Can the White Sox do it? Does Chicago deserve it? Does Tim Walz, or Anyone, Care? A conversation with Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg, about the Meaning of Life.
Re: "Old Cary Grant is doing fine. How you?” You missed half the humor. Telegraph companies charged for their service by the number of words in a message. Thus, the apocryphal telegraphic exchange was: "How old Cary Grant?" Reply: "Old Cary Grant fine. How you?"
I heard it many decades ago as “Old Bantu … “ It’s still a catch phrase with my siblings. It also played up the telegraph cost angle, going between two continents.
‘Sox’ is an alternate spelling for ‘socks’, a word we’re all familiar with. But it’s also a chemical shorthand for sulfur oxides, including sulfur dioxide (SO2), which positively stinks.
I'm going to blame Autocorrect for these, but they are lovely: "Time...interviewed," and "tense and taught." I think "tense and taught" is my favorite.
this ALWAYS happens to me. My only consolation is that you are not unique. And I am going to find a way to include "tense and taught" in a sentence someday before I die.
A trick of fate: when I clicked the link to read Roger Ebert's review of John Prine, a crawl on a video panel said that the White Sox had broken their long losing streak.
He mentions a celebrity, that celebrity drops dead. He spends most of the Pool on a losing streak, and the streak goes poof. Gene. Please use your power for Good and not for Ill.
In the play "1776," the resolution on independence passes because James Wilson doesn't want to be remembered as the man who prevented American independence. I always wondered, if American independence never happened, would we remember who prevented it? Would it be that big a deal that there once was a failed movement for independence?
Ah, memories! I loved the Bandwagon, it seemed so quaintly "hometown" at the time. As a Milwaukee native, I can certainly get behind a Badwagon, but I don't count, of course.
I have also had the misfortune to think sitting directly behind the batter was going to be the best seat ever. I haven't flinched and jerked that much since fighting off horseflies at camp one summer.
Bemoan the Chi Sox - You may not be the first National writer to do this- Your previous column FAILED to credit the late, great Jean Shepherd (author of "A Christmas Story", "In God We Trust", "The Phantom of the Open Hearth" "Wanda Hicky's Night of Golden Memories", PBS and WOR radio broadcasts and many humor stories in "Playboy") -- Shep grew up a White Sox fan, in a White Sox fan family. His WOR classic monologue on White Sox fandom is available on Radio Again CD's "Don't Be A Leaf" CD set -- CD # 2 - "The Old Man". I listen to it every time I ride METRO from Fairfax to NATs Park !!! . . . . Incidentally, my love for Jean Shepherd's work is why I so much enjoy you and Dave Barry' s work.
Mauer was a nice hitting catcher. Nice hitter for average, couple batting titles. Not a great catcher, maybe lowest 20% against others who caught as many games. There are hitters not in the HOF. Mauer was similar to a good-hitting middle-fielding middle infielder. He showed in his market. I liked him, for the HOF too, maybe not first ballot, he really didn’t deserve. No problem. Now let’s put in Dale Murphy, Dwight Evans, who were outstanding defensively, nearly outstanding offensively. They deserve it if Mauer did.
I heard a newsreader on no less than WTOP butcher the name Roberto Clemente just as Gene pointed out. Wrote in to protest, he couldn’t have cared less.
One word about the ChiSox, a chronic affliction with which I was all too tormented for years: Reinsdorf. Jerry Reinsdorf is the owner and chief city extortionist who also has the distinction, as owner of the NBA Bulls as well, of running Michael Jordan and coach Phil Jackson out of town, when, in the end, they only managed six NBA titles. Thanks to Reinsdorf and the NFL Bears' ownership, the 100-year-old McCaskey matriarch, her clueless relatives and assorted hangers-on, Chicago became not only the city where quarterbacks went to die (got a shiny new number one overall pick to sacrifice this season), but whole franchises. The only remaining consideration for the Weingarten Race to the Bottom, Baseball Division, is which German word best applies. There's the old standby, Schadenfreude, the pleasure in another's failure. Particularly appropriate for Nats fans. The pseudo-German, Freudenschaden, sorrow at another's success (success as defined here by the malevolent Mr. W) or, Glücksschmerz, another ersatz word, meaning displeasure at another's good fortune. Here, of course, meaning setting the record in futility, held elsewhere previously. How perverse can you get, you ask? Try watching the Sox in um...action.
Re: "Old Cary Grant is doing fine. How you?” You missed half the humor. Telegraph companies charged for their service by the number of words in a message. Thus, the apocryphal telegraphic exchange was: "How old Cary Grant?" Reply: "Old Cary Grant fine. How you?"
Yes! thank you. You beat me to it. I'm really sorry to hear that's apocryphal, but it's still great even so.
I am sure the original joke referenced some politician -- 0ld Earl somebody? Adlai?
I heard it many decades ago as “Old Bantu … “ It’s still a catch phrase with my siblings. It also played up the telegraph cost angle, going between two continents.
