Book Review: Call of the Mild [2012]

When Call of the Mild, by Lily Raff McCaulou, came up in my first Reading Roulette draw, I couldn't remember what had prompted me to put it on my To Be Read list in the first place. It's the account of an East Coast reporter in her early twenties who takes a job in Oregon and, after dipping some toes in the water via fly fishing, begins to hunt game.

I am not a hunter. I've never been hunting. In fact, I'm a vegetarian. I'm not really cool with killing things in order to eat them, although I know that the production of my tofu and so forth probably comes at the cost of some animal lives (see Michael Pollan, repeatedly quoted in Call of the Mild). Nevertheless, I approached this book as something that might broaden my horizons--both in terms of what I usually read, and the subject matter.

In addition to providing sometimes humorous descriptions of her first encounters with hunting and guns, McCaulou frequently describes her struggles with the ethics of hunting. Her thesis is encapsulated by these passages:

The chase fosters a special relationship, a direct connection between predator and prey. Yet that closeness does not infringe upon the predator's willingness to eat the prey. Instead, killing and eating the prey becomes an expression of that relationship's specialness. (207)

Animals die whether we acknowledge them or not, whether we eat them or not, whether we participate in their deaths willfully or indirectly. To me, hunting my own meat feels like saying grace before a meal and really, for the first time in my life, meaning it. (209) 

Whether you agree with this justification/explanation, her stories and tidbits were interesting enough to get me through the book. McCaulou never seems completely comfortable with her identity as hunter, no matter how much she works to understand it. Some of her assertions were downright troubling:

As a conservationist, it pains me to think of someone pulling the trigger on a rare tiger. But if the astronomical price tag for hunting one tiger raises enough money to protect hundreds of them, isn't that doing more good than harm? (172)

I don't agree with the idea of sacrificing one for the good of the many, nor am I fully on board with "In a sense, hunting is a final frontier of feminism. As women make up a growing percentage of American hunters, we quietly lay claim to a party of humanity that has been dominated by men" (239). Still, this book does provide a lot of food for thought, and maybe McCaulou's continuing internal conflict over the act of taking animals' lives is what makes her a good hunter. Guilt is a continuous thread through the book, yet it doesn't dissuade her from continuing on her path--from rabbits to pheasant to larger birds and finally big game.

Grade: B-

It's not you, it's me. When it comes down to it, I just don't care that much about hunting, although McCaulou does make a compelling argument for hunting as a way of better understanding the natural world--and that hunters ought to be the staunchest of environmentalists. McCaulou's narrative of her activities is interspersed with many digressions on related topics and stories about friends and acquaintances, sometimes feeling like a series of essays rather than a cohesive whole. But I'm glad I read it, even though I never would have gotten through it if not for this project.

My favorite part of this book was completely unintentional. In a passage on cross-country skiing, she describes what she does to keep herself entertained during the seemingly repetitive exercise:

Once I get too tired to be anything but practical, I make mental lists of articles I want to write. Next, I compose pneumonic devices to remember my lists. (180)

I'm going to file that typo away for a rainy day laugh.

This is a thing in a lot of states, including MA, where I live: Becoming an Outdoors-Woman (BOW)

Book Review Index

ETA: Now I do remember how this book got on my TBR list--I read a review in the course of collection development, and thought it looked interesting. This is how a lot of books end up on my list.

Sports I Love: College Basketball Tournament Time

It's March, which means it's time for college basketball tournaments. I'm not nearly as invested in bracketology or "being right" about likely winners as I am in watching good games and finding someone to root for. Because of its single-elimination format and the difficulty of seeding 64 (or more) teams, every game has a potential for surprise and upset. Players appear in the limelight who have never graced the national stage before. Dynasties are toppled and legends made. Announcers throw stats around. Cameras zero in on people's parents in the crowd. In terms of thematic appeal, March Madness gets a bit closer to the fuzzy-focus backstories of the Olympics than NBA games typically do. Another appeal of the tournaments (both men's and women's) is their finite nature. They're not a season-long commitment. If you want to, you can tune in and out, and pretty soon it's baseball season.

Last week, my father and I watched NCAA tournament games in the same room for the first time since . . . 1995, probably, since that was the year I graduated from high school. We watched, we rooted, we stayed up too late, we said nearly identical things at the same time. He proved remarkably accurate when guessing the home town of various corn-fed-looking Indiana University players. For me, the real appeal of March Madness is the narrative, both the one being created each year and the one that we, as fans, bring to the table. As a family policy, we root for the University of Kansas because my mother went to undergrad there, and we root for Indiana University because my parents went to grad school there and first met there and after enough years of rooting for IU you start to feel like you've always rooted for IU, although now it's easier to root for IU without reservations, since Bobby Knight has nothing to do with the team. I remember the excitement of the 1987 championship, even though I was ten at the time. I remember (more bitterly) the fact that I was under anesthesia for surgery for my broken elbow the next year and missed the 1988 title game, which Kansas won.

After years of watching, I've developed a patchwork quilt of teams that I root for (I do my best to try not to root against teams, with the exception of BYU and Duke and North Carolina), both on the men's and women's sides:

Women's:
Utah: I root for all University of Utah teams and have since I was a wee lass.
Tennessee: I love Pat Summitt. I hope that last night was not her last game as a coach, but if it was, she's created a fabulous legacy.
Connecticut: I don't love Geno Auriemma so much, but his teams play solid basketball, and where I live you can see them on regular TV.
Notre Dame: Their coach is named Muffet McGraw. Plus my relationship to Knute Rockne has somehow translated into rooting for all ND teams?
Rutgers: Coach C. Vivian Stringer is kick-ass.
Stanford: Coached by out lesbian Tara VanDerveer, consistently excellent team.

Men's:
Utah: See above.
IU and KU: See farther above.
Gonzaga: John Stockton went to school there (and his son goes there now).
Wisconsin: I went to graduate school there, and somehow that translates to me rooting for the men's basketball team and the football team, but that's it.

Further Breakdown:
After these options are exhausted, I will root for:

• Anyone from the Big 10 playing someone not from the Big 10
• The underdog
• Whoever has better uniforms
• Someone playing BYU or Duke or UNC
• Whoever has a better mascot
• Both teams

As I look at this list, I realize that it's usually more about the coaches than the kids on the team; they're likely to be consistent year after year, even if they end up moving to a different school at some point. I enjoy seeing tournament standouts in the NBA or WNBA, but I think of the teams as belonging to their coaches rather than their players. In any case, I never have any trouble finding something to root for, because that's how I thread myself into the narrative. And if I can do it with my father groaning and cheering at my side, so much the better.

Other sports I love: badminton, football, baseball, figure skating, tennis, and soccer. Consider this post an addendum to my earlier post on basketball, since that one gives a better picture of my history with the sport.

Sports I Love: Badminton

I had a dream last night about playing badminton. Badminton is a racquet sport, like tennis, but without many of the tedious trappings, such as a fixed court or well-known celebrities. And unlike tennis, given a brief introduction, most people could probably play badminton, although there will be those moments where the bird gets hilariously stuck in a racquet or the server misses hitting it altogether. The main appeal of badminton for non-sporty people like me is its portability; my family had a compact badminton set that we could haul with us and play at picnics or on vacation (not that we ever did, but we could have). For me, the idyllic nature of badminton goes hand in hand with soft grass and sunny days.

My childhood badminton set was a little worse for wear; the racquets were a mixture of electrical-taped wood and lightweight metal, and we had one "bird" that was made with actual feathers. It was just a conversation piece most of the time, until we lost track of the plastic ones or got them treed. The net had the holes it was supposed to have, and a few extra-large holes that were probably made by an over-enthusiastic participant. Along with croquet, badminton is a game that I remember playing semi-regularly during portions of my childhood, particularly with my mother. She wasn't particularly sporty, but we would set up the net in the front yard and stage epic badminton battles. I also seem to recall trying to teach the neighborhood children to play, but I'm sure that was about as successful as my attempt to play Dungeons & Dragons with them.

When I was in high school, one of our gym units was on badminton, and I had the advantage of already knowing how to play due to my rigorous mother-daughter sessions. At the end of the unit, we played a doubles tournament, and my partner and I (we were both named Anna) made it to the semifinals. Why is that tournament one of my favorite memories from high school? Because it's a great feeling to excel at a sport, and to work so smoothly with someone else in a way that made high school gym not only tolerable, but enjoyable. As opposed my time on the basketball team, I was actually able to play the game, and I was good at it.

The last time I played badminton, as far as I remember, was a picnic with co-workers from my tennis and literacy non-profit. Although I wouldn't ever give any of them a decent game on the tennis court (the racquets are too damn heavy . . . backhand, you say?), I am pleased to say that I managed to hold my own against the others on my boss's lawn. So yes, a large part of the reason I like badminton is because I'm good at it. Unlike many of the sports I've discussed here (see: figure skating), I can actually perform reasonably well. Of course, I'm not anything like those Olympic players who are so fascinating to watch, but I'm looking forward to the chance to play again. My family's badminton set--hole-y net, feathered bird, and all--is somewhere in my garage, and spring is finally here. Anyone want to play?


Meditation Index

Sports I Love: Football

It's past time for another entry in this series, and football season is well underway. Unlike some of the other sports I've discussed, football is not one I've ever really played. I am exclusively a TV football watcher and an armchair critiquer, albeit one with the ability to get interested most games, whether or not I have any history of caring about the teams involved (see rooting hierarchy at the bottom of this post).

My family has a football history that I've always felt connected to, even though I am way too young to have known the primary person involved. You see, my grandmother's uncle was Knute Rockne of "win one for the Gipper" fame. His family--my great-grandmother's family--emigrated from Voss, Norway to Chicago, and he ended up coaching at Notre Dame. My grandmother lived in South Bend as well for the entire time that I knew her, and sometimes talked about going to Knute Rockne-related events. I know she was proud of the association, and I have the now-decrepit Notre Dame gear to prove it. My family's trip to Norway for the Rockne Family Reunion in 1994 (I think?) was one of the more memorable events of my childhood.

My earliest memories of football involve watching the Utes with my dad, especially rivalry games with BYU. Usually we would watch on TV, but sometimes we would walk up to the stadium and actually go to a game, which was incredibly exciting for young me. We lived close enough to the U of U campus (dad always walked or biked to work) that I could usually hear the marching band practicing from my bedroom window, especially on quiet nights. At some point before I went to high school, our family's football enthusiasm died off, I'm not sure exactly why. I still cared in an oblique way about the Utes, but I focused my attention on my high school team, attending the occasional game and reveling in our victories over East High. My college team was pretty awful (our swim team was much better), although I did attend games to support my friend in the pep band. We did occasionally manage to beat Kenyon or OWU. I never embraced the fervor for Ohio State football that many of my classmates had been born and bred to. During my graduate school stint at the University of Wisconsin, I embraced Badger football, although I never got to attend a game.

I remember watching the Bears win the Superbowl in the 80s, and being vaguely happy about it. Growing up in Utah, there is pretty much a void in terms of which NFL team you should like. The Broncos are the closest choice, I guess, but Denver is an eight hour drive away. A lot of my classmates liked the Raiders, probably because it was cool, but then Raiders gear was banned from school. After I moved to New England, I started to watch the Patriots whenever I got the chance. My partner disliked football, but the sport eventually won her over during the run up to one of the Superbowls. I do try to catch the Patriots games if at all possible, although I wouldn't call myself a "die-hard" fan. I would like to actually go to a game some time, but I think the stars would have to align for that to happen.

In the meantime, I very much enjoy flipping through the channels on a Saturday or Sunday and rooting for teams using the following hierarchy:

College Football
Definitely root for: Utah, Wisconsin, Iowa, Notre Dame, Kansas
If they're not playing, root for: Anyone in the Big Ten vs. any other conference (above excluded). Determine rooting for within-Big-Ten conference games via complicated formula.
If no Big Ten games, root for: The underdog. Whoever has better uniforms (this excludes the Oregon Ducks automatically).
If none of the above: Change the channel, it's probably not worth trying to watch college football.

NFL
Definitely root for: Patriots, Bears
If they're not playing, root for: The Broncos, teams that have former Patriots players that aren't jerks
If none of the above, root for: The underdogs of the Midwest.
If no believable underdogs, root for: A good football game, maybe one with a safety or successful on-side kick.

Meditation Index

Sports I Love: Soccer*

I began my not-so-illustrious soccer career at the same time most children do in the United States: at a fairly young age, when "playing" is more equivalent to "everyone chasing the ball and sometimes accidentally kicking it in the goal" than what one would generally see when watching, say, the World Cup. Although sometimes that kind of thing still seems to happen on corner kicks, even at that level.

Upon reflection, however, it should have been a tip-off that I often preferred the yummy orange slices at halftime to actually being on the field. I spent most of my youth soccer career playing fullback, which was just as well for me because we had a few really good forwards who kept the ball on the other side of the field for the majority of the game. On one memorable occasion, however, I was placed in the net as the goalie, where I promptly allowed several goals and was never called upon to serve in that capacity again.

Despite my reluctance to actually move around the field (another manifestation of the laziness that has kept me from my destiny as an Olympic athlete), I do remember enjoying myself and even (gasp) practicing at home. I had a stake that you put into the ground with a long elastic cord that ended in a closed net for the soccer ball; this way you could kick the ball as hard as you wanted and it would snap back in your direction, which I liked because: less running. I eventually even figured out how not to get in the face by the returning ball.

After years of acquiring soccer trophies based on very little effort and consistently good teammates, things started to get more serious as I got older (although my future in-law and I did spend a lot of time singing "Take Me Out of the Ball Game" during yawn-inducing junior high games). When the time came to try out for a real soccer team in high school, on which girls occasionally got spiked or tore ACLs and were expected to actually run continuously for a horrendously long time, I bowed out. I also disliked the coach intensely, and decided that one sport (basketball) was enough effort for my modest energy resources.

However, despite my non-dramatic departure from competitive soccer, I still do enjoy watching it being played. I usually follow the men's and women's World Cup, and was able to attend a few women's games at Gillette Stadium when it was held in the United States several years ago. I find the sport aesthetically pleasing and enjoy that it forces me to be a patient viewer even more than baseball does. Plus: at least one announcer usually has an accent. I also enjoy being cast into a nostalgic frame of mind about my decade in the soccer trenches. Maybe I will stop by the store for some orange slices to eat during the next World Cup match . . .


ETA: I am now being told that I also played enthusiastically not only for the orange slices, but because I liked kicking people. Good to know.

Meditation Index

*I am calling it soccer and not "football," purists, because a) that's what I've always called it and b) to do otherwise would make my actual (forthcoming) football post more confusing.

Sports I Love: Tennis

The French Open has reminded me that I need to keep working on this series of sporting posts, so let's go ahead and do tennis while the subject is on everyone's mind. I knew pretty much zero about tennis before I started working for this non-profit company in Boston, despite a few feeble attempts to pick up a racket (a shiny aluminum garage sale racket, in my case) and play with my dad as a child, and a deep and abiding love for badminton (which I will save for another post). But when you're working for an organization whose motto ("Game. Set. LIFE.") speaks earnestly to the transformative power of tennis, it helps to know something about the game.

So I started to watch tennis on television, and ask my more knowledgeable partner questions about the scoring, and (as frequently happens with me) I started to actually like it. I'm not saying that I wanted to go out and play for fun or anything, but I started to enjoy picking out the skills involved, getting to know the key players and some of the history, and the fact that "love" (score of zero) possibly originated from the French for egg, or "oeuf," since it looks like a zero. That's a disputed word origin, but that doesn't stop me from thinking it every time I watch a match.

I like the different surfaces at the majors (in fact, I just read an awesome article about the layer of brick on the French Open courts), and the fact that rain plays havoc with scheduling, and the way that some players dress so provocatively and some are so covered with corporate sponsors. Or their own personal logo (cough) Roger Federer. I think it's interesting that players aren't allowed to communicate with your coaches during play.

There is little evidence of my enduring love for tennis, other than the fact that I still care enough to watch it, even though I am not required to think about it every day in my new occupation as librarian. And that I occasionally watch it on the computer if I'm stuck at work and can't see a match I want to watch. Trust me, watching tennis on the computer is a desperate measure that only love could prompt.

Meditation Index

Sports I Love: Baseball

Unlike ice skating and basketball, I didn't really have a serious appreciation for baseball until relatively recently. Sure, I spent time playing Flies' Up¹ as a kid, owned a glove, envied my neighbors' their tee-ball team, went to a Salt Lake City Trappers game or two, and embarked on a brief but intense baseball card-collecting spree (thanks to my future brother-in-law) during my teen years.² However, I didn't really know, or even care much about the rules of baseball, or its history, or even its major teams. But when we moved to Boston in 2003, I began listening to Red Sox games on the radio as I drove our boxes of stuff from western Massachusetts. I clearly remember driving on Route 2 and hearing Bill Mueller hit grand slams from both sides of the plate--pretty cool stuff, even when you don't know much about the details of the game. I remember getting a baseball tutorial from my father-in-law (I think it was at a Friendly's Restaurant and the subject was types of pitches) and solidifying my knowledge by watching or listening to the Red Sox play at every opportunity. My brother-in-law bought us tickets to a game at Fenway Park seats that season, and we saw the Sox lose to the other Sox in the rain. It was strangely satisfying. I also purchased my first Red Sox hat in a long line of Red Sox hats. It has since turned from blue to some strange grey/brown hybrid, but I love it dearly.

The thing that solidified my love of baseball in general (and the Red Sox in particular) actually had very little to do with sports. I had taken what turned out to be a completely miserable job when we moved to Boston, and I was able to make it through each day largely because I knew that the Red Sox would probably be playing at 7:05 on the other end. I learned a lot about the game by simply watching for three hours a day, every day. It's amazing how much you can learn when you put that much time in to something. (Side note: I'd like to thank my partner for being extremely supportive of me during this time; hers is the baseball family, but I think every game is a bit much for anyone to muster enthusiasm for, if you're not using it as a coping mechanism.) 2003 and 2004 were excellent years to become a Red Sox fan, as well, with the agony of 2003 being swiftly refuted by the ecstasy of 2004. We happily joined the World Series parade route and honked around Boston after beating the Yankees. If anyone wants to tell me that I haven't experienced the full range of fandom because I wasn't a Red Sox fan before 2003, and thus do not understand the years of futility and anguish before the World Series, etc., etc., I will refer them to my status as a lifelong Utah Jazz fan. At least the Red Sox have actually won several championships.

One of the things I love about baseball is its easy pace. You don't have to pay attention during the entire game; the announcers don't even do that most of the time. Sometimes the more bored (ahem, imaginative) announcers start talking about a random topic like all the major league players in recent memory that went to Ivy League schools. As a television spectator, you can read your book between innings, or even between batters. You can be as fully engaged as you want to be, from checking the scores occasionally to filling out a scorecard during the game.  It's also one of those sports that is almost better on the radio than it is to watch live. I don't have the time I'd like, caught up in the full bloom of young motherhood as I am, to follow the Red Sox with the passion and intensity of my earlier years. However, I am still paying attention. I will watch when I can, and check the scores when I can't. I will make room for the important games, just as I do with all my other sports. Don't worry, there are other sports.

1  Um, do they have that out here? It's a game where one person hits the ball to everyone else, and if you catch it three times you get to go and do the hitting instead of the knocking each other to the ground part. It's probably called something else, isn't it . . .someone enlighten me.

2 The aftermath of which was a lot of Bobby Bonilla cards and a strange affection for that pink cardboard masquerading as gum that they included in each pack. That stuff is amazing.

Sports I Love: Basketball

While figure skating was a sport that I shared with my mother, basketball is the sport that I share with my father. For me, more than any other sport, basketball means home. It seems like it has always been a part of my life. We had a hoop attached to our garage, and although I have perhaps only beaten him one-on-one a handful of times, it is always enjoyable to play against my father. In addition to watching great teams like the University of Utah and the Utah Jazz, I also played competitively for most of my childhood. Well, "competitively" on a relative scale, considering I started in fourth grade, where games sometimes resembled the stereotypical bee-clustering of juvenile soccer games.

When I first started playing, I was the only girl on the team. I was small and had to shoot my free-throws underhand from between my legs in order to get the ball to the rim. I was also not very assertive. I remember my coach (his son was the star of the team, but that's another story) always made it a team goal for me to score at least one basket a season. This meant that the last game of the season usually consisted of my teammates trying to make me take the ball, and me trying to make a basket. Luckily, his ploy was usually successful, as well as being a huge confidence-booster for me. Once in a while, another girl would join the team, taking a little of the pressure (and sense of uniqueness) away.

I continued playing in that league through junior high, with a brief moment of stardom during Spirit Week at school, in which all the classes (grades 7-12) competed against each other at various things. To this day, judging by my yearbook scrawls, I'm pretty sure there are some people who would only know me as that girl who won the three-point shooting competition as a seventh-grader. Or was it eighth grade? It was junior high, anyway. They let me shoot from closer-up for some reason, which has always made me feel a little bit like a cheater, but hell, I was a pretty good shooter anyway. In fact, that has always been a problem with me and playing basketball: I love to shoot, but I hate running. And you kind of have to run a little bit if you want to actually play. So although I made the team each of my high school years, I spent most of my time on the bench due to my bone-deep laziness. When I participated in a high school basketball camp over the summer with U of U Women's Coach Elliott, she basically told me that I needed to move my ass if I wanted to play well. These were words I cherished (since they came from Coach E), but never actually put to practical use. If there were a version of basketball that involved mostly shooting and guarding people and somehow very little running, I would be all over it.

Since I don't really play, I currently turn all of my existing basketball energies, such as they are, to fandom. In my imagination, I was a Utah Jazz fan before I started to walk. This may not be true, but it certainly feels that way when I get misty-eyed at the thought of John Stockton's Hall of Fame induction or the great (and not-so-great) names of Jazz players past: Karl Malone, Mark Eaton, Thurl Bailey, Darrell Griffith, Adrian Dantley, Felton Spencer and Greg Ostertag (for some reason they are always together in my mind, as centers should be), Jeff Hornacek, Bryon Russell, Antoine Carr, Adam Keefe . . . sadly, I could continue, but I will spare those few still awake to read the end of this post. My passion for the Jazz is matched only by my passion for the Utah women's basketball team. Since there is only about a .01% chance that the Lady Utes will be on television here in a given year (if they get in the tournament and if they are part of wrap-around coverage and if the UConn women or some other regionally interesting team isn't playing at the same time), I usually watch their games online when I get the chance. That is what being a fan of western basketball teams on the East Coast entails.

Other teams I root for: Kansas; most Big 10 teams; anyone playing Duke, BYU, or North Carolina; UConn women; Tennessee women (I realize this is somewhat contradictory but I don't care); the Celtics, since they're on TV out here; the underdog.

When forced to choose a favorite sport, I will generally choose basketball, but not for any of the reasons above. Unlike baseball (post forthcoming) or football (ditto), there is more gender parity to be found in basketball. There are female referees in the NBA. There are female coaches at various professional and amateur levels, most recently the NBDL. Of course there is room for improvement, but there is a lