T. Buckingham Thomas

DECEMBER 7, 2014 SNIDELY TWITLASH 3

Snidely’s back! Ho ho hee!

For more than a year, I’ve been monitoring Twitter for the comments of Eric D. Snider, humorist and film critic.

Now the holidays approach. Time for my third gift-wrapped box of tweets.

Is Eric a bearded piano player? Why, yes; yes, he is. But two months ago today, he revealed two other personal characteristics — both of which are “big parts of who I am,” he says. Neither is his Defining Characteristic, but they may be surprising to some of his readers.

UPDATE: Ten years later, Mr. Snider is no longer a movie reviewer.

He's lost his beard and moved from Portland to Provo. And this weekend he's in Kenya! (Beware of wild animals within the hotel precincts.)

Some recent reports are archived for you at Snidely Skeeting 4.

I recall 30 years ago when my father and I visited the home of relatives who had a child. I was surprised to see their living-room floor covered in toys.

Back in my day, I think I had access to one toy at a time. After I tired of it, it went back into the toy chest and another plaything was selected.

On the radio this morning, the conversation was about toy overabundance. Anytime someone visits, they bring along something for the kid, who plays with it that day. Is it thrown away afterwards? No, it's left within easy reach on the floor. Eventually it finds its way into a leaf-bag of small objects out in the garage, to be discarded after the kid has grown up. (No wonder our oceans are becoming polluted with plastic.)

Last holiday season, NBC aired a live broadcast of The Sound of Music. This year they’re doing Peter Pan. It airs Thursday.

Of course, there have been many other versions of Pan over the 110 years since J.M Barrie first wrote a play about Peter’s adventures in Neverland. I remember especially the 1953 Walt Disney movie.

My parents took me to see it at the Palace Theater in Marion, Ohio.

They worried afterward that, with all the sword fighting and such, perhaps the movie had been too violent for their six-year-old son.

The parts that gave me nightmares involved the pirate crew.

I don't mean the jovial scenes where a piratical chorus line sang yo-ho-ho and waved Jolly Roger flags.

I mean the disturbing scenes where an uncontrollable mob of murderous outlaws came charging threateningly toward me, angrily brandishing their deadly steel.

Once can hope that NBC’s production will be a bit more friendly toward impressionable children than Disney’s was.

It was near the end of the last B1G Network football telecast of the regular season. According to the closed captioning, the announcers thanked their replay colleagues who were working in the tapeworm.

A paper I wrote at Syracuse University in 1970 described a survey method that my future employer could use to assess its cable-TV program offerings. It's this month's 100 Moons article.

You may not be interested in the details, but my professor had earned his PhD in applied statistics from Syracuse in 1956 during the waning days of network radio. Therefore I proposed a procedure with which he was familiar: a “telephone coincidental interview.” Each call would begin with the old-fashioned question, “This is Marion Audience Surveys; do you have a television set?” (Not everyone did in 1956.) Then, “Is it on right now?” Then, “Could you tell me what channel you're watching?”

After I was hired in Marion, a related method found a 7% rating for our morning talk show in 1972. But this technique doesn't work very well nowadays.

Brian Klaas writes: “In an age of caller ID and smartphones, along with persistent junk and nuisance calls, few people answer when they see unfamiliar numbers. Take, for example, a 2018 New York Times poll within Michigan's Eighth Congressional District. The Times pollsters had to call roughly 107 people just to get one person to answer their questions. What are the odds that those rare few who answered the phone are an unskewed, representative sample of likely voters? Zilch.”

At Marion in 1970, I optimistically assumed we might be able to get responses from 400 cable subscribers, but even then there would be a significant margin of error. I remarked, “The users of this survey should be cautioned not to take the results too literally. That figure showing three thousand people in the total audience really means that the total audience is between 2,000 and 4,000.”

For the 2024 Presidential election, “while most of the polling industry was wrong, we got it right,” James Johnson and Tom Lubbock of J.L. Partners boasted in the Wall Street Journal. They claimed their firm was one of only two of the top 10 major pollsters to predict a Donald Trump victory. “Traditional polling methods rely on random-digit phone polling and online polling, but these are biased toward college-educated Democrats who are more likely to be politically engaged, work from home, and have free time to chat with pollsters. Our mix of text message surveys and in-app polls that survey voters as they shop or play games were better fit to capture the opinions of people who are largely disengaged from politics.”

