I Love Sporcle and You Should Too

In my daily unemployed house-bound daze I have been obsessively playing geography games on Sporcle. As of this past week I have learned all the countries in the world, their capitals, how to spell them, and where they are. At trivia last week at Red Hook Brewery, I told my friends that I would be utterly useless unless there was a question on countries, in which case I would own it. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as I dug into my nachos, only to have my friends' friends show up soon after and spend a good five minutes listing off all the European countries that end in -ia. Eff my life.

This afternoon I was playing a game on Sporcle in which I had to list the top baby names from 2000-2009 that are also countries. (Can you tell how much of a life I don't have?) I guessed the obvious ones--Chad, Jordan, Georgia--before I ran out of ideas and started listing Slovakia and Liechtenstein and St. Kitts & Nevis. If you guessed a country that was not among the top baby names but about which the creators of Sporcle (to whom I will collectively refer as "Mr. Sporcle") found something snarky to say, they would include the country at the bottom of the list, unnumbered, with their comment.

I guessed China and Mr. Sporcle told me that "Grace Slick named her daughter this, but it never caught on." After Cuba he wrote, "I loved him in Jerry Maguire." (And holy crap, Mr. Sporcle, did you see Radio?) After Cameron, "The country is Cameroon." Thanks, jackass. I know.

My favorite was when, running out of time, I guessed Seychelles and he pointed out, "Someone should name their kid Seychelles." The same went for Kyrgyzstan. "[Duke basketball] Coach Krzyzewski should have totally named his kid Kyrgyzstan." Yes and yes.


There was sass shooting in from all angles on some of the tamer countries, but Mr. Sporcle was disappointingly silent on such guesses as Democratic Republic of the Congo, North Korea, Kiribati, and Cote d'Ivoire. And seriously, over 7 billion people in this world and not one of them is named Federated States of Micronesia?

Unrelated to this topic, but related to Sporcle: I just found a game called "A-less countries." The directions tell you to "name the countries that do not contain the letter A for each letter," followed by a list of all the letters with a blank space after them. This list of letters? It starts with A. Now, I know some pretty damn intelligent people in this world but I don't think even they could name a country, beginning with the letter A, that does not contain the letter A. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Poetry Corner Monday

This week I'm posting some pieces (full and excerpted) by Jim Moore, who I discovered by chance when I pulled a book of his poems off of a shelf in my library's threadbare poetry section. The first two are single stanzas plucked from larger pieces, but the final two are complete. Enjoy!

Love in the Ruins

1

      I remember my mother toward the end,

folding the tablecloth after dinner
      so carefully,
as if it were the flag
     of a country that no longer existed,
but once had ruled the world.


Five Charms in Praise of Bewilderment

3

     Sitting quietly at dusk, I'll admit

my life goes like this:
     dark branches
scratching the still darker window.


(I dedicate this next one to my darling Casey. Case, I love you very very much but when I move to Melbourne I don't give a good damn how much you hate flying, you ARE coming to visit me. It's a 15-hour flight--start prepping now.)


Waiting to Take Off

I try not to listen to the direction
     to the emergency exits,
how close they are,
     how very well lit.


Those Others

     We lived at the end of an empire.

Sometimes we gathered in huge auditoriums
     and tried to understand.
Our shame did not save us,
     nor our sadness redeem us,
as we came to understand
     how others, far into the future,
would look back at us,
     shaking their heads: we hoped
in sorrow; more likely, anger. 

Current Musical Obsessions

You're welcome!

Brandi Carlile - "Before it Breaks"

Gorgeous lyrics, gorgeous voice. Plus she's adorable.

Missy Higgins - "Hello Hello"

There is nothing I don't love about her. Nothing.

Islands - "Hallways"

This song just oozes summer, though I could do without the mutinous dancing skeletons, all of whom have better rhythm than me.

Sara Bareilles - "King of Anything"

I know this has been out for a while, but I just can't get over it. Or the music video.

Scars on 45 - "Change My Needs"

They're British, they're beyond adorable. I dare you to find something wrong with this.

Poetry Corner Whenever I Feel Like It

Preservation

By Kathleen Flenniken

Bobo awaits my third grade class
at the forgotten end of the museum. I explain
when they finish beating their chests

that Bobo was a famous gorilla I saw at the zoo
when I was seven, that here he looks false
because he's stuffed and mounted upright, like a man.

We take in his flared nostrils and hair, the virility
of his chocolate-colored chest. Everyone, even Dylan,
falls silent for a moment, long enough to remember

you left me four weeks ago yesterday,
a rubber band snap to my inner cranium
for the thousandth time today.

Bess and Tran point to photos of Bobo as a baby,
dressed in a nightgown, being fed a bottle. Bobo "smiling"
at his birthday party. Happier days. I think irrelevantly

of the milk expiring in my refrigerator,
how attached I am to the date on the carton,
the day before the world went sour.

Even milk obscures the rites of decomposition,
the holy rites that Bobo was denied.
Is that so wrong? Roy Rogers

stuffed and mounted Trigger, his companion.
Wasn't that sweet testament, if sad and strange?
Bobo, do you understand the impulse?

I gaze into your fake glass eye but you decline
to answer. I'm talking to myself, your look implies.
We both stand awkwardly with nothing to say.

The kids are restless. They're talking about ice cream
and the bus outside. He was real, I remind them
but they're running up the hall.

The last time I saw him, he was alive.

You've Been a Big Help, Google Maps

I have plans today to meet someone in Monroe, which is only about 15 minutes away from my house but is a place I'm not very familiar with. I Googled directions to our rendezvous location and I would like everyone to observe the results I was given.

Start:
1. Turn right onto NE 195th St                                        0.4 miles
2. Turn left onto Woodinville-Snohomish Rd NE              0.5 miles
3. Take ramp left and follow signs for WA-522 East        3.4 miles
4. Turn left onto US-2 / Stevens Pass Hwy                     0.2 miles
5. Turn left onto N Kelsey St                                          0.1 miles
6. Turn left onto road                                                      0.0 miles
7. Turn left onto road                                                      0.0 miles
8. Turn left onto road                                                      0.0 miles
End: Arrive at road on the right                                       0.0 miles

I don't see how this could possibly go wrong.

Sounders Win Despite Best Efforts

Oz is a beast.

I'm going to confess something here, right now, because I need to get it out in the open, and what I need to confess is this: unless my team is destroying its opposition, I don't find watching soccer at all enjoyable. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's downright agonizing. Such was the Sounders game against the Colorado Rapids last night, when we scored in the second minute, conceded a goal two minutes later, scored again late in the second half, and then spent the last 20 minutes of the game running about like it was our first day on the job while the Rapids, as our former announcer would say, "loitered with intent" in the goal box, pummeling us with shots. I spent the entire second half digging my fingernails into my palms as if expecting to find treasure. My hands were shaking. My cheeks were burning. With five minutes left I looked over at my mom and she was leaning forward in her seat, her hands clasped in front of her in what resembled prayer. When the whistle blew I realized I'd been holding my breath for a truly impressive length of time. "What does it feel like to have a heart attack?" I asked my mom, releasing the tension in my fingers and sliding back onto my seat. "Put your hands up," she told me, "and breath."

See what I mean? Not enjoyable at all. Watching soccer is the most stressful way I could possibly spend a Saturday evening. So what did I do to relax? Made some quinoa salad and sat down to watch more soccer. You see, it's fine when I don't care who wins.

I Adore the Olympics

There are times in my life when I am stoic. There are times when I am entirely in control of my emotions. There are times when you couldn't pay me to cry.

And then there are the Olympics.

