Is It Sexist To Not Buy A Book About Mickey Mantle Just Because It Was Written By A Woman?

Audible is having one of their frequent sales, a BOGO from selected books. There were half a dozen I wanted, including a biography about Mickey Mantle – until I saw that The Last Boy was written by a woman.

As I continued my search, Kelly – a woman and sometimes baseball fan – walked in, so I asked her: am I being sexist? Somehow, I thought she would laugh it off, pass it off as just some other fleeting, nonsensical notion that I seem to have. You know, another joke.

Instead, she glared at me, gave me the one raised eyebrow look, and said “of course it is sexist” with much more passion than seemed necessary. She said more, but the details are fuzzy now, something about men writing about women and women’s issues and women’s points of view for centuries blah blah blah….

So I selected the one book I really wanted – written by two men – and deliberated over the others, and finally downloaded the Mantle book. I could say that my interest in baseball generally and Number 7 specifically won out, but I suspect I bought Jane Leavy’s book so Kelly would have a bit more respect for me. Either that, or just so I’d have something to blog about today.

The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood is 3^rd or 4^th on my reading queue, so I’ll let you know how it turns out. And I’ll let you know when Kelly starts speaking to me again.

Women....

John Moe May Never Understand But The Star -Spangled Banner Moves Me

Like you, I like my country. I actually do pledge allegiance to the flag, because those words mean something to me. So does the national anthem.

I’ve volunteered at our local minor league baseball stadium this summer, working the concessions stands. We are swamped when the gates open at 6, but everything stops when that song starts at 7:05. I love to watch the crowd standing so still, many with hands across their hearts, mouthing the words, heads turned toward center field. Even the kids pay attention.

The volunteer singers always do an excellent job with the difficult tune, and I love how the power of the words and the emotion of the voices always wash over me. “… oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave….”

Self-proclaimed liberals like John Moe may mock, deride, but the event always moves me. Perhaps we seem less indivisible these days, polarized by the press into red states and blue states, but I say we are united still. Our real differences are more minor than major. One trip to the ball park proves it.

Daughters And Otters And A Little Thai Food On The Side

Two of the girls were here today, one soon off to high school, one soon off to college. Another is off to Gulf Shores, then high school. Missing them made me nostalgic.

Riding bikes with the youngest when she was 8, she asked how often I eat at a local Thai restaurant. I had shoes older than this girl, and there she was, somehow, asking about favorite foods at exotic eateries. She proceeded to tell me all her favorites. It was strange to watch her enthusiasm, and how easily she pronounced the unusual names.

She is our eighth child, but it still amazes me how much they change as they grow, how much they improve as they develop, how smart they get.

They're not like, say, an otter. Otters seem to have a pretty cushy life – frolicking in and out of the water, roughhousing with their otter buddies, watching out for angry elephants. But otters never change, mature, improve. They pretty much never accomplish anything, leaving nothing behind to mark their time on the planet. Even auditors do that.

I wanted to say “even politicians do that,” but I like the alliteration, and I’m not sure it is true of most legislators.

How Much Would You Pay To Not Eat Raisins?

I paid a buck twenty-five to not eat raisins.

My granola cereal has raisins, which I eat reluctantly. I like raisins okay, our primary source of boron, as you know. I just don’t like them in food, especially cookies. And cake. And cinnamon bread.

I found a brand of granola cereal that doesn’t have raisins, but it costs $1.25 more, which, if you know me, is a huge difference. So I did some quick math and determined that the cost per ounce – only about  7 cents – was a small price to pay not to have to pick raisins out of my bowl.

Wouldn’t you have done the same in this situation?

Sometimes Only A Brand Name Will Do (Just Ask Winston Churchill)

The TOMS shoes post got me thinking about name brands. In most cases, the known brand is not worth the extra money because most generic products are identical to and manufactured right alongside the more expensive ones. But aren’t there some things where only the brand name will do?

I have a few favorite brands, such as ConverseAll-Stars, Wilson tennis rackets, Levi’s Jeans, and Gibson Guitars. Right now I’m wearing Reeboks and Lee Jeans, because they were on sale. I play tennis with a Head racket, also on sale, and the guitar sitting next to me is a Johnson (a Johnson?) because who can afford to learn on a Gibson? In most things, it seems – clothes, groceries, most hygiene products – my loyalty is to price over brand.

But there are some things on which I do not skimp, just like Churchill having some things up with which he will not put….

In the kitchen, I only use Saladmaster cookware. It is simply the best and healthiest and cheapest way to cook, and the food tastes great because it loses so little nutrition.

Since 1977, all my cameras have been Canon. A friend loaned me a Canon AE-1 35 years ago and I was hooked for life. Even though Kelly’s wonderful Nikon Coolpix is on my desk at the moment, I would never purchase anything other than a Canon for myself.

My computer is a big ol’ HP, as are both monitors, the speakers and sub-woofer, the external hard drive, the wireless keyboard and the printer. I like HP, and likely will stay with the brand. Kelly, on the other hand, has a big ol’ iMac on her desk and a MacBook where ever she goes. She is pretty devoted, in the way raving lunatics are devoted, to the brand, and if I point out – logically and kindly – that she could have bought three computers like mine, or six times the computing power, for the same price, she starts acting all wonky, like all Apple people do when you use logic on them.

A recent preference is for Bose speakers. Over the last four years we’ve gotten the SoundDock, the SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker, and the Quietcomfort 15 headphones. I’m telling you, you have never heard music until you put those babies on and flip the little switch. The sound is stunning and absolutely personal. Don't tell anyone, but sometimes I just put them on with the noise cancelling feature on so I get a little quiet time. Oh, and don't wear them while riding your bike.

I take generic medicine, when I take medicine at all, but if I have a cold, I rely on Vicks VapoRub. It’s the best.

I use regular Zest soap, and only Zest soap, in a bar, because I like being "zestfully clean," and I use Mennen Speed Stick, Unscented.

There are also some brands that I refuse to use. I don’t Google, for example. I don’t wear Old Navy or Aeropostale or Abercrombie, which is good, my children say, because I’m not cool enough. Which, I say, proves the point about that whole TOMS shoes scam.

How about you? What are your brand loyalties?

It's A Gala Day

And Groucho follows that line with, "Well, a gal a day is enough for any man. I don’t think I could handle any more." The scene is from Duck Soup, the 1933 movie that featured Groucho, Harpo and Chico at their Marxest.

Here are some other funny movies for your weekend enjoyment:

Adam's Rib - 1949: Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, in the best of their movies, playing married lawyers representing opposite sides in a divorce case.

Harvey - 1950: An addled Jimmy Stewart and a six-foot rabbit only he can see.

The Seven Year Itch - 1955: Marilyn Monroe, fabulous white dress, subway grating. I'm sure there must other things in the movie, too.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World - 1963: Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Jimmy Durante, Jonathan Winters and SpencerTracy. They are just funny guys.

A Shot in the Dark - 1964: Peter Sellers and Inspector Clouseau, together again, and not a Steve Martin in sight.

All these titles are available on Netflix, but the Marx Brothers, Marilyn Monroe and Peter Sellers are Watch Instantly selections, so you won’t have to wait until next weekend for those.

Some Dance To Remember, Some Dance To Forget

I'm listening to Hotel California by the Eagles. What a great song, from the achingly slow, 53-second bass intro to the haunting, colorful lyrics. It is a terrific song, a classic, a wonderful and mysterious short story.

Like all good writing, great songs elicit powerful, emotional images, and remind us of who we are, or should be. Who does the words "she got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends," make you think of? Someone in the news, or someone in your past, perhaps?

Could there be a more simple, evocative description of human loneliness than "some dance to remember, some dance to forget," or the helplessness many of us endure than "and she said, we are all just prisoners here, of our own device"?

Where in literature is there, in so few words, such an accurate depiction of the seeming futility of life than, "they stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast," or the more potent "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave…"?