations between the characters, whether it’s Darius and his parents or Darius and his friends, pulsate with advice column material.  It’s as though the author came across an high school lit mag with the theme of “how to talk about XYZ with your family and friends.”

This assessment originates from the mind of someone who used Windows 3.1 on the first family computer.  If I were in junior high or high school right now, or even college, would my reception of these two books be different?

Fun fact: I read Randy Ribay‘s Patron Saints of Nothing after finishing Not Okay and waiting for Deserves Better on paperback to be released, and when I got my hands on the latter finally, I kept thinking about Randy Ribay’s book.  Both of the Darius books together generates the same emotional response as Patron Saints of Nothing in their exploration of coming-of-age narratives and themes around family dynamics and ethnic heritages.  Would their protagonists be friends?  Hmmm.

Synchronization of Choreography

C’est merveilleux.  Ma grande prêtresse, elle est merveilleuse.  Lisa from BlackPink is putting out her first solo song a week after Labor Day.  Jennie was the first to do it, then Rose, not sure when Jisoo will get a go at it, but I am so excited for Lisa’s single.  In terms of the music itself, I may or may not be enraptured, but I know the dancing is going to be fantastic (unless the choreography is odd, though, Lisa strikes me as the kind of dancer who can make uninspired or bizarre dance moves look mesmerizingly esoteric). 

Je veux dire, observe the way she moves and the how she looks at the camera.  It feels as if she is looking at me, really, not just at the lens and thus, me:

Objectively, the synchronization of the dance moves in the top video captivates me more than the moves themselves.  I prefer choreography along these lines:

Dreamcatcher practicing:

The Kinjaz performing:

Just Jerk practicing:

And of course, ALiEN (I’ve posted this video before and I’m doing it again parce que je l’adore beaucoup):

Et oui, we must acknowledge the role of editing, lighting, camerawork, wardrobe, hair, makeup, and song selection in the multitude of reactions that these types of dance videos provoke in the viewer.  I realize as well that the vocabulary of all of these dances is similar, but the subtle differences in grammar and punctuation produces enough variation to facilitate a preference for these latter dance crews’ style.

Moreover, the same dance moves will look different depending on who is doing them.  Case in point.  ALiEN did the a choreography demo for the kpop girl-group Itzy.  The majority of the moves are the same, but the results are not.

ALiEN:

Itzy:

Pendant le Weekend

C’est pas ce Weekend.  Je veux dire ce Weekend.

 

As conveyed in my review of her film The Photograph, I adore Stella Meghie‘s writing and filmmaking style.  I saw her film The Weekend (2018) on Amazon Prime a year ago and recently realized that I need to have it on DVD.  I’ve rewatched it twice in the last couple of days and am certain that this film will be one of those movies I rewatch on a quarterly basis.  Rather than try to articulate why Meghie’s film appeals to me so much, let me point you to Lorry Kikta‘s review of it for Film Threat.  The Weekend resonated with Lorry due to similar life experiences.  Although I can’t make that claim to the same extent, I firmly agree with Lorry’s observation that the dialogue “seem[s] exceptionally real, and the dynamic of all the actors seems lived in and not fictional…The Weekend explores all kinds of relationships dynamics in its’ rather short run time, and also manages to have some great cinematography and production design (courtesy of Kris Belchevski and Cindy Chao & Michele Yu respectively) to boot.”

 

Watch it, watch this movie today if you’d like to get out of your head for a bit, laugh a little, and without being in denial regarding the complexities of human interaction.

Des Nuages, Un Parapluie, et quoi d’autres

I used to take a lot of photos with disposable cameras, then a digital camera, and then my phone and share them via this blog, bookface, or emails.  But in the last many years, I haven’t felt the need or desire to take quite so many pictures of things I saw that I thought were cool or to document that I did this thing or I went to this place.  A few recent scattered rainstorms in the metro area have, however, compelled me to capture the moment.

I pulled over to the shoulder to take this one:

This photo was taken in a shopping center:

I happened to look over to the corner of the room the other night during sunset when I saw a rectangular swath of light shining on the handle of this samurai umbrella.  It looks like a tired and lonely samurai, doesn’t it?

~!~

I picked up the September 2021 issue of Military History Magazine and learned about flamethrowers in this interview that Dave Kindy did with Hershel Woodrow “Woody” Williams.  As of August 2021, he is “the last living World War II recipient of [the Medal of Honor]” (14).  Woody Williams relayed to Kindy that it took practice and trial and error to figure out how to use a flamethrower.  When the wind wasn’t blowing in the desired directions, it was highly likely if not certain that he’d lose his eyebrows on account of the flame.  He and his fellow Marines “used 82-octane gasoline in that thing, the same as [they] used in their jeeps and trucks” and because the nozzle sat on the hip, there was no way to aim it (14).

See the man talk about receiving the Medal of Honor:

Read more about him here.