I have to say, I wasn't expecting much in the way of spectacle after the Beijing Games. I was like Wesley Snipes (not the Wesley Snipes) on 30 Rock when he was expressing concern to Liz Lemon about London as a host. "We're not prepared!" he exclaimed. "Did you see the Beijing Opening Ceremony? We don't have control of our people like that!" It's true--I don't think it's possible to create a more technically and visually precise production than the opening of the past Summer Games. But if Beijing was the tight, regimented production, London was the plucky little sibling with a whole lotta heart...and a really attractive accent.

I have been enchanted by the Olympics my entire life. When I was younger my mom would let me stay up late on school nights so I could watch my favorite Olympian of all time, American figure skater Michelle Kwan, compete in the long program. Backstage before my high school graduation, my friend Jessica and I attempted to hum "Pomp and Circumstance" but could remember only the Olympic theme song, to which we hummed our little hearts out.

To me, there are few displays of human accomplishment and camaraderie more breathtaking than Opening Ceremonies. Yes, they're so long that when they finally end it's practically time to extinguish the cauldron. Yes, they always have at least one excruciating moment whose corniness makes you want to slap your forehead in anguish. But when those countries start their march into the stadium there is nothing in the world that can touch them. It's a night of such profound national pride, such celebration of human potential and accomplishment, that you'd have to be made of stone to not be moved.

Kenneth Branagh for King of the Universe

If you were to chart my tearshed like rainfall it would be a more or less horizontal line except for five hours every two years that shot off the chart. That's the Opening Ceremony, and last night was no different. I can't stress to you enough how easily I can cry. I cry while listening to Disney songs. I cry if I'm trying to relocate a ladybug outside and accidentally injure it. Last week I cried during the Tour de France. It should come as no surprise, then, that I'm still dabbing my eyes after the deaf children sang and signed the British national anthem (after which I ran into the kitchen where my mom was watching it and, sniffing like a fool, declared "Damn those deaf kids!"). I cried when Kenneth Branagh recited a short soliloquy from The Tempest. (Kenneth Branagh is like chocolate syrup to me: everything is better with it.) I cried when the children's choir from Northern Ireland sang "Danny Boy," which was the song performed by members of my high school's faculty during the memorial service for my beloved English teacher Prudence Hockley. I cried when Saudi Arabia entered the stadium with its two female athletes, marking the first time in history that women have been allowed to compete for that nation. These are the first Games in which each of the 205 countries competing have sent women athletes and, for the U.S., the first time female competitors have outnumbered men.

Deaf children singing. I'm toast.

My mom and I also put on a stunning display during yesterday evening's ceremony, but ours was of global knowledge. Highlights included when I decided I wanted to learn all the countries and their capitals and then proceeded to draw a blank on every country beginning with an H. My mom and I then promptly forgot every nation starting with I except for Ionia which is, in fact, not a country. Who knew?

My dad, clearly exhausted, had wanted to stay up to hear Paul McCartney sing. He only went to bed when we reminded him that thanks to the time difference he could have YouTubed the performance five hours before. When my mom went to sleep she told me to tell her about anything exciting that happened. Considering it was halfway through the Parade of Nations, I asked what kind of excitement she was expecting. "Oh, I don't know," she answered. "When the U.S. shows up?"

The most moving moment of the night for me came, as it often does, with the lighting of the cauldron. As each nation made its entrance into the stadium it brought with it a metal petal which was then attached to one of over 200 pipes extending from the center of the arena. Seven of the petals were ignited by the torch bearers and within moments a chain reaction had lit a fire in each petal. Once they were all lit, they slowly rose up from the ground to form a single cauldron. Two hundred five nations becoming one in the spirit of the Summer Games. It was one of the most touching, beautiful moments I have ever witnessed. When my mom asked me this morning if I'd stayed up to watch the rest of the ceremony, I told her about the rising petals. "I cried so hard!" I said. Her response: "Of course you did."

Please, no one get married, die, or award me the Nobel Peace Prize in the next week or so. I need to replenish my tear supply.