Later on in the 100 Moons article, you'll see the results of a non-coincidental opinion survey that I conducted in 1973. This yielded some interesting results, such as a 15.7 rating for local country singer Smiling Eddie's weekly show: 20 of 127 respondents said they watched, at least sometimes.

However, as far as I remember, these numbers led to no actual programming decisions.

When I was a boy, a television program was brought to me by a single sponsor. For example, Dinah Shore’s variety show was sponsored exclusively by Chevrolet, and the closing credits ran over Chevy’s theme song.

When I was a young man, advertisers realized that not everyone watched Dinah, so it was better to spread their message around to different audiences by buying “spots” in several different programs. But there were rules. For example, no more than one competing car company could buy time in a given show.

Also when I was a young man, CBS decided viewers deserved to be updated about news that broke between Walter Cronkite at 7 pm and their local newscast at 11. The network introduced, right in the middle of prime time, a 30-second headlines update. It was anchored by Connie Chung, as I recall. Almost immediately, however, the local stations claimed this time. At first, like CBS, they used it to inform us about stories that would be covered in more detail at 11. But then they stopped giving us any facts at all. The “newsbriefs” became merely teases — promos to whet our curiosity so we would tune in at 11 to find out what was happening.

Now that I'm an old man, the automotive sector is very competitive, and every car company wants to buy advertising. On a show last night, when the two-minute window for local commercials came along, I first saw the station’s weatherman. “There’s a big storm coming. Will you have to change your Thanksgiving travel plans? Join us at 11 to find out.” And then an announcer said, “This news update is brought to you by Chrysler, imported from Detroit.”

Fair enough. That was immediately followed by a car commercial, which I assumed would be for Chrysler. But no, when they finally got around to identifying the product it turned out to be Infiniti. Then there was a commercial for Chevrolet. And then there was a commercial for Nissan.

Four competing advertisers, back to back! How is a viewer supposed to know which car to buy?

I found another picture that could depict me calling my first football “broadcast” in 1965.

Actually, the photo is from a later season. But I did once take my tape recorder up to the roof of that high school pressbox. My contemporary recollection is here.

At least I didn't have to try to decipher those horrible reflective-gold uniform numbers that Notre Dame was wearing last night.

To another article, I've added recent quotes about football in the snow.

And this pair of memories now includes photos of Chick Hearn, Michael Cooper, Pat Riley, and Jack Bright.

On March 5, 1962, a famous New York City music venue was the scene for the taping of a television special called “Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall.” It aired on CBS three months later, and I sat down with my parents to watch on Monday, June 11.

I was familiar with both of the stars.

During Julie Andrews' run as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady on Broadway, she had portrayed Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella on CBS in 1957. We'd all heard her recordings.

I knew Carol Burnett from The Garry Moore Show, and the very next night I archived comedy portions of that CBS program using my audio tape recorder.

Three years later, Julie would star in the movie version of The Sound of Music. My mother and I attended a showing, and I remember her sniffling towards the end. In the 1962 TV show, that musical was parodied. The Von Trapp family became “The Pratt Family from Switzerland.”

I remember reading a review of the TV show in the next day's newspaper. The writer mostly liked it, although he thought that the choice of a nursery rhyme for Julie's big solo was a waste. The other problem, he said, was Carnegie Hall. With an audience much larger than one would find in a TV studio, there were enormous waves of laughter and applause rolling in all night long.

I can still recall a few details. In a medley of Broadway tunes, the singing of “I Cain't Say No” from Oklahoma! ended with the English half of the duo confessing “I cahn't ... say ... cain't.”

And the splashy production number, from the musical The Most Happy Fella, celebrated Dallas (“Big D”).

The orchestra members were simply sitting there watching, which means that the music was prerecorded (not unusual in TV). The song ended with a gunshot.

Sadly, I was reminded of “Big D” when the Texas city was the scene of a national tragedy less than eighteen months later.

I always wondered about the slogan used by an Ohio jam maker: “With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good.”

#1 Do they mean that they’re saddled with a founder’s name so unimpressive that they have to overcome that handicap by producing a superior product? “With a name like Wurst, we’ll never be able to sell anything unless it’s the best.”