‘Sox’ is an alternate spelling for ‘socks’, a word we’re all familiar with. But it’s also a chemical shorthand for sulfur oxides, including sulfur dioxide (SO2), which positively stinks.
Thank you.
Note: The sulfur oxides thing does not extend to Sox that are red.
I can agree to that. What about black?
I'm going to blame Autocorrect for these, but they are lovely: "Time...interviewed," and "tense and taught." I think "tense and taught" is my favorite.
thanks, steph. I have now corrected these, and now your comment looks weird. Muhahaha.
this ALWAYS happens to me. My only consolation is that you are not unique. And I am going to find a way to include "tense and taught" in a sentence someday before I die.
Might want to explore the syntax of sadomasochism for just such a use, with an emphasis on domination.
I was going to ask whether time got the job.
And “old Cary Grand”. Just what did Gene say about autocorrect’s mother?
You beat me to it. I was going to post this after I finished reading the whole thing, but my reading was interrupted by two hours of exercise classes.
Thank you Adam Troy Castro.
A trick of fate: when I clicked the link to read Roger Ebert's review of John Prine, a crawl on a video panel said that the White Sox had broken their long losing streak.
Gene JINXED IT.
He mentions a celebrity, that celebrity drops dead. He spends most of the Pool on a losing streak, and the streak goes poof. Gene. Please use your power for Good and not for Ill.
He’s gone on a lot about certain politicians who’ve proven resistant to his influences.
Certain members of his fanbase would say that is definitive proof that he is anointed by God Himself.
Personally, if any deity were anointing - pouring oil on - somebody, I’d be more concerned about a followup with a lit match.
In the play "1776," the resolution on independence passes because James Wilson doesn't want to be remembered as the man who prevented American independence. I always wondered, if American independence never happened, would we remember who prevented it? Would it be that big a deal that there once was a failed movement for independence?
Ah, memories! I loved the Bandwagon, it seemed so quaintly "hometown" at the time. As a Milwaukee native, I can certainly get behind a Badwagon, but I don't count, of course.
I have also had the misfortune to think sitting directly behind the batter was going to be the best seat ever. I haven't flinched and jerked that much since fighting off horseflies at camp one summer.
Bemoan the Chi Sox - You may not be the first National writer to do this- Your previous column FAILED to credit the late, great Jean Shepherd (author of "A Christmas Story", "In God We Trust", "The Phantom of the Open Hearth" "Wanda Hicky's Night of Golden Memories", PBS and WOR radio broadcasts and many humor stories in "Playboy") -- Shep grew up a White Sox fan, in a White Sox fan family. His WOR classic monologue on White Sox fandom is available on Radio Again CD's "Don't Be A Leaf" CD set -- CD # 2 - "The Old Man". I listen to it every time I ride METRO from Fairfax to NATs Park !!! . . . . Incidentally, my love for Jean Shepherd's work is why I so much enjoy you and Dave Barry' s work.
Mauer was a nice hitting catcher. Nice hitter for average, couple batting titles. Not a great catcher, maybe lowest 20% against others who caught as many games. There are hitters not in the HOF. Mauer was similar to a good-hitting middle-fielding middle infielder. He showed in his market. I liked him, for the HOF too, maybe not first ballot, he really didn’t deserve. No problem. Now let’s put in Dale Murphy, Dwight Evans, who were outstanding defensively, nearly outstanding offensively. They deserve it if Mauer did.
Dewey Evans was arguably one of the best fielding right fielders of all time. And as you noted, he was no slouch in the batter’s box.
I heard a newsreader on no less than WTOP butcher the name Roberto Clemente just as Gene pointed out. Wrote in to protest, he couldn’t have cared less.
One word about the ChiSox, a chronic affliction with which I was all too tormented for years: Reinsdorf. Jerry Reinsdorf is the owner and chief city extortionist who also has the distinction, as owner of the NBA Bulls as well, of running Michael Jordan and coach Phil Jackson out of town, when, in the end, they only managed six NBA titles. Thanks to Reinsdorf and the NFL Bears' ownership, the 100-year-old McCaskey matriarch, her clueless relatives and assorted hangers-on, Chicago became not only the city where quarterbacks went to die (got a shiny new number one overall pick to sacrifice this season), but whole franchises. The only remaining consideration for the Weingarten Race to the Bottom, Baseball Division, is which German word best applies. There's the old standby, Schadenfreude, the pleasure in another's failure. Particularly appropriate for Nats fans. The pseudo-German, Freudenschaden, sorrow at another's success (success as defined here by the malevolent Mr. W) or, Glücksschmerz, another ersatz word, meaning displeasure at another's good fortune. Here, of course, meaning setting the record in futility, held elsewhere previously. How perverse can you get, you ask? Try watching the Sox in um...action.
They were buying petticoats, or whatever women buy.
cute throwback, Ebenezer
The '64 Phillies had a 6 1/2 game lead with 11 to play. And lost 10 of them. Back then, win the pennant and go straight the Series. It STILL hurts.