Let's Move!

This is fun! The best part:  Bo and Sunny. Woof!

And Now For Some Really Important News

Will Kate cut her hair before her big trip to Australia with Wills and Prince George? I say go for it, your Royal Highness! What could it hurt? And remember how often Princess Diana changed her hair?

"The Royalist" at the Daily Beast has the scoop.

Here's Paula!

Paula was on the list last week, and here she is. I totally blew the sidebar stories, although (really) I considered putting the Thicke/Patton divorce on the list, but because I barely know who they are, I guess I didn't think their divorce was that big of a deal. Harold Ramis gets a "mini" Dead Celebrity shout-out up in the corner, but he doesn't rate a picture or even his name, and I'd be willing to bet that a lot of People's younger readers won't get the reference.

The Guessing Game

What will it be this week? Possibilities:

• Dancing With The Stars: Brooke Burke-Charvet out, Erin Andrews in
• Alec Baldwin: He's had it, he's not going to take it anymore  
• Angelina Jolie: She's doing publicity for her new movie. Plus I'm expecting that at some point we'll start seeing stories asking why she and Brad don't just get married, already, possibly tied to the fact that Jennifer Aniston hasn't walked down the aisle yet either 
• Maria von Trapp (aka Louisa): The last of the original seven siblings dies at age 99
• Harold Ramis: Dead Celebrity 
• Nancy Kerrigan and/or Tonya Harding: The ice skating scandal, 20 years later 
• Christina Aguilera: Pregnant with #2? 
• Late Night: Seth Myers and Jimmy Fallon have new shows, Jay Leno retires
• Ronan Farrow: Mom is Mia, Dad is (possibly) Frank Sinatra, has a new show on MSNBC 
• Kerry Kennedy: On trial for DUI, not of alcohol, but possibly a sleeping pill she took by mistake
• Holdovers from last week: The Bachelor, the Olympics and the Oscars. Plus another royal cover could come at any time 

Things I Don't Care About

Arthur Chu is ruining Jeopardy. Or not.

Is Vlad Sad?

He shouldn't be. His Olympics are over and we're all still here. The terrorists held off, the infrastructure held up, more or less, and Russia even won the medal count, beating the U.S. and all the other countries for both total medals and gold. So why did Vlad look so stern at the closing ceremony last night? I didn't watch it all but every time the camera zeroed in on President Putin in the stands he looked like someone had just killed his cat.

Of course, the Sochi show wasn't perfect. There were the lightbulb/shower curtain glitches at the beginning, the hockey team lost to the U.S. and it's never good when you're being ridiculed because your toilets won't flush. There's also all that unpleasantness in Ukraine. Still, overall the games went better than many people expected, the flag's been passed and now Rio's in the spotlight, with concerns about citizens being displaced from their homes and construction that's way behind schedule. So cheer up, Vlad, and crack a smile now and then. It looks like your $51 billion was (at least partly) well spent.

And yet... What happens to cities when the Olympic circus leaves town? Will Sochi turn into an on-going international winter resort destination or will most of the facilities built for the Games end up sitting empty and unused? Salon has a fascinating look at former Olympic cities and how they've evolved over the years. Not to put too fine a point on it, Sochi is probably screwed.

"I'm Brigitta..."

"You didn't tell me how old you are... Louisa."

A cute line of dialog from The Sound Of Music, my way of saying Rest In Peace to Maria von Trapp, called Louisa in the film, who was the last of the seven original singing von Trapp siblings. (The governess turned stepmother, played by Julie Andrews, was also named Maria, which is one reason the children's names were changed for the musical. She died in 1987.) Daughter Maria/Louisa died last week at the age of 99.

Reading about this Maria it seems to me that she was the one who set the whole "Sound of Music" phenomenon in motion. According to an autobiographical posting on the family website (www.trappfamily.com,) Maria had scarlet fever as a child and needed to be tutored at home, which led to a nice young nun from the local convent coming to be her teacher. (Calling adult Maria the "governess" to all seven children is another change to the story.) Although some dramatic license was taken by producers, the broad strokes of the story are correct. The teacher and the captain did get married, they did leave Austria to escape the Nazis, and they did become a famous singing group. Eventually (adult) Maria wrote a book called The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, and the rest is history.

So auf widersehen, good-bye to Maria/Louisa. May you flit, float, fleetly flee and fly!

It's A Weird Sport

On Thursday night the biggest event at any Winter Olympics took place - the "Ladies" figure skating final, and as always there was plenty of make-up, "what were they thinking" costumes, jumps and falls, flowers and teddy bears, and of course, a judging controversy. Thoughts:

Those costumes. There were some wowzers, including a couple that sparkled so much I was half convinced the skaters were wearing hidden battery packs to keep the sparkly parts sparkling. It's tempting to bang on about the over-the-top theatricality of the costumes, the hair and the make-up, but that's just how things are in this weird sport.

The teddy bears. Throwing flowers on the ice after a skater's performance is fine, they do that at the opera, but why so many teddy bears? Even at synchronized swimming, which is also a strange amalgamation of athletics and theatrics, no one throws teddy bears into the pool.

The music. Change is coming. Beginning with the next competitive season, skaters will be allowed to skate to music with lyrics. Details here.

The bronze medalist, Carolina Kostner, from Italy, skated her routine to Bolero, a nice shout-out to the Torvill and Dean routine from 30 years ago. I also thought it was cool to see her get a medal at the age of 27, a nice (grown-up) contrast to the teenagers who dominate the sport.

A judging controversy is pretty much de rigueur. Given the complex, subjective and anonymous judging process, it's a wonder anyone ever agrees about anything. This time, a Russian woman won, skating in Russia, with a judge who just happens to be married to the head of the Russian Ice Skating Federation. Fair? Not sure. Resolvable? Almost certainly not. It's just how things are in this weird sport.

Triple Salchow, Triple Toe...

Can you tell a triple Salchow from a triple Toe Loop from a triple Axel? Me neither. I know it has to do with the direction the skater is skating (the Axel is the only jump where the skater is facing forward,) the edge they're on, which I really don't understand, and how they pick the ice with the toe of their skate. It may also have something to do with how loudly Scott Hamilton is screaming but I'm still thinking about that.

Anyway, this video is fun, showing how the women have evolved from singles to doubles to triples. I'd love to see a similar take on how male skaters got to doing quads.

Ellen & Bruce, The Little Couple & Gus

Ellen DeGeneres is the main story this week and at first I thought I'd missed it, because Ellen wasn't one of my guesses, but then I remembered - she's hosting the Oscars! Bruce is there too, along with the Little Couple and a nice Olympics story about the snowboarder who's trying to save puppies.

As I mentioned, this week is the 40th anniversary of People's debut. Here's the very first cover, with Mia Farrow:



And here's the 20th anniversary cover, also with Mia.

 

BridgeNado

Back in August I published a post with some very, very early speculation about who might run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Here's that list, and a couple of questions I asked at the time:

Marco Rubio (Senator from Florida)
Bobby Jindal (Governor of Louisiana)
Paul Ryan (Congressman from Wisconsin and 2012 VP nominee)
Chris Christie (Governor of New Jersey)
Rand Paul (Senator from Kentucky)
Ted Cruz (Senator from Texas)
Rick Santorum (former Senator from Pennsylvania and runner-up to Mitt Romney in 2012)

Will any of these guys be standing on the Capitol steps on January 20, 2017? Will one (or more) of them get caught in a scandal? 

I'm reposting the list, and my questions, now because one of them did get caught in a scandal: Chris Christie and the whole BridgeNado mess. Some (mostly Democratic) pundits have pronounced that Christie is "toast" as a candidate; others (mostly Republican) say it will all blow over and he's still a front-runner. No way to know for sure at this point, but as always, it's fascinating to watch. 

The Guessing Game

What does People magazine think is the most important story this week? Actually that's not quite the right question. The right question is "what story do the magazine's editors think will sell the most magazines?"
My guesses:

• Holdovers from last week: The Bachelor and the Oscars.
• The Olympics: Also a possibility again this week: Davis and White just won gold in Ice Dancing; any combination of athletes could be featured in a cover story. Specifically, the Ladies Figure Skating competition starts tomorrow and a story about Gracie and Ashley gives People an excuse to feature women wearing form-fitting/short/tight skating costumes. 