#2 Or do they mean that their company has earned such a high reputation that they have to meet that expectation of excellence? “With a name like Rolls-Royce, we can’t afford to let our customers down.”

Those schmucks at the company claim the original connotation was #1 but has now grown into #2.

Once upon a time, my job involved calling up TV graphics for specific football players. How did I tell them apart? By their uniforms.

I grumbled if two teammates dared to wear the same number.

For example, when Clemson narrowly defeated Pitt yesterday, these two Tiger starters were in the thick of the action: linebacker Barrett Carter and wide receiver Antonio Williams.

(Incidentally, why has 0 become so macho? Zero is not a number. It's the lack of a number.)

0 - BARRETT CARTER ... 0 - ANTONIO WILLIAMS .

I can imagine Carter lowering his helmet to make an illegal tackle. The referee announces, “Personal foul. Roughing the passer, with targeting, defense #0. Fifteen-yard penalty, first down. #0 is disqualified.” And then later when Clemson sends in its offense, because #0 has been disqualified I can imagine Williams also being barred from the field.

Lilly Householder is a good student at a high school near me — tall, athletic, and the captain of the girls soccer team. According to the Valley News Dispatch, she's been offered an athletic scholarship at a Division I college, Eastern Michigan University, and she's accepted.

But it's for the rowing team, and she's never pulled an oar! “Lilly said she has learned that it's common for college rowing coaches to recruit athletic students who are non-rowers, because it's easier to teach the technique of rowing instead of breaking the bad habits a rower might have picked up before college.”

What does rowing look like? Here an ancient Egyptian directs his team, consisting of four oarsmen plus a coxswain standing at the rudder.

Compared to the Egyptians, the Romans developed a more realistic style of illustrating sports.

I highlight their detailed mosaics in an article called The Games at Nennig .

Decades ago, studies seemed to show that a little alcohol was better for you than none at all. The French Paradox refers to the notion that drinking red wine might explain the relatively low rates of heart disease among the French. But a new analysis confirms what many scientists have been saying for years: The old theory is bunk.

Researchers looked at 107 published studies comparing alcohol intake and longevity. The questionnaires asked, “Do you drink? How much?” Setting aside the heavy drinkers, the other replies could be sorted into three categories:

Yes, I drink in moderation. / I used to drink, but now I'm an old boozer with other health problems and I had to quit. / I never touch the stuff,

The alcohol industry has been happy to note that the moderate drinkers above the red line live longer than the nondrinkers below. The latter group includes teetotalers but also abstaining alcoholics and other sick folks.

But now we're drawing another line, and we notice that the people current and former drinkers above the blue line do not live longer than the lifelong abstainers below.

“Estimates of the health benefits from alcohol have been exaggerated, while its harms have been underestimated,” concludes Tim Stockwell from the University of Victoria in The Guardian. Heavy drinkers, consuming maybe five drinks per day, may lose approximately two years of life.

“It’s often been thought that wine is something special, that alcohol in wine somehow has magic properties. It was just a publicity coup for the wine industry three decades ago. The evidence doesn’t hold up.”

The TV behind me was tuned to a college football game. I heard a commercial come on, but there were no words, only a mournful dirge being played softly by a brass choir. I wondered who died.

Later, I heard the somber music again, and I bestirred myself to turn and actually look at the screen. The commercial turned out to be a recruiting spot for the United States Marine Corps.

During the Vietnam War, I was in college. Soldiers and Marines, many of them my age, many of them drafted against their will, were being cruelly sentenced to suffer and die in the jungles of Southeast Asia. To me, therefore, the scenes in the commercial did not have the desired effect.

I saw footage of serious-faced sweaty men and one or two women, swinging from ropes in basic training and handling deadly weapons on a battlefield. A row of young people, formerly individuals but now wearing identical dress uniforms, stood stiffly at attention. Armored personnel carriers tore recklessly across a meadow. Silhouetted helicopters flew toward an apocalyptic sunset.

As noted, this peaceful senior citizen was repulsed by these scenes. I have never wanted to sweat, nor stand at attention, nor kill, nor destroy. I have never wanted to go to war.

