Buffalo 66, alternate universe version

(Via Sweeney)

New Beginnings

The Bills on Saturday signed Terrell Owens for 1 year at 6.5 million guaranteed. Um. Yay?

Image from twoeightnine.

Five...gol-den...ringggs...

The Buffalo Bills sing the "Twelve Days of Christmas." Things get hilarious/interesting, relatively, at "five golden rings."

(From Dzys T.M. Rob)

Locker room ballots

Across the league, though, many players have eagerly pronounced themselves as supporters of candidates. Last week, Buffalo Bills quarterback Trent Edwards endorsed Obama during a conference call with the reporters. —USA Today

(Via Dzys T.M. Rob)

Oulipian sports (Buffalo version)

I. Yesterday
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — There was no play clock, no replay, no scoreboard, no television. A power failure that began when some Mylar balloons became ensnared in electrical lines near Ralph Wilson Stadium knocked out the N.F.L.’s modern amenities for much of the Buffalo Bills’ game Sunday, leaving only darkened locker rooms and throwback football in its wake. —NYT

II. Three decades ago
The Sabres faced off against the Flyers in the Stanley Cup finals, back in '75—here's some footage from the infamous Game 3, which featured not only a swooping bat but also thick fog.

Meet the Mets (in Buffalo)

The New York Mets are a horrorshow right now, blowing late-game leads with the precision of a Swiss-made timepiece (a Tag Heuer, perhaps?). Jayson Stark of ESPN relays an astonishing statistic from Bill James: that if their games were ended after 6 innings, the Mets would have an 11 1/2 game lead over the Phillies, and if they were ended after 8 innings, the lead would be 6 1/2. Currently, they are trailing by 1.5 games. Incredible.

Which is why I shift my thoughts to more soothing things, like my (and the Dizzies') hometown Buffalo Bisons announcing the Mets as their new parent club. Now, the Mets' farm system can charitably be described as "bare", while the former daddy Cleveland Indians have consistently produced outstanding talent from within (i.e. Grady Sizemore, C.C. Sabathia), so this doesn't bode well for on the field success. But the Mets are my team (a rebellion against my Dad's Yankee-ness), so if on my visits home I can see the exploits of the few gems in the system (Fernando Martinez, Wilmer Flores), then all the better.

Part of the reason the Bisons are so attractive to major league teams (they beat out Syracuse to nab the Mets) is their top notch facilities. It's mind boggling to think of it now, but Pilot Field (now the poetically named Dunn Tire Park) is such a nice ballpark because Buffalo held out hope to land a major league team, and was one of five finalists in 1993 for an expansion team, which eventually went to Florida and Colorado. What would Buffalo be like now if it had a Major League franchise?

As Wikipedia helpfully points out, the stadium was one of the first "retro" style baseball-only stadiums built by the architectural firm HOK Sport, four years before they also built Baltimore's Camden Yards, initiating the template for all new parks, up to and including the new Mets stadium, CitiField, which will open next year along with their new Bisons affiliation. It's fate!

And...let me point out that the undefeated Buffalo Bills are now in first place in the AFC East for the first time since week 2 of 2003. I'm only stating facts, not setting myself up for inevitable disappointment.

No logo—Buffalo edition

Exhibit A, from Karla in Buenos Aires: "Please note that while this wasn’t a part of arteBA it damn well could have been, as the kid is wearing a t-shirt bearing the likeness of the Bills/Cowboys Superbowl XXVII match up, smacking of both Modernism and Surrealism."



Exhibit B: The new look? Torontonians, what do you think? (Via Rob.)

Howard Hawks vs. the phrase "tone poem"!

Dizzies Team Member and Termite Artist Rob has submitted his list; isn't it time you sent in yours? (E-mail to thedizziesATgmailDOTcom, include your blog address if I don't know you!)

I Like:
Fart jokes, Hollywood musicals, skepticism, morning smiles, Andrea's eyes, awkward silences, Westerns, Nietzsche, genital herpes commercials, tailgating before Bills games, BBQ, Proust, ridiculously long David Bordwell blog posts, Howard Hawks, sleeping in, movies over 7 hours long, crime fiction, fantasy sports, concerts in the park, cigar smoking, joking with dad, Carl Dreyer, polemics, scotch, high-fives, falling leaves, jazz clubs, drunken arguments, the Best of Christopher Walken on SNL DVD, stand-up bass, country music, Will Ferrell, snowstorms, jukeboxes, tracking shots, cable TV, Dairy Queen Oreo blizzards.

