The Rio Olympics Won (Or Did They?)

Jamaica's Usain Bolt, the greatest sprinter of
all time, winning his 200m final race
with ease over France's Christophe Lemaître,
who received the bronze.

(Wally Skalij/LA Times)

Yesterday marked the final day of the two-week 2016 version of the summer Olympic Games, held this year for the first time in Latin America, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's second largest city. On many levels, the Rio Olympics succeeded; despite concerns before the games began of the federal political crisis marring the global spectacle, the spread of the zika virus, inadequate preparation and shoddy construction, the potential for international terrorism and domestic crime, grave health threats from Rio's extremely polluted bodies of water, and financial constraints so severe that the surrounding Rio de Janeiro State declared it was out of money and could not fund basic functions, the games took place, with only a few obvious hitches. Rio residents' and international critics' concerns, which included public protests about gentrification and displacement; police and state violence; fiscal waste, misuse of funds and corruption; and so much more, received flashes of coverage before the games began, but mostly vanished, particularly on NBC, which mostly limited its focus to shots of Rio's breathtaking landscape, coverage of half a dozen sports--including swimming, diving, beach volleyball, athletic gymnastics, track and field, and synchronized swimming--, treacly redemptive stories about athletes's backgrounds, and events in or near the bustling Olympic village. Thankfully NBC's streaming options were numerous and, though intercut with commercials, mostly fail-safe.

Americans Tianna Bartoletta, English Gardner,
Tori Bowie, and Allyson Felix celebrating
after winning the gold in the women's 4x100 relay
(Wally Skalij/LA Times)

Despite multiple tocsins before the games began, the Olympic events unrolled in a nearly flawless fashion, barring the weather, when and where scheduled. There was no domestic or international terrorism, and crime against visitors, which received some coverage, though it occurred, was nowhere near predicted. Outside of a few reported illnesses during the games, no athletes grew as ill as envisioned based on testing of Rio's toxic waterways. The Opening Ceremonies lacked some of the pyrotechnic dazzle of prior Olympic welcomes, but the skillful use of visual projections, coupled with Brazil's decision to highlight its rich history and  diverse cultural traditions, made up for the technological squeeze. Amidst the usual display of music and dancing, historical pageantry, national chauvinism, and the parade of athletic beauty, viewers encountered the special treat of Tongan flag bearer and taekwondo participant Pita Taufotatua, shirtless and sporting a sheen of coconut oil; unsurprisingly, he created an international sensation, even if he did not win a medal a week later. Brazil's acting president, Michel Temer, earned boos opening night, but he and the country's political situation mostly remained hidden, even if intrepid local and international reporters did not slack on keeping anyone interested knowledgeable about the impeachment proceedings against elected President Dilma Rousseff.

There were a few incidents that represented cause for alarm. One example was the bullets piercing a tent at the equestrian eventing headquarters during the cross country races, though no one was injured; neither the military nor local police could ascertain or explain where the fusillade came from. A man attempting to run onto the women's marathon course was stopped before he could create havoc. There also were robberies on and around various beaches and in the athletes' village, including the theft of the Australian delegation's electronic equipment and some of its mascot-bearing shirts, right before the games began. The most outrageous imbroglio resulted not from imagined threats, however, but from lies told by American swimmer Ryan Lochte and three fellow swimming teammates, who participated early one morning in an act of vandalism at a Brazilian gas station, after which Lochte repeatedly and publicly lied about it. Claiming he and his teammates had been held up at gunpoint and stripped of their wallets and other goods, he sent a chill through the media about participants' safety. Security camera footage, scanning technology and eyewitness testimony revealed Lochte's tale to be just that. Before he could be questioned he fled the country, and now faces criminal charges.

Multiple medal winner Simone Biles carries
the US flag into the Olympic Stadium during
the Closing Ceremonies
(Wally Skalij/LA Times)

The ongoing problem of doping, which had been in the news before the Olympics started, popped up occasionally. A Kyrgyzstan weightlifter was stripped of his bronze medal after tests revealed the presence of strychnine in his system, while athletes from India, Moldova, China and host Brazil were disqualified because of pre-games tests or challenges. Most in the performance enhancing drug spotlight was Russia, whose athletes on prior Olympic and world championship teams had had their reliance of PEDs exposed by a whistleblower earlier this year, and thus sent a reduced squad to Rio, yet still finished fourth in the medal total. Throughout the two week span, The 2008 host, China, finished second in total medals, and the 2012 host, the UK, though still dealing with the aftermath of its withdrawal from the European Union, finished third.