But I am not the commercial’s target audience. It’s aimed at young people who aspire to be proud Marines. Fortunately for our country, there have been more than a few such brave souls, now veterans, who have been inspired to do the work that I’m glad not to have to do.

NOVEMBER 8, 2024
SNOUT RINGS AND INK

Farmers attach iron rings to cattle, from what I understand, so the animals can be controlled. They can literally be led around by the nose.

And some livestock is branded or tattooed to identify the owner.

Also, a ring in a pig's snout discourages the animal from rooting around in the dirt.

For humans, cosmetics are fine in moderation. But it's always bothered me to see a pretty woman deface her face with a a ring through her nose. The same goes for metal decorations piercing her ears, or eyebrows, or lips, or cheeks, or tongue. Not to mention tattoos. Who would care to caress a countenance thus deliberately mutilated?

However, it turns out that septum rings have long been considered beautiful jewelry.

In Genesis 24, we read that Abraham instructed his servant to purchase a wife of the proper ethnicity for his son Isaac. To do so, the servant needed to travel to Abraham's ancestral home.

There the servant found a virgin named Rebecca, put a gold ring through her nose and gold bracelets on her wrists, and asked to spend the night at her house.

When he delivered Abraham's proposal to her family, they couldn't object. They said, “If this is from the Lord, we can say nothing to you one way or the other.”

The servant brought out more costly gifts to seal the deal, and Rebecca mounted her camel.

There are a few additional Biblical references to nose rings, not all favorable. In particular, Proverbs 11:22 tells us that “A beautiful woman without good sense is like a gold ring in a pig's snout.”

As a retired graphics guy for televised sports, I know there are many numerical parameters that attentive fans like to know.

For example, this hockey scoreboard has spaces to display 14 numbers! (Of the home team's seven shots on goal, six went into the net. Bad goalie.)

There are five countdown clocks — one for the time remaining in the period, and the others showing how long until penalized players can be released from the penalty box.

But these are digital clocks, a relatively recent technology. How were such times displayed in the old analog days?

I've seen photos from the third of four New York City arenas called Madison Square Garden, namely the building that was in use from 1925 to 1968.

In the fuzzy background of these pictures, like these from about 1947 (seven years before the 24-second shot clock was introduced), I couldn't help noticing half a dozen round objects attached to the façade of Press Row on the front of the first balcony.

They look like clocks. I haven't found a written explanation of them, but by careful examination of the photos I believe I've figured out what was going on. I think each dial had a single hand which made a circuit in four, one, twenty, two, two, and two minutes respectively.

The first clock on the left appears to be a late addition, numbered 3 2 1 0. But what sport needs to time four-minute periods? Boxing, of course. After each three-minute round there's a one-minute break, and the hand can just continue moving counterclockwise.

The next two clocks appear to be illuminated from behind while they're timing a period

One has a second hand, numbered 50 40 30 20 10 0.

The other has a minute hand numbered 15 10 5 20. It circles once during a 20-minute college basketball half or a 20-minute hockey period. That makes it three times easier to read than a traditional 60-minute hand. In the large photo above, we can see (more or less clearly) that there are eight seconds and ten minutes, or 10:08, remaining in the half.

The remaining three clocks are numbered 1½ 1 ½. I assume they're for timing hockey's two-minute minor penalties.

So these circles can display the various times involved in boxing, basketball, and hockey. But that still doesn't make them score boards. Where's the score?

This election season, Bloomberg reports that Pittsburgh TV viewers have been subjected to more political ads than viewers in any other TV market in the United States. Also, we Pennsylvanians have found many cards like this in our mailboxes. The cards don't influence my choice of candidates, and they usually go straight into the trash. But this one that arrived yesterday caught my eye due to its utter negativity. “On November 5th vote against the worst candidate for Attorney General,” it screams. The three complaints against him include that he's a “career politician.” He might put that another way: he's devoted his life to public service.

On the back, the card proclaims that another candidate “should not be our Auditor General” and a third is “unfit to be Treasurer.” All are Democrats. The card denouncing these “radical progressives” was paid for by the Commonwealth Leaders Fund. It does not mention the opponents whom the Fund prefers nor explain how they would be better.

Remember when candidates optimistically pledged to do good things for us if elected? Remember when they spent their money telling us why we should vote for them, not why we should vote against the other guys? Times have changed, it appears.