Discovering Baudelaire, An Overview

I have too much to say on the topic of:

1. My trips to random bookstores I drive by, decide to visit, and eventually buy something;
2. Discovering a specific artifact;
3. Doing research on the artifact;
4. Consuming the artifact;
5. and, Having my World View adjusted by the artifact.

This is the "artifact" of which I speak:

I'd heard of Baudelaire, but I knew virtually nothing about him. I'd never heard of Theophile Gautier.

I'm currently deeply involved in putting together a series of blog posts about this tiny collection of essays (just two, with an introduction--it's barely 120 pages in total)(the titular "Poem of Hashish" is not a poem, but an essay).

I never knew this tiny collection even existed, and it nearly didn't: this pairing of contemporaries was only put together in the 1960s, about a hundred years after each was published, and a hundred-and-fifteen years after the events that was being written about occurred, and only because the times seemed to call for it.

Both Gautier and Baudelaire were amazing writers...

What Fucking Time Is It

Its 0104... and it's now Tuesday... I'm still awake and watching 'Highlander' on Amazon... should I be sad about this?

What a film... what a time... nothing says awesomeness like a Queen soundtrack set to wrestling and Scotish highlands.  Great sweeping aerial shots too. Then you see him... the Highlander.

Flash back hundreds of years.

This soundtrack............. it touches my soul............ in ways that I can't explain.  I see hallways of Lichen. I see... no... taste  fruit cocktail............ the cherries that have grit on them. I think of baseball cards... Ryne Sandburg....... and tripping while eating a banana.

What fucking time is it. Now 0109. Sword fight now... reminds me more of Bill and Ted. Those two idiots.  But back to the hallways of Lichen... and the super low urinals... that are only low if you have never experienced one higher...

McCloud just beat a dude with a pipe... while in the parking garage...

Now I think of sore lungs... like when you swam all day... eyes sore too. Fucking chlorine. Time to eat cheap pizza at a birthday sleepover.

What's that sound......... the train?

Going to bed... too much nostalgia for one movie.

But watch it anyways... what an asshole... think he'll win?

Thinking of Pinstripe Power

The last post was back in September? Yikes.

Okay, so, how good are the Astros going to be? Like, holy cow, did they get WAY better or is that me overreacting?

I like the Yanks passing on Gerrit Cole, but having him in pinstripes would have been okay...just giving up prospects for a kid...my memory is flooded with the Weavers and Pavanos and Igawas and Pinedas and and and...I guess Pineda was okay after his surgery and discovering pine tar. I'm a little out of the loop out here on the edge of the continent.

It still hasn't quite set in that we got Stanton, or, as a website I read regularly abbreviates it, TMGS. Which of course stands for The Mighty Giancarlo Stanton. People around here are pissed---TMGS is from LA (essentially) and wanted to come pay for the Dodgers, but they were too uptight about the money---or that's how its portrayed around here, whether that's the case or not probably doesn't matter.

At least not to us, am I right?

Stanton and Judge and Sanchez and Bird and Severino and Betances? And Andujar and Torreys in a couple of months? Is it me or did the Yanks just build the basis for another homegrown (plus TMGS) dynasty on the sly?

IS CASHMAN THIS GOOD OR THIS LUCKY OR BOTH?

Probably both...

FIFTY!

After hearing that our all-world rookie Aaron Judge had both broken McGwire's rookie record for homers and reached the heady plateau of 50 home runs---in the same game of course---I was going to come on here and make some smart remark about not having ever seen another Yankee player hit fifty in my lifetime.

And then I remembered A-Rod and how he 54 in one of his MVP years in the Bronx. And then the shame of bad memory came through, because that was when we lived there...and I think he got to 600 that same season. Whoops.

But really, that's a short list...

Yankees who have hit fifty home runs in a season:

1. Ruth (4 times)
2. Mantle (twice)
3. Maris (once)
4. A-Rod (once as a Yankee)
5. the Judge

Bring on the Twins for the play-in game! Can we catch Boston? We got young! Ahead of schedule, this is exciting!

Note for Dan

So, I was reading a list of the top 50 good-bad movies ever, complete with confusing and not-so-arbitrary research-driven points scheme. One movie they mentioned jogged my memory banks...HOLY SHIT! I said to myself, I haven't thought about that movie in decades.

Remember?

ALL RISE!

I'll stop posting random Aaron Judge stuff when they stop writing it.

Or I think of better stuff to write.

So here you go, another cool Aaron Judge piece.

One More Aaron Judge Thing

We have our first home-grown slugger since...Gary Sanchez(?)...but really, who? Shelby Miller? He didn't last beyond that week in September 2007 when Ruth was temporarily resurrected...

Was Donnie the last Yankee home-grown slugger? He doesn't quite fit that mold, though. Perennial MVP candidate (in his prime), sure, but not in the same category as, say, your Mantles or Thomes (who never played for the Yanks).

Anyway, a sports website I read often had a cool article called "The Majesty of Watching Aaron Judge Mash." It highlights five homers that show different facets of the kid's homer game, if such a thing exists.

they also had some cool links to photos, which I will shamelessly hijack and display here.

Like, here's a guy and his little brother, playing on opposite teams:

No wait, that's the (former) behemoth known as Ryan Howard, an otherwise huge human being who doesn't seem to be good at baseball anymore. In fact, he's retired, unless any contender wants an otherwise huge first baseman who used to be great at crushing baseballs.

I'd imagine it's rare when he's overshadowed.

How about: here's a guy and his son, dressed in matching baseball outfits:

No wait, that's Ronald Torreyes, utility infielder with the Yanks. He is small by MLB standards, but still...this picture looks out of place.

The video clips of the homers are pretty cool, and it's fresh to have youth that can ball...and I'm dutifully ignoring the small sample size of all this, but it pretty cool the Yanks are making these kinds of stories instead of this or this kind.

And I know those are both A-Rod articles, and I don't really mean to poop on his time as a Yankee, because it was rather fantastic, beyond the ugliness...just sayin' this a bit more fun and less full of baggage.