Team USA led all countries with 121 medals, including 46 golds, for which praise must go to US's women athletes, who were pacesetters in a number of sports. The first medal, a gold, of the games, came at the gun of Virginia Thrasher, who won in the women's 10m air rifle. In total, US women won 61 medals, which, if they were there own country, would have placed them fourth. Gold medalists earning praise included the women's gymnastics team, which finished their routines nearly 2 points ahead of competitors, and which included all around champion Simone Biles, who earned 5 medals in total, 4 of them gold (though hateful social media attacks on London all around gold medalist Gabby Douglas's hair and stance during the team medal ceremony marred what would been a coronation for the women tumblers); swimmer Katie Ledecky, who won three individual goals, as well as team gold; swimmer Simone Manuel, who became the first African American woman ever to win an individual Olympic gold in her sport; the US women's basketball team, which dominated, as did the US women's  water polo and eight rowing team; women's freestyle wrestler Helen Maroulis, who finished first in the 117 lbs category; triathlete Gwen Jorgensen, who like all her fellow competitors deserved multiple medals for swimming in the stew of Rio's Guanabara Bay; and 165 lb boxer Claressa Shields, who repeated her pugilistic wins four years after her victory in London.

The US men's 4x400m team, which won the gold:
LaShawn Merritt, Gil Roberts, Tony McQuay,
and Arman Hall (David Verburg ran in
the qualifying heats as well.
(NBC streaming screen capture)

In other sports, although they did not win golds, US women still made a mark. New Jersey-based fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad became the first woman ever to compete in Olympic fencing wearing a hijab. She and her teammates would go on to win a bronze in team sabre competition.  US cyclist Sarah Hammer won a silver in the women's omnium race, an event I'd never watched before but found enthralling, and Alise Post won a silver in the women's cycling BMX race, which was as wild and rugged as it promised. In some cases, US women's teams or athletes who had dominated in prior years faced stiffer competition this year, but still took home medals; this was the case for the US women's beach volleyball duo, indoor volleyball team, and some of the swimmers, though in the pool the US women and men repeatedly set the pace. (And yes, Michael Phelps, that natatory Methuselah, won two individual goals, one silver, and three relay golds, in his fourth straight Olympics, to raise his all-time total to an astonishing 23 gold medals, three silvers, and two bronzes, making him the most decorated Olympic athlete ever.)

In track and field, the US women shone like supernovas. Dalilah Muhammad became the first US woman ever to win the 400m hurdles, and her teammate Ashley Spencer earned bronze. In the 100m hurdles,  Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali, and Kristi Castlin swept all three medals. The 4x100m and 4x400m teams also won, with the former successfully protesting interference during a heat, which required them to re-run the race all by themselves on the track. They produced the fastest time among the semifinalists. US women won on the field, and their victory in the relay finale allowed Allyson Felix to win her 9th track and field medal, tying her with Jamaican sprinter Merlene Ottey, while also handing her the sixth and most gold medals of any competing women track athlete in history. On the opening night of the track events, Michelle Carter became the first American woman ever to win the gold in the women's shot put (and followed in the footsteps of her father, Michael Carter, a silver medalist in the same event at the LA Olympics in 1984). A few days later, in the women's long jump, Tianna Bartoletta and Brittney Reese finished first and second. Where they did not win gold, the American women nabbed silvers and bronzes in a number of events (100m, 400m, pole vault, 1500m, etc.).

US swimmer Katie Ledecky, outpacing
the field in her 800m race, in which she
set a new world record.
(Robert Gauthier/LA Times)

One of the pole stars of this year's track and field races, and of the entire games, was Jamaica's Usain Bolt, who won his third consecutive golds, almost effortlessly, in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m races. In fact, Bolt looked so dominant that the seemed never to be breaking a sweat. He will easily go down as the greatest sprinter of all time, a runner of power and panache, who reset the template for what was possible. Watching him, it struck me that if he decided to continue competing, rather than retiring, he might even trounce competitors in Tokyo 4 years from now. His fellow sprinters, including several young Jamaicans, Americans, and Bahamians, will thank the gods every day if he holds to his promise to speed off into the horizon. Jamaica's dominance in the sprints was evident as well in the figure of Elaine Thompson, who won the 100m and 200m, with a smile, dethroning her countrywoman Shelly-Ann Fraser-Price, the incumbent 100m champion, who took bronze. A third Jamaican, Omar Price, won the men's 110m hurdles, and was met, unfortunately, with homophobic commentary on social media back home. With the long distance races, Kenya again showed its mastery. Kenyan men and women medaled in the women's & men's marathon (both gold), women's & men's 10,000m (both silver), women's (gold and & silver) 5000m, women's (silver) and men's (gold) 3,000m steeplechase, women's 1500m (gold), women's (bronze) and men's 800m (gold), and, a first, the men's 400m (silver) and javelin (silver).

There were many great stories across a number of the competitions, perhaps beginning with host Brazil's Rafaela Silva, a native of the local favelas and an out lesbian, who received her country's first gold of the games in judo. Silva had competed in London, lost and received a bombardment of racist hate online, causing her to fall into a deep depression. She fortunately did not give up hope or determination, and ended up anchoring the 19 medals Brazil ultimately won. Another remarkable local story was that of Bahian canoer Isaquias Queiroz, known to Brazilians as "Sem Rim" (Without a Kidney). Queiroz won 3 medals, two silvers and a bronze, despite competing with only one kidney, and having triumphed over near-death three times, which included being kidnapped and trafficked and falling hard on a rock, splitting one of his kidneys in half, before he was 10 years old.  Brazilians also won golds in the pole vault, women's volleyball, men's beach volleyball, boxing, sailing, and, to national relief, men's soccer. To make it even sweeter, they defeated Germany, which had humiliated their hosts 7-1 in an elimination match at the 2014 World Cup.

USA's Kevin Durant and Jimmy Butler
celebrate after winning the gold medal
match. (Wally Skalij/LA Times)

Puerto Rico, facing one of the greatest social and economic trials in its recent history, was able to celebrate tennis player Mónica Puig, who defeated a raft of highly ranked competitors to take the women's individual gold medal, her country's sole prize in Rio. In the first Olympic appearance of rugby sevens, one of my favorites this time around, Fiji, which also won no other medals, finished first, with the inventor of the game, the UK, taking the silver, and a spunky South African side winning bronze. A black Ukrainian* Greco-Roman wrestler, Zhan Beleniuk, took the silver in the men's 85 kg competition. There was also the moving story of the Independent Olympic Athletes, who competed under no flag; one, Fehaid Aldeehani, won gold in the men's shooting double trap competition, while another, Abdullah Alrashidi, took bronze in men's skeet. Also moving was witnessing what might have been the final Olympic appearance of former gold medal winner Venus Williams, who did not advance in the individual competition or in doubles with her sister Serena, fresh off her Wimbledon victory, but did win a silver medal with mixed-doubles partner Rajeev Ram, losing to another US pair, Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Jack Sock.

(*Who knew there were black people in Ukraine? And they don't have an easy time of it, unsurprisingly.)

These games featured 53 out LGBTQ athletes, the most ever. Some, like British diver Tom Daley and US basketball star Brittney Griner, were famous as out gay pathblazers. Others, like her teammate Elena Delle Dona, came out publicly right before heading to Rio. 47% of the out gay athletes actually earned medals, and several, including British boxer Nicola Adams, won gold. Still others, who were not out, however, were nearly exposed, with dangerous consequences, when a British Daily Beast reporter decided to masquerade as a gay man, trawl for hookups, and then wrote a snarky, homophobic article that gave clues to the closeted and DL men he had connected with. After being widely denounced, he publicly apologized, and was eventually recalled home early.

***

When Rio and Brazil won the opportunity to host the games eight years ago, the region's and nation's economies appeared to be on the upswing. Two economically vibrant, though corruption-ridden terms by Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, Brazil's first Leftist president since its return to democracy, led to the easy election of his chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff, a former revolutionary turned technocrat, and under both, Brazil saw a sizable increase in its middle and working classes, aided in part by "Bolsa Familia" and other programs that Lula, Dilma and their Congressional allies implemented. The Olympics, like the 2014 FIFA World Cup tournament, held across Brazil, were to be crowning events to Brazil's ascension to the first rank of the global community.

Though Brazil's leaders, and admittedly a great many people all over the world, including the US administration of George W. Bush, did not fully grasp what was underway, the ground, however, was about to fall out beneath them. 2007 through 2009 marked the worst of the global financial crisis and recession, which Brazil initially weathered, but the collapse of commodity prices, inadequate monetary policies, and Rousseff's and the Brazilian Congress's failure to trim spending--not slash, but readjust--sent Brazil careening towards a cliff off which it has since plunged. Inflation and now deflation, fiscal contraction, and a dense and intricate tapestry of corruption investigations, ensnaring politicians and business people from the acting president down to local officials, are today's baselines across South America's largest economy.

Brazilian canoeists Erlon de Souza and
Isaquias Queiroz, after their silver medal
race in the 1000m pairs

None of this boded well for a country, state and city that had agreed to spend billions to host the Olympics, which are a financial drain even under the best of circumstances. In the run-up to the Rio games, the governor of Rio State, facing a funding emergency, even appealed to the nation for money; the state, he claimed, was unable to pay for basic services, and needed help even finishing the Olympic projects underway. Additionally, right before the games started, policemen protested with signs warning visitors about the tenuousness of their safety, saying they were entering "Hell." In response, Rio and Brasília found a bit more money, and the city was able to deploy  85,000 security officers, who included federal military service people. Questions arise about what will happen now that the Olympics--and soon the Paralympics--have ended. Where will the funds for Rio State's necessary expenditures come from now? And what effect did the redeployment of military officials have on crime in locales away from the Olympic events? Given the horrendous pre-Olympics track record of police murdering Brazil's poor, particular Afro-Brazilian youth, how will these empowered state forces interact with Rio's impoverished communities once the international media are gone?