I Don't Like:
Self-righteousness, Broadway musicals, indie rock, ’60s music nostalgia, ’70s movie nostalgia, olives, the phrase "tone poem", whining, the Miami Dolphins, loud neighbors, cults of personality, organic food stores, Noam Chomsky, humidity, rudeness, Dane Cook, rum, fake smiles, hangovers, Bluetooth headsets, idealism, iPods, cultural studies, moving out, self-pity, quick zooms, the WNBA, dictators, weak coffee, ideologues, plugged toilets.

In other news, the New-York Ghost has emerged...

Dizzies Newsfeeds™ for Monday, July 16

Light blogging till at least midweek—?!

1. Dizzyhead John, the brains behind Team Knucklehead and the "Theme From the New-York Ghost," alerts us to a free download of The Format's new album, Dog Problems. Today's the last day!

2. Dizzyhead Devin has posted the text to his talk, "Hotter Than a Crotch," which he delivered at the recent Dylan symposium in Minneapolis (and which was mentioned in Time magazine). Here's how it starts:

In November of 1972, Bob Dylan went to Durango, Mexico to play a small part in Sam Peckinpah’s Western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The production was cursed by all the expected crises, but there was one element on the set that no one saw coming. Peckinpah’s biographer, David Weddle, writes that, “The topsoil of Durango was permeated with animal manure that dried up, blew around with the fine silicone dust, and lodged in people’s lungs, causing chronic pulmonary infections.” One of the film’s stars, James Coburn, said that in Durango, “It was really cold and damp, there was wind, and a thousand years of horseshit floating around in the air.”

3. "TUNING FORK SCREECH PUTS OUT 24-INCH FLAME; FUTURE FIREMEN TO STAY HOME, SAYS SCIENTIST." In other words, Paul Collins rules!

4. Any further thoughts on the Ouroboros? Discussing ouroboric films with Dizzyhead Dennis, it seems that there is some crossover to another favorite motif/symbol/thingy—the Möbius Strip! Dennis asks if Lost Highway counts as one or the other, as it "opens—and ends—with someone saying "Dick Laurent is dead" into an intercom and it turns out the speaker and listener are the same person..."

Jawbone's recent comment reminded me of this nifty review by Angela Starita from the PTSNBN:

But despite a jacket photo of the jowly Manganelli facing down a Pinocchio doll, Centuria is a wonderful read for its endlessly inventive send-ups of narrative conventions. Manganelli's "novels" telescope time so that his characters end where they started, like the ouroborous of the subtitle—an ancient symbol of renewal showing a snake that bites its tail.

UPDATE: From Dizzyhead Stubes, responding to our challenge (as "JMS"):

Perhaps of some small interest, my solution (if it counts as such) to your question #3 was, like your friend Izzy’s, orthographically derived, tho not a misreading. I merely noticed the similarity of the two words (then again, it was late—maybe my eyes were crossing). But I didn’t know the Sante passage, per se. Also interesting that Sante was on the verge of realizing a wonderful… something--not quite sure it qualifies as a pun--when he compared the coil of the outerboroughs to the Ouroboros, but missed his chance. Ah, well…

5. Also via Dennis, from Anna Karina's Sweater, this amazing look at two precursors to "2046" (the room/year of Wong Kar-wai's titular film)—can Dizzyheads think of more?

6. Team Dizzies members are encouraged to post—I'm hoping Sweeney will link to a Buffalo mixtape in the making...?! Singer will interview himself? Izzy will post a picture of the Colonel disemboweling a Michael Pollan book? Hua will do a dance? Arlo will post her avatar? Chrita?

Bowling for foie gras

Brit in...Buffalo?



[Photo by Adrian Kinloch.]

At Umamimart, Dizzyhead Hua turns out to be a great food writer and illustrator.

The truth is out there

And yet again, Buffalo sports fans like me pay with a stake through the heart. "Wide Right" and Brett Hull's skate in the crease weren't enough. Three more losing Super Bowls and Frank Wycheck's illegal forward pass (some call it the "Music City Miracle") weren't enough. Brad Park's slap shot in overtime of Game 7 of the 1983 Adams Division finals wasn't enough. Blowing a 14-3 halftime lead over the Chargers in the 1980 AFC playoffs wasn't enough. Leading the Hurricanes 20 minutes from the 2006 Stanley Cup finals and falling short wasn't enough. Coincidence or vast anti-Buffalo sports conspiracy? You decide.

—Greg Sukiennik, ESPN.com the magazine (is that the title?!)

(Thanks to Cousin Andrew)