Other possibilities:

• Simon Cowell: His baby son was born. Actually, I was surprised he wasn't featured on the cover last summer when the scandal first broke. 
• Julia Roberts: Her half-sister committed suicide
• Ellen Page: Came out as a lesbian
• Paula Deen: Gets a $75 million dollar deal 
• Tom Brokaw: Announced he's being treated for cancer
• Charlie Sheen: Engaged to a porn star
• Kimye (and the rest of the K's): Kanye gave Kim 1,000 roses for Valentine's Day, little sis Kendall is Anna Wintour's new best friend and soon-to-be ex-stepfather Bruce Jenner either is or is not turning himself into a woman. 
• Kate: The Duchess has been out and about a lot lately, and there are pictures. Can a cover story be far behind? 
• Jimmy Fallon: He's the new host of the Tonight Show, his first show was last night. 

Wednesday morning update: The new cover isn't posted yet and I just thought of one more possibility. People's first issue was dated March 4, 1974, with a cover story about Mia Farrow. Coming up on the 40th anniversary, there could be some kind of anniversary retrospective in the next few weeks. 

Blast From The Past

Remember Joe the Plumber? He was one of the sillier distractions during the 2008 presidential campaign and I haven't thought about him in a while. Six years later, Talking Points Memo has an update.

And Joe, from one blogger to another, fix the typo.

Update: he fixed it. I think you can still find it in the TPM story.

I Thought This Was A Party...

...Let's Dance! Yes, it's Kevin Bacon and the original Footloose, which opened 30 years ago today. In honor of the occasion, and without thinking too much about how kids that have never been allowed to dance are all of a sudden dancing like pros, here's the fun final dance.

2022 Update

I just read that Stockholm has decided not to bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics, leaving five cities in the running:

Almaty, Kazakhstan
Beijing, China
Krakow, Poland
Lviv, Ukraine
Oslo, Norway

Olympic Tidbits

We're past the halfway point in Sochi and there haven't been any apparent disasters, no terrorist attacks, no collapsing ski jumps, etc. My Olympic musings:

Did everyone get shower curtains? Before the competitions actually started it was the unfinished/slightly icky stuff that was getting the press coverage, at least here in the West, but I haven't seen any updates. Does everyone have shower curtains? Can toilet paper be flushed down the toilets or are they still putting it in buckets? (I know, ick.) Did anyone else have to kick their way out of a bathroom?

What was the IOC thinking? Although nothing's been blown up or burned down by terrorists, at least so far, there have been issues that would lead a sensible person to scratch their head and ask, Why, exactly, are the Olympics being held in a remote, inaccessible, tropical place at all? The short answer is because Vlad made it his personal mission in life to make it happen, but that still begs the question. Why did the IOC go along with this folly? Did you know that the second-place city was Salzburg, Austria? (Yes, the hills would have been alive...) Can you imaging how charming and delightful the Salzburg Olympics would have been?

The irony. Here in the states we're slogging our way through one of the coldest, snowiest winters ever. At the Winter Olympics people are walking around in T-shirts and jumping into the Black Sea for a swim. The Today Show anchors were doing their show in shirt sleeves over the week-end, although things are colder there this morning and the hats and gloves came out. In fact, the weather issue today is fog, so much so that a couple of events in the mountains had to be cancelled, which not only screws up the meticulously planned schedule but also leaves a hole in NBC's broadcast coverage.

The time zones. Sochi is 10 hours ahead of Chicagoland, which means that at 2.00 in the afternoon here it's midnight there. The daily competitions are over, but NBC's primetime broadcast is still five hours away. How far off the grid do you have to go to avoid hearing/seeing results in advance? Really, really far. Like hiding-in-a-cave far. More than once while watching the TV news I've heard anchors tell viewers to turn away if you don't want to hear the results, several moments after the results went crawling across the bottom of the screen. You pretty much need to stay off the web, too, and especially stay off Twitter.

The skating. Team USA's best chance for a gold medal in figure skating comes tonight, with Americans Charlie White and Meryl Davis favored to win in Ice Dancing and leading after the short program. I'm trying to decide if I want to know the results in real time or watch it play out tonight. As I've watched other skating events at the "Iceberg" venue, I've been struck by all the empty seats. At most Olympics the skating events are the hottest ticket in town. Why can't Sochi fill the seats? Still, after watching the short program last night I now know what "twizzles" are.

Bob Costas will be back in the anchor chair for tonight's primetime show, having recovered from pink eye. Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera filled in for him for the last few days and apparently Meredith was the first woman to anchor a primetime Olympic broadcast. I like Meredith and I'm always happy to see a woman break another barrier, but she didn't look particularly comfortable in the role, and it was pretty obvious she was reading from the prompter.

And finally, if you watched Al Michaels in the anchor chair on Saturday and Sunday and his voice seemed familiar, yes, it's the same Al Michaels from 34 years ago:  Do you believe in miracles? Yes!

USA 3, Russia 2

Yes, they did it again! The U.S. Olympic hockey team beat the Russians again, 3-2, on their home ice this time. Details here.

This was only an early-round match and if the stars align just right and both teams continue to advance, apparently they could meet again in the finals, with the gold medal on the line.

Do You Believe In Miracles? Yes!

As I write this, the U.S. Olympic hockey team is playing the Russian team in Sochi, and every time these two teams face off, it brings up memories of what Sports Illustrated called the #1 sports moment of the 20th century. This YouTube clip has the final minute of the game, including Al Michaels' famous call, "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!!"

I can be cynical about the Olympics but this one never gets old.

Fall From An Airplane, Get Eaten By A Pig

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to fall out of an airplane, tumble to the ground and land in a pig pen, here you go.

A Perfect 10

Actually it's six perfect 6.0's, the scores Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean received for Artistic Impression after skating their long ice dancing program to Ravel's Bolero at the 1984 Winter Olympics. It's now been 30 years since that iconic performance on Valentine's Day and as I googled "Torvill and Dean" to try to learn what they've been up to for three decades, I was intrigued to see that they're back in Sarajevo this week, to skate a special benefit "encore" performance at the same ice rink where they won Gold in 1984. I'm hoping to be able to find a video of that performance later today or tomorrow; in the meantime here's the original:




Here's some more info about the two skaters who've been together since they were ten years old.

And this part is really cool: At the start of the video above, you'll see that the skaters had to wait a few minutes before starting their routine because a small girl was on the ice picking up flower bouquets that had been thrown down by spectators. During their return visit to Sarajevo this week. Torvill and Dean reunited with that girl, now in her thirties with a daughter of her own. Read about that here.

Update: It took a few days, but here's the encore performance.

Flying High

This is cool!  A picture of the Sochi site, taken from the International Space Station. 

Woof!

It's not just the Olympics. Dogs have been having their day at the Westminster Dog Show and a cute Wire Fox Terrier named Sky took best-in-show. No flags were raised and no anthems were played, but Sky gets a ribbon, a trophy and a nice steak lunch at a cool New York restaurant. Congrats and doggie treats all around!

Too Thin Too Fast?

The Biggest Loser controversy is the cover story this week, with Oscars and Olympics as sidebars.

Bone Appétit

President Hollande's dinner partners?  Bo and Sunny are all ready for the big state dinner.

The Guessing Game

Time for the guessing game! Who will be on the cover of People this week? Possibilities:

• Biggest Loser: Did winner Rachel Frederickson lose too much weight too fast? Is the show unhealthy?  
• The Olympics: Ice skaters Ashley and Gracie, Skier Bode Miller, snowboarder Shaun White, etc. 
• Justin Bieber: The problems keep coming. Did he and his traveling companions smoke marijuana on a private flight and interfere with the flight crew? 
• Juan Pablo: I'm still expecting a Bachelor cover one of these days. 
• Jennifer Aniston: Her 45th birthday. And when exactly is she getting married? 
• Shirley Temple: She was 85 and had been out of the limelight for not just years, but decades. Still, Dead Celebrity. 
• Selena Gomez: She's been in rehab, but claims it wasn't for substance abuse. 
• The Oscars: The big show is just 2 1/2 weeks away.

Tuesday afternoon update: There's a glamorous picture of the Duchess of Cambridge at her first official engagement of the year, so it may be time for another cover for Kate.  

Deliciously Spicy Frenchness

In June, 2009 I wrote a post about Carla Bruni, the wife of then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy. To my American eyes she was an unlikely first lady, having been a model, girlfriend to Mick Jagger and President Sarkozy's third wife, and I was intrigued by the deliciously spicy Frenchness of it all. I also wondered if such a thing could ever happen here. There's now a new president of France, Francois Hollande, who will be the guest of honor at a White House state dinner tonight, and he has a colorful marital history as well. In fact, he's not actually married. Up until recently the so-called First Lady of France was his "live-in girlfriend," Valerie Trierwieler but they split up when it was revealed that the president was frequently spending his nights with a much-younger actress named Julie Gayet.

So who cares, right? It's France. It's a bit of a thing here in the states right now because of the state dinner. Mr. Hollande has announced that he'll be attending "stag", which presents a protocol issue for the White House. Traditionally the spouse of the visiting head of state is seated in the place of honor next to the president. (Or presumably next to the first lady if the head of state is a woman and the spouse is a man.) Anyway, when the guest of honor doesn't bring a date, who sits next to the president? I read that the White House also had to trash the original invitations because they included Trierwieler's name when it was still assumed that she would be coming.

It's all pretty entertaining, but could it happen here? Could a politician with a messy personal life get elected president? Ronald Reagan was the first, and so far, only, President who had been divorced, but when he was elected in 1980 his divorce from Jane Wyman was 31 years in the past and it wasn't an issue in the campaign. We may have a test case in the 2016 presidential election. All 2016 speculation on the Democratic side is tied to whether or not Hillary runs, but if she doesn't, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York is one of the names on the "who else" list and if he does run, it will be one for the ages. Why?

He's the son of former governor Mario Cuomo and the brother of CNN anchor/reporter Chris Cuomo, but that's not the most interesting part.

He lives with but isn't married to Food Network chef Sandra Lee, but even that's not the most interesting part.

The most interesting part, the deliciously spicy part is this: his ex-wife is a Kennedy. From 1990 to 2005 Andrew Cuomo was married to Kerry Kennedy, daughter of RFK and Ethel, niece of JFK and Teddy, cousin of the new U.S. ambassador to Japan and Maria Shriver, etc. Their marriage was a dynastic merger of the highest order and their subsequent divorce was messy and public.

So does it matter, in 2016? A divorced candidate isn't that big of a deal, but a divorce that's tied to the whole Kennedy drama? Kennedys are both competitive and tribal, and I've read that they're not particularly kind to former in-laws. Can you imagine a former Kennedy in-law in the White House? In fact, there would be actual Kennedys in the White House because Andrew and Kerry have three daughters together and the girls are just as much Kennedys as Caroline's and Maria's kids. It would all be mesmerizing to watch and I haven't even mentioned Arnold Schwarzennegger, who's also an (ex) governor and (almost) former Kennedy in-law.

It's all just speculation at this point but it sure is fun to think about.

Nit-picky constitutional reminder: Since he was not born in the United States, Arnold isn't actually eligible to run for president.

Thinking Ahead...

The Olympics never really stop. With the Sochi games well underway, we also know the sites for the next three games: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Summer, 2016), PyeongChang, South Korea (Winter, 2018) and Tokyo (Summer, 2020). After that? Six cities are currently in the bid process to host the 2022 Winter Games:

Almaty, Kazakhstan
Beijing, China
Krakow, Poland
Lviv, Ukraine
Oslo, Norway
Stockholm, Sweden

Three finalist cities will be selected in July, 2014; the winner will be announced a year later on July 31, 2015. How do I know all this? There's a fun site called gamesbids.com that tracks it all.

The Most Overrated Politician In The Country?

Yikes, you don't see this very often. New Jersey's largest newspaper, the Star-Ledger, says "we blew it" with their editorial endorsement of Chris Christie in his re-election campaign last fall, calling him the most overrated politician in the country and yes, a bully.

Read it here.

Sorry Vlad? The Gayest Olympics Ever

Simon Doonan, at slate.com, says the Sochi Opening Ceremony was just fabulous, darling.