Rio's mayor Eduardo Paeswas quite pleased, however,  with how things turned out. A member of the centrist-conservative PMDB party, home also to acting president Temer, Paes has stated that the Olympics allowed Rio to push through infrastructure projects that would have taken decades or which would never have been realized otherwise. The new subway line to the city's southern edges, the enhanced network of bus lanes and routes, and the Olympic Village itself are among the projects that Paes can tout as proof that Rio dig gain something beyond fourteen days of visitors, exciting races and bouts, and international attention. In fact, the Olympics' apparent success will probably serve as the launching pad for Paes' presidential run, after a year's sabbatical at Columbia University though he may need to switch parties (as he's done repeatedly) if Temer and other PMDB politicians remain deeply unpopular. That most of these new structures, facilities and renovated areas will primarily benefit Rio's wealthiest residents and future tourists far more than the majority of the city's working class and poor was part of his and other organizers' vision.

Ukrainian wrestler Zhan Beleniuk
(NBC Streaming screen capture)

Authorities forcibly displaced favela residents from their homes and razed portions of certain neighborhoods, such as Vila Autódromo, in the southern sector of Rio. For the Olympics Media Village, developers utilized public land near Olympic Park that had long been the ancestral home of Afro-brazilians fighting for decades to claim it as a quilombo, and thus their own. The condominium built on this spot, Grand Club Verdant, will be sold to private buyers once the games end. The Athletes' Village, also constructed on public land, is slated to become luxury housing rather than lodgings for Rio's middle and working class residents. Organizers also filled in protected public wetlands to build the golf course, but once the games conclude nearby Cariocas who aren't rich will not have access to it. With regard to the billions of dollars that vanished on their way to rectifying Rio's waste disposal and water pollution crisis, no one can account for them. There will, however, be a new museum downtown highlighting Rio's role as a major slave port; when building the new port, construction workers discovered remnants of the original port, graves and artifacts dating to Rio's early history, and have grasped the potential touristic and historical value of creating an exhibit around them.

Rio's experience is only the most recent example of the International Olympic Committee's flawed approach to staging games that, at this point, very few countries can afford. For two weeks of athletic competition--providing thrills for viewers, a bit of pride for participating countries, future employment for physicians, chiropractors, and physical therapists, and new entries for the record books--host nations are expected to indebt themselves. In the case of the UK and China, the strain was great but not insurmountable; with Russia and the Sochi Winter Games, we may not learn for years what this exacted on the host nation's still staggering economy, or its politics and society, though it did give Vladimir Putin an electoral boost. As the host 30 years ago, Montreal, could attest, however, along with more recent host Athens, sometimes the costs are too high to bear.

US freestyle wrestler Helen Maroulis, winning the
gold medal by defeating Japan's Saori
Yoshida in the women's freestyle 53kg final.
(Robert Gauthier/LA Times)

Perhaps the answer is not to end the Olympics, despite their long history of cozying up to anti-democratic autocrats and greedy corporations, but rather to figure out another approach that will aid the cause of athletic, cultural and global engagement. One option I have seen suggested is to distribute the games across the globe, using sites already built; a virtual Olympics seems eminently doable. Countries with team handball arenas can vie for those contests; baseball, if it returns, could be staged in nations that play it. More people would be able to attend Olympic events as a result, and rather than having to build billions of dollars of new facilities, countries could spend far less to upgrade existing ones, but only if needed.

Another option that I also saw suggested recently would be to have a given country that agrees to host the Olympics do so for several repeated cycles. So Rio would again host the Olympics in 2020 and 2024. Or perhaps in round robin fashion. This does eliminate the challenge of a new country building all new facilities every four years, but it does not address the large-scale costs that the host would have to bear over a dozen years. Not only would Rio or any country have to keep the facilities it built open and functioning optimally for twelve years, but it would again have to find money for security, further extensive infrastructure upgrades, and so on.

US gymnast Danell Leyva, in his
silver medal performance on the men's
horizontal bar final. (Robert Gauthier/LA Times)

So post-Rio Olympics, I will be keeping an eye on Rio, and Brazil, to see what the hangover and recovery periods bring. Beyond Brazil, I will be curious to know whether the debates that always arise around the Olympics and their future go beyond the theoretical stage. If things run as smoothly as I imagine they will in Pyeongchang in 2018 and Tokyo in 2020, any serious talk of reforming the Olympics will be placed on the backburner for decades to come. That is, if the IOC can find anyone to host the 2024 Summer games and Beijing doesn't decide, given its economic struggles and the environmental toll more building will require, that the Winter Games in 2022 are not such a good idea.

Rio Olympic Village, with the nearly
completely razed Vila Autódromo immediately
to its left

Phyllis Diller, My Homegirl + Artists Battle for Home in Rio

Phyllis Diller (UPI)

Shortly after my parents moved us from the city of St. Louis to the suburb of Webster Groves and we joined Holy Redeemer Roman Catholic Church, I began attending its parish school. It was a little over half a mile from my house, and there was no bus service, and my parents both worked so they couldn't drive me to school, which meant I had to walk. (This was in the 1970s when such things were a matter of course.) There were two main routes to get there. One took me past a crossroads straight up a long, curving street, over which a train trestle ran--so I literally lived on the other side of the tracks, on the black (with a few white people) side of Webster--until I reached the next main cross street, Lockwood Avenue, which was the main commercial strip of Webster, and on which sat from one end to the other, the old business district (Old Webster), full of stores; the City Hall; the cinema where I saw The Exorcist and Jaws and Star Wars and countless other movies; the Y; Holy Redeemer Church and school; Webster Groves Public High School; Webster University; the Eden Theological Seminary; Nerinx Hall, a Catholic school for girls; and then, where Lockwood turned into Big Bend Avenue began the Old Orchard business district, which also had lots of shops and restaurants. That was the long but safe route. The quicker route took me across the other major cross-street near me, which included crossing a creek, then up through a maze of increasingly nicer neighborhoods, with some very large homes, including one that belonged to the family that owned the Tums factory (and I would learn, as an adult, that it was in this part of Webster that Jonathan Franzen, among others, had grown up), until I reached the back lot and playground of Holy Redeemer.

In the summers I would ride my bike up through this way; during the school year, it was strictly by foot. One of the houses closest to the playground area, on Mason Avenue, was, like the others, imposing, but my new classmates liked to point it out; I was told that it had once been a shocking salmon color. Most of the other homes in this part of Webster were white, dark green, brick, Tudor-style: classy. The house's prior outré coloring was probably apocryphal, but it stuck in my memory. I was also told, by a knowing classmate, that a famous comedian--comedienne--had lived there. I didn't believe it, but I told my parents, and perhaps they knew that this comedian was from St. Louis. I can't recall. Every so often, when I'd pass the house, I'd think of the story of it having been a sight to look at, and how now it was just another house very close to school and across from other large houses that belonged to my classmates, mostly considering how much larger they were than the houses on my side of town. (I had yet to see some of the mansions in other St. Louis suburbs that my future classmates at Priory lived in.) Years later I did learn that the house had belonged to the famous comedian, that she had lived in St. Louis, in Webster Groves, beginning in the 1960s, and that she always considered not just that house, but the area one of her true homes. I am talking about Phyllis Diller (1917-2012), one of the pioneering women of 20th century American comedy, who passed away the other day.  She gave me many occasions to laugh over the years, and the lore of her outrageously painting house is a little story to treasure that I still carry with me. I hope Webster Groves, which was famous for being so representatively middle American it was even the subject of a documentary in the 1960s (16 in Webster Groves) and the setting for a TV show in the 1970s (Lucas Tanner) too sees fit to honor this often unconventional but important figure. She gave America enough laughs, and future comedians new opportunities, to merit it.

More: Jason Zinoman's tribute to Phyllis Diller in The New York Times.

+++

For Rio de Janeiro to host the Olympic Games in 2016, I knew that as in every other place where the Olympics had been held, including the most recent host, London, there would be private and government battles surrounding the economically working-class and poor areas of the city, with the aim of seizing control of them, and Jonathan Watts' Guardian article "Rio artistic collective's sweet deal ends as Olympics development spreads" confirms one example, of which there certain to be many--cf. the favelas. In the case Watts describes, the 50 or so artists working in a former Bhering (Behring?) confectionary factory in Rio are fighting not to be evicted from their studios and offices, which appears increasingly likely as the city gears up for the games and a larger £21 billion ($33 billion, €26 billion) development plan. The former factory, converted over the last three years into a creative hotspot by the artists, sits in Rio's port area, one of the oldest, more run-down and most affordable parts of the city, yet accessible to all of its fashionable neighborhoods and the Guanabara Bay, making it prime real estate for the Olympics-related development.

One thing the artists in this building, called Orestes 28 for its street address, have going for them is that in similar situations in other cities, such as Beijing, the site of the 2008 Olympic Games, artists in certain repurposed spaces were able to claim the mantle of being a cultural treasure and center, and were thus spared eviction and the effects of development and gentrification. The Orestes 28 artists hired a lawyer, made an appeal to Rio's government, and received a judicial revocation of the 30-day eviction order, but even with the Chinese precedent there's no guarantee they'll win out in the end, especially given Rio's lack of space, the development already underway, and the money developers and those politically connected to them stand to make both for the World Cup in 2014, and then two years later for the Olympics. As Watts notes, the artists have a front-row seat at the changes underway, which include not just a new name, "the Marvelous Port," but luxury hotels rising nearby and soon enough, new rail and roadways.  I actually know one of the writers Watt mentions, Rachel Gontijo (Araujo), a poet and publisher (A Bolha Editora), mentioned before on this blog, and for whose English translation of Hilda Hilst's The Obscene Madame D, translated by Nathanaël I have written the introduction. Rachel has been organizing a weekly happy hour at Orestes 28, which has included observing the transformation of the area, but as Watt says it's not clear how much longer this will occur.  I hold out hope, I really do, but...

J's Theater's Fifth Anniversary + Skyping in Class + N/olympics

Somewhere around the middle of last week, this blog reached its FIFTH ANNIVERSARY! It's hard for me to believe that five years have passed since I began writing here, in late February 2005, primarily as an experiment (a blog post every day, for a year), but they have. The posts have dwindled in recent years as I've had more heaped on my plate, but I always treasure the exchanges with readers that have occurred, and appreciate everyone who still is motivated, even occasionally to drop in.

+++

As I was originally typing this entry, I'm figuratively floating high above a certain midwestern city. I say this because I was able, for the first time, to seamlessly integrate Skype into one of my courses, and it worked without a hitch! As part of my "Situation of Writing" class, I thought it would be nice to have the course's current students speak with a fairly recent university graduate who's working in publishing, and one of them, poet, fiction writer and critic Jeannie Vanasco, graciously agreed to do so.  An assistant editor at Lapham's Quarterly, and and formerly worked for TriQuarterly, The Poetry Foundation, and the Paris Review, Jeannie also took this course when she was an undergraduate major (in both the poetry and fiction tracks), and I thought she might have some great and useful insights to offer the students.  She did. The hurdle I foresaw, however, was the technology; while I regularly incorporate a host of electronic and online technological components into my courses--from using Blackboard for discussion groups, as a library, and as a posting site, to subject-specific blogs in the past, to Twitter now--and while I have used PowerPoint slides and still images, and screened streaming films (we'll be watching Martin Ritt's great film about the blacklist period, The Front, starring Woody Allen, next week), and last spring even utilized lots of YouTube clips, this was the first time I'd tried Skype.  It worked perfectly. We were able to see Jeannie clearly and without any onscreen pixillation and few sync issues.  She also was able to hear most of the questions the students asked without a problem and her voice came through without distortion.  This has me very excited about using this for future classes, including one next quarter. I know it's old hat to some, but I felt like this was a huge step and am still very cheered by it.

+++

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are now over, and, perhaps for the first time that I can recall, I didn't watch a complete broadcast of any events after the opening night stadium entry of the athletes; I may have caught a few snippets when changing the channels or clips on the news, but unlike in prior years, I didn't sit through hours of speedskating, bobsledding, the alpine skiing events, an ice hockey match, or any figure skating. When I noticed people tweeting about Johnny Weir's fanciful costumes, I had to look online because I'd missed the performance in real time.  I note my not-watching not to feel superior or register my alienation, though perhaps a bit of the latter is part of the mix, but just to point out how much I think my own interests and patience have changed. The narcissistic, jingoistic, and at times saccharine human-interest coverage of NBC's commentators, coupled with the tape delays for maximum advertising impact, were bad enough, but it also seemed to be the case that, despite the horrific death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Olympic Committee and games organizers were more interested in getting on with things than seriously and realistically addressing the problems with that venue and others (such as some of the alpine hills, where a dangerous bump at the bottom of the downhill course initially led to devastating crashes among the women's elite skiers).  Perhaps this was just my perception, and I realize a lot of money was riding on these games happening and not being delayed or postponed at all, a death or two or none. And I'm aware that any participating in lugeing or alpine skiing or any other similar sport realizes the perils involved.  I also realize that NBC, having paid billions, has the right to feature the games however they want, and if it's Bob Costas mocking countries' outfits or freestyling with mind-numbing digressions, so be it. Nevertheless,  Kumaritashvili's death and the daily athlete-and-medal hype, which extended into newspaper accounts, left bad tastes that I could not get past. (Yes, the US won the most medals, and Russia's poor showing has sent President Dmitri Medvedev into a tizzy; Canada, however, led in golds, a nice home victory.) I debated whether I should watch yesterday's Canada vs. US ice hockey final, and decided not to, only to learn that it was a thriller. But I don't feel I missed anything, even if the US had won. In 2 years the summer games will be in Rio de Janeiro and in 4 years time there'll be another Winter Games, in Sochi, Russia, and all of the hoopla that beset Vancouver will be forgotten, though, I hope, not Kumaritashvili and his very sad, preventable death.

Back Up & Running

And now, finally, I'm back to my previously scheduled program, many stones, three surgeries, two stents, and a month and a half later, just as the summer, unfortunately, is winding down and the academic year is about to barrel in. Neither C nor I thought in July that things would turn out to be so complicated, but such are the body's vagaries. If I say that neither of us would like to see the inside of a hospital anytime soon, or spot evidently crazed people who later turn out to be one's nurses, or overhear hospital staff regaling each other about homeless people's chicaneries to get food, or juggle any of the countless forms required every time you set foot near the patient intake center, or I don't think I'd be stretching. But throughout the medical professionals, like C, have been exemplary, so let me say thank you. The experience yet again highlighted for me the necessity of comprehensive, truly universal health insurance, and the urgency, for all of us, not only to elect people at every level of government who will support it, and then to hold them fast to its implementation as soon as possible.

As I posted before, I greatly appreciate all the get-well wishes, posted here or sent via email. They've truly been a balm.

