Baseball Tunes: O Canada

"O Canada" is, of course, Canada's national anthem. The music was composed by Calixa Lavallée in 1880.  The French lyrics were written that same year by Adolphe-Basile Routhier, the original English lyrics in 1908 by Robert Stanley Weir.  The English lyrics have since been revised twice, adopted in their present form in 1980 when the song officially became Canada's anthem.

"O Canada" is performed at every game played by the Toronto Blue Jays, home or away.  The song is also performed, along with "The Star-Spangled Banner," at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.  Sarah McLachlan in 1996:



My Baseball Fantasy

Vermont: won, 7-3 (55-36-9 overall, 2nd place out of 12 teams)
Maryland: won, 6-4 (51-42-7, 4th of 10)
Public: 86 Rotisserie points (2nd of 12)
My Player of the Week: Jordan Zimmerman (Starting Pitcher, Nationals) with 1 win, 12 strikeouts, a 0.00 ERA and a 0.60 WHIP

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Family Movie Night: Chops

Title: Chops
Director: Bruce Broder
Original Release: 2007
Choice: Mine
My Overall Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Image via MIAJE

Every year, the best high school jazz bands in the United States send audition recordings to Lincoln Center in New York in hopes of being invited to the Essentially Ellington Festival.  Chops, a documentary directed by Bruce Broder, chronicles the adventures of one such band in its quest for the first place trophy.  Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida is one of the top performing arts high schools in the country.  At the outset of the film, the school's jazz band had been invited to the festival two years before but had not placed in the top three.

That's the plot, which is satisfying enough in an inspiring sports movie kind of way.  That's not why you need to see this film.  The talent of the students will blow...your...mind!  We meet two of the Douglas Anderson students while they're still in middle school and you will not believe what these 13-year-old kids can do. 



Do you like being inspired?  Do you love jazz?  Do you believe in the importance of arts education?  Look no further.  Chops is your movie.  Part of me feels I should share this with students but I know I'd be heartbroken if they don't like it. 

"When you love the music, you take risks."  Amen.

Roland Garros 2013: Eight for Rafa

Rafael Nadal has further cemented his status as the greatest clay court tennis player of all time.  The claims of others become increasingly ridiculous with each passing year.  Rafa has now won Roland Garros eight times, the most any man has ever won an individual Major.  His 12 total Majors also puts him in very exclusive company.  Only Roy Emerson (with 12), Pete Sampras (14) and Roger Federer (17) have won as many.

Photo via TopNews

Hats off to David Ferrer, though, for making his first Major final at the age of 31.  The hardest working man in tennis may not ever have this opportunity again but whenever he does decide to leave the sport (worth noting: no sign of that impending), he'll have a stellar resume and the rock-solid respect of everyone in the locker room.  He was no match for Rafa, his friend and countryman, but few pose much of a threat to the king with clay underfoot.

I missed the match of the tournament, Rafa's semi against Djokovic on Friday.  Whether you watched or not, I highly recommend Brian Phillips's summary on Grantland - very funny.  My Wife found it, in fact, and enjoyed it immensely. Her interest in tennis is reluctant at best.

Congratulations to Serena Williams, too, who now has a Double Career Slam - she has won each of the Majors at least twice.  Add this to her Double Golden Career Slam in doubles, which includes her Olympic efforts, and her claim to Greatest of All Time status is ever improving.  Steffi Graf still wins the numbers game, at least in singles: 22 Slams overall (Serena has 16), including at least four at each Major plus two gold medals.  For what it's worth, my women's pick, Agnieska Radwanska, lost in the quarterfinals - her career-best result at Roland Garros.

Baseball Tunes: Here Come the Yankees

"Here Come the Yankees" has been the official song of the New York Yankees since 1967.  It was composed by Bob Bundin and Lou Stallman, recorded by the Sid Bass Orchestra and Chorus.  I mean no disrespect to Messrs. Bundin and Stallman, who were just doing their job.  However, this is the city that spawned Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, The Cotton Club, Aaron Copland, the Met and Leonard Bernstein.  And, love 'em or hate 'em (for me, it's the latter), this is one of the greatest sports franchises in the world.  Something classier than a 1960s ad jingle is in order.