Blown Out Of Proportion?

An interesting perspective on the Sochi Olympics from the Christian Science Monitor. The author points out that there are glitches at the start of every Olympics and suggests problems are being blown out of proportion because Russia, or possibly because Putin. On the other hand there's this: 

Yet Russia sometimes plays into its own stereotypes, appearing to confirm latent cold war perceptions in the West. Though the fifth Olympic ring failed to open, Russian television viewers did not see it. Russian television spliced in a clip from a rehearsal where all the rings worked.

Again, mistakes at the opening ceremony are hardly unprecedented – and big ones, too. In Vancouver, one of the pillars designed to hold the Olympic flame failed to rise out of the floor. But Vancouver responded by ribbing their own mistake at the closing ceremony, not attempting to convince Canadians that it never happened.

Read the entire article here. 

Schadenfreude? Yes

Another example of a Russian toilet, tweeted by someone at the Sochi games.

And some food for thought about the tone of the coverage. Is the West gloating?

Is Putin Embarrassed Yet?

There was a time when I thought it would be fun to be a sports journalist and get to cover the Olympics. Not today. The stories, and again, more importantly, the pictures, coming out of Sochi are truly disgusting. (The bright yellow water? The buckets for toilet paper? Ick, ick and double ick.) Examples here and here.

I can't help but wonder what Vladimir Putin is thinking right now. These games have been described as his personal "baby", a source of prestige and glory with the whole world watching, at a cost of $51 billion worth of Russian treasure, not all of which has been properly accounted for. Is he even aware of what a mess things are? How narrow is his bubble? Does he have any sense of how this looks from the outside? (And if so, does he care? Possibly not.) Plus, it's fun to joke about toilet paper and missing lightbulbs, but I saw a tweet that raises a more serious concern: If the Russians are so inept they can't get light bulbs for every light fixture and shower curtains for every shower, how do we know the ski jumps are safe?

Finally, at least for now, is it a good thing or a bad thing that the hotel problems of reporters are diverting attention from security at the games? Still thinking about that...

More:  an interesting take on the Russian psyche. I'm hugely curious about how all this is playing in Russia, especially inside Putin's head. His Olympics are being mocked on a global scale because his people can't make the toilets work and the water run clear. The fallout may not be pretty.

And on that note, for better or worse, let the games begin!

If It Bleeds, It Leads...

Here's the new cover, and yes, Hoffman is getting the full Dead Celebrity treatment. I don't mean to be disrespectful, he was a great actor and his death is a tragedy, but there are many ways People could have framed the story. They didn't have to go with "A Life Destroyed By Heroin," with a bright red background for emphasis. I'm also pretty sure this "great actor" was never featured in a cover story while he was alive. He's big news now only because he died, which is both sad and predictable.

The three sidebar stories were also easy to guess, but I'm slightly surprised that there's no sign of Justin Bieber.

The Guessing Game

Let's play the guessing game! Who will People magazine choose for their cover story this week? There are several possibilities:

• Justin Bieber: Given all of his activities over the last couple of weeks, there's been surprisingly little about him on the people.com website. Are they ignoring him? Or holding off for a big cover story reveal?
• Amanda Knox: Found guilty again by an Italian court, will she have to go back to Italy?
• Phillip Seymour Hoffman: Because Dead Celebrity 101
• Prince George and Kate: snapped by paps while on vacation in Mustique
• Christie Gold, Ashley Wagner, and the Olympics: The Sochi games start Friday
• Oprah:  The Big 60
• Woody Allen: A sad, sordid family story, back in the news after 20 years
• Scarlett Johansson: A controversial commercial
• Dennis Rodman: Whatever

Tuesday afternoon update: At some point in the next few weeks we're almost certain to get a Bachelor cover. 

Squirting And Squinting: Ketchup Packets and Boarding Passes

Better living through design? Maybe. If you've ever inadvertently squirted ketchup on yourself while trying to open one of those little packets, you'll be happy to know that smart people are working hard to make them more user-friendly. And if you've ever had to squint to read the information on an airline boarding pass, there may be help on the way for that, too.

America's Shame: Our Ketchup Packets

Building A Better Boarding Pass