***

Many J's Theater readers know that had I been feeling better, I was likely to post shots from a major athletic extravaganza like the Beijing Olympics. But I had vowed to myself before the events took place not to promote them in any fashion on this site, mainly because of host nation China's horrendous record, past and recent, in so many areas of human and political rights, and because of the ongoing bloody repression of the Tibetans and other social, political and religious dissidents and minorites there. (Let me be clear that in calling out China I am not absolving the United States or any other country). It just so worked out that I was in constant enough pain during the period of the Olympics that I was unable to post anything (I could barely type at certain points), but I was captive and lucid enough that I watched most of the televised events, especially towards the end. The Chinese really know how to stage mass events and win gold medals, no? Does anyone think they won't be atop the gold and total medal counts by the next summer Olympics in 2012, in London? And will the corporate press ever live down the shame of covering for the Chinese authorities and, as they've done during both major US party conventions last week and this week, failing to do their jobs by reporting on the serious issues in China and the attempted protests, the imprisonment and the suppression of dissent?

As I said, I was couchbound for weeks, and watched a slew of events, including ones I little enjoy like beach volleyball, team handball, and shooting (which turned out to be pretty interesting). My favorite athletic moments beyond the more obvious ones, such as the swimming races, which, despite the Michael Phelps hype (though he admittedly was unbelievable), or the US men's team's (the "Redeem" team) basketball games, provided great drama, or the gymnastic competitions, which naturally received a lot of press, not least because some of the Chinese female gymnasts were visibly underage, were numerous. They included the individual and team victories by various US fencing squads (women's foil, women's and men's sabre); the gold victory by the all-black French epee fencing team (above left), and the bronze by French baby giant judoka Teddy Riner (at right); the triumph by the lone out gay male athlete in Beijing, Australian Matthew Mitcham, in the mens' 20 m platform diving (though NBC saw fit to suppress his victory celebration with his partner); the medal victories by athletes from tiny countries, like the Dominican Republic's boxers or Togo's kayaker or Panama's long jumper; and the gold, replete with a compelling background story, won by men's under 55 kg freestyle by Henry Cejudo.

One of my favorite sports, track and field, did not disappoint. I believe I watched nearly all the running events that wer televised, including the marathons. Most exciting I thought were Usain Bolt's spectacular victories in the men's 100 and 200 m, the Jamaican women team's 100 m sweep, the American men's 4x400 race, and the last minute victory by American Sanya Richards (below, with her fellow relay team members) of the women's 4x400 race, which almost felt like it had been scripted in a Hollywood; Romanian Constantina Tomescu's breakaway victory in the women's marathon, which required a gutsy decision by the winner to push herself as much as possible and then not let up; the 1-2-3 victory by the Americans in the men's 400 m and 400 m hurdles; and the blazing triumph that bespectacled 110 m Cuban hurdler Dayron Robles turned in.

On a sports listserve I belong to, I commiserated with other fans about NBC's coverage, but I have to say in retrospect that things weren't so bad overall in part because some of the less popular sports (equestrian; weightlifting, etc.) were broadcast, just not on NBC. Between MSNBC, USA Networks, Oxygen, and Telemundo, and NBC's online site, it was possible to see a great deal of what was taking place in Beijing, often live. Thus I got to see the rowing events, wrestling, soccer, baseball, and quite a bit of other stuff that wasn't featured on the main channel. (I suspect, however, that some sports, like modern pentathlon, were just not broadcast at all. Oh well.) I hope this becomes standard policy for the future.

***

I have been following the political races too, and watched most of the Democratic convention and about as much of the Republican one as I could stomach, which is not much. Whatever my quarrels with Senator Barack Obama's positions, detailed on this very site over the last year or so, I was utterly moved and impressed by his acceptance speech last Thursday. The speech itself was prehaps less soaring that some of his other ones, but the performance overall, which includes the setting, the history-making quality of the event, its significance for our political culture, nearly brought me to tears. It has been interesting to note the contrast between the tones of the two conventions, the quality of speechmaking and political rhetoric at the one last week, a great deal of it inspiring, visionary and hopeful, and this week (so much of it acid, detached from the problems we face as a society and as a world, and in complete flight from the debacle of the last eight years. The political commentary by the punditocracy I've found almost uniformly abysmal, with the sole exception of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. (Who thankfully will be getting her own show next week!)


(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Most of the people on air appear less informed about basic aspects of the party's and candidates' platforms, their histories, their ideologies, and what they're saying and how they're saying, than my two cats. They are very good at regurgitating talking points issued by the McCain campaign and RNC, or reciting whatever they've read on Drudge Report. I expect Fox always to be at the bottom, and they do not disappoint ever, but the major broadcast channels, as well as CNN and even PBS, have proved to be quite bad. Watching Charlie Rose the other night, with "liberal" Al Hunt (Mr. Judy Woodruff?) downplaying or simply not broaching every valid criticism of the unqualified and constantly lying, self-described "barracuda" that John McCain has chosen as his Vice Presidential pick made me want to puke.

And can I just say this: it really says everything about John McCain that he picked someone who has lied, blatantly, in each of her first three public appearances since being named to his ticket. Think about that: on each of the first three times Sarah Palin spoke as the Republican VP pick to the American people, she blatantly lied, not just about one issue, but about multiple ones. Most obviously, she lied about that "Bridge to Nowhere" in Ketchikan. Congress canceled the earmark in 2005, taking the issue off the table. Let's state this again. Congress canceled the earmark IN 2005, TAKING THE ISSUE OFF THE TABLE. She was not elected UNTIL 2006. Yet she still advocated for the earmark in 2006 while running for office, and when Congress sent the money, without specific requirements for the bridge, she used it, in part to build a "Road to Nowhere"! Last Friday, she said before the paltry crowd in Dayton and the world that she had "told Congress" no thanks—I know her boss is clueless about Google, but is she? How dumb does this woman think we all are?

In addition to the cynicism it displays about the political stakes we face, the sexist assumptions that women would vote for any woman, and in particular this social and religious extremist, and sheer contempt for politics in general, McCain's selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin undergirds one of Obama's fundamental critiques of McCain last Thursday: the Arizona senator, in addition to being out of touch, too far to the right, and lacking in any principles, has terrible judgement and a reckless temperament, both of which this choice embodies.

As people close to me will testify, I was very disappointed with Obama's selection of Senator Joe Biden, whom I think of as a Washington insider whose foreign policy instincts and pronouncements I've tended to find pretty suspect. He essentially agreed with Hillary Clinton and John McCain on invading Iraq, with poor excuses as to why, and on the Georgian crisis, he's been pushing almost the same line as the Bush administration. (Why on earth have none of the Democrats called more forcefully for bringing Russia to the table to discuss the situation? It's clear that McCain's campaign is hitched financially, via advisor-lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, to Georgia's leader, Mikheil Saakashvili, but the Democrats aren't also on Georgia's payroll, are they?) I was much more in favor of Obama picking someone like Montana's governor Brian Schweitzer, for example, who really brought a lot to the ticket, including ideological and geographical diversity. Schweitzer would have been a fresh face with substance behind it, unlike Palin, and as he showed at the convention last week, he possesses that coin that the establishment media seek like a jones: the man's a geiser of authenticity, real, unvarnished folksiness. From the perspective of several weeks, however, I'll give Obama the benefit of doubt. I think he and his team were right, and Biden looks like a very good choice as running mate, especially compared to Palin.

As of today Obama retains his national lead as well as leads in many states. But I was born and grew up in a state, Missouri, in which there are many people—perhaps not a majority, but close to it—who will find this woman's personality and the establishment media's bowdlerized version of her personal history, scrubbed almost completely of the pertinent and highly disturbing facts, quite appealing. There are more than a few places across the country, in Missouri and elsewhere, in which the politics of resentment and ressentiment, as well as cynicism, subterfuge, sub rosa racism, and host of other dangerous crap, which the GOP is playing to the hilt, very well may prove effective. So I worry. I really do.

But then I also keep in mind that the basic facts of today, the rising unemployment rate, the dodgy financial system and the collapsing real estate market, the rising costs of living, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the steady tide of news about un-Constitutional activity that emanates from the White House—all of it may trump the exhausted and yet still caustic ploys the Republicans and their allies are turning to, it may trump the relentlessly flogged narrative of the POW-hero-"maverick" the press repeats like a mantra, and it may trump the presence of this dangerous, horribly unqualified woman whom the McCain campaign is itself so unsure of they will not let her near their very "base," the establishment media, they have quickly turned against like rattlesnakes in order to cow.

But as I've said it will not be easy—and not one of us who wants someone other than John McCain and Sarah Palin in the White House (and yes, there are options such as Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente, Ralph Nader's traveling roadshow, and various folks on the right, like Bob Barr, who'd be worse than McCain-Palin) should assume it will be.

***

On a completely different note, the one and only Jennifer Saunders (French and Saunders, Absolutely Fabulous) will have a new show on US TV, a sendup of daytime talk shows entitled The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle. It headlines Sunday's upcoming Sunday Comedy Block, starting at 9 pm EST. I can't wait!

***

In a few days I'll try to post some reviews and other things. I haven't gotten half as much reading as I'd hoped to, certainly far, far less than last summer, but I haven't been totally idle, or addled.

I did get out to the opening of CONTRANYM, a show curators Kelly Kivland, Alisoun Meehan and Chris Stackhouse mounted in the New Voices, New York series at chashama ABC gallery, in the East Village. The gallery itself was a toaster, but the art, by Robert Delford Brown, John Cage, Victoria Fu, Stephanie Loveless, and Brian Kim Stefans, was cooking in the best way.

In addition to chatting with the curators and Brian, I had the opportunity to meet fellow Cave Canem poet Myronn Hardy, whose book of poems The Headless Saints appeared earlier this summer. Here are some photos from that event. Enjoy!


The crowd at Contranym

Brian Kim Stefan's digital film, "Scriptors"

Part of the collaborative Robert Delford Brown "Fluxus"-style piece, "Explosion of a Tile Factory"

Inside and outside