No doubt thinking along the same lines has led the following to become the Yanks' unofficial song, also quite fittingly played by teams in the organization's farm system.



Sinatra was a Jersey native and a devoted Yankee fan.

My Baseball Fantasy

Vermont League: won, 6-4 (48-33-9 overall, 1st place out of 12 teams)
Maryland League: won, 7-2-1 (45-38-7, 4th of 10)
Public League: 84.5 Rotisserie points (2nd of 12)
My MVP for the Week: Jarrod Parker (Starting Pitcher, A's) with 2 wins, 11 strikeouts, a 1.35 ERA and a 0.75 WHIP

Photo via The Afroed Elephant

Squid Eats: Homei Bistro

My parents were in town this weekend for Our Girl's dance recital.  While Saturday was mad with performance prep, we had Sunday to relax.  We decided to ignore warnings of impending thunderstorms and make a jaunt up to Quebec, evidently my parents' first trip to Canada in over 30 years!

Photo via HOMEI BISTRO

The region of the province which borders Vermont is called Canton de l'Est (Eastern Townships in English).  The rolling countryside is dotted with charming towns, apple orchards and wine vineyards.  My Wife has had her eye on a restaurant in Dunham, Quebec called Homei Bistro ever since the establishment received a glowing review from Seven Days, Burlington, Vermont's weekly newspaper. 

While we did drive through a couple of showers, it was bright and sunny at lunchtime.  We sat outside quite comfortably in the breezy courtyard.  The service was friendly and cheerfully accommodating to the Anglophones.  I would describe the cuisine as Asian-Italian-Canadian fusion.  My chicken teriyaki wrap shared the menu with with mussels and poutine (Quebec's regional dish) among other offerings.  The wrap was fine but even better were the pork and cabbage spring rolls we got as a side dish.    Beers from the neighboring Brasserie Dunham are available on tap.  I had the IPA - very nice.  The real treat, however, was dessert...

Naturally, our daughter wanted dessert.  The waiter raved about the brownie but Our Girl ordered the cheesecake.  Well, either something was lost in translation or he made an executive decision as to what she really wanted because what arrived at the table sure looked like a brownie topped with vanilla ice cream.  Not displeased at all, she happily dug in and offered me a bite.  Well...  she was lucky I gave it back to her.  According to My Wife, the look on my face said it all!  Absolutely divine!  Mistake or not, he definitely brought the right dish.

Over dinner later, my mother asked us all what our favorite part of the day was.  While the others all talked about the joys of wandering the village (unaware, we arrived in Dunham on the weekend of their La Clé des Champs festival), Our Girl and I were in agreement - it was the brownie!

Roland Garros 2013: The Middle Sunday

Roland Garros tends to be my weekends only Slam, meaning I'm generally only able to watch on the weekends.  France is 6 hours ahead of the US east coast so I'm at work when most of the tennis is played.  Wimbledon would present a similar problem except that it's during the summer.  Ah, summer...

You've gotta love the Internet, though.  I can still follow the tournament online.  I do miss DirecTV for the fact that one can choose between five different matches during the first week.  Relying on streaming, I can only watch whatever match NBC feels I should be watching.  Given my limited opportunities, it's not such a huge deal - yet.  If I can't get a reliable connection for next Sunday's men's final, we may need to rethink things.

Photo via TennisWorld

The biggest tournament surprise so far?  Four American women in the fourth round.  That doesn't happen very often at Majors any more, especially not on clay.  The star of the first week, by my reckoning, was Jamie Hampton, an Alabama native.  Hampton took out two seeds - Petra Kvitova (7th seed, Czech Republic) and Lucie Safarova (25th, Czech Republic) - en route to her first fourth round in a Major. 

The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: June Blog List

Greetings to all!  I hope you'll join us for the next installment of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, an online gathering of bloggers who love books.  The next meeting is set for Friday, June 28th.  If you're interested, please sign on to the link list at the end of this post.

The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same.  In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers.  Please join us: