A Sound of Sheer Silence

"The Way You Look Tonight" by Tony Bennett et al. They calls songs like this "the Great American Songbook."  It turns out that this song was first recorded by Fred Astaire, as part of the soundtrack for the movie Swingtime .  It won the Academy Award in 1936.  Everyone and their brother has covered it.  As a result, a song like this can almost fade into the background, to the point you wouldn't really notice it. For whatever reason, though, this song has always stuck with me, and in particular the Tony Bennett version.  I think what I love about the song is its minimalism.  There are plenty of love songs out there that make grandiose declarations about the attributes of the beloved--he or she is the most beautiful, the most charming, the most whatever.  As flattering as such declarations no doubt are, exaggerating the attributes of the beloved suggests that only those with such enhanced attributes are worthy of love.  "I love you because ...

I didn't intend to write about sports twice in one week, but it has been forced upon me.  I have thought for a while now that Every Day Should Be Saturday may be the best blog on the Internet.  On one level, it is a blog about college football, but on the other hand it is a Proustian reflection on the meaning of life.  The primary author/founder Spencer Hall is an unbelievably good writer, and his piece today is one of the most beautiful I have ever read .  Seriously, go read it and then come back. I can't write like he can, but his piece triggered two thoughts about college football.  The first has to do with my father.  Some of my earliest memories of him involve Penn State football.  He loved Penn State, and he loved Joe Paterno.  More importantly, he believed in Joe Paterno, the person.  In 1987, Penn State played Miami in the National Championship Game.  Penn State were the good guys, and Miami were the bad guys.  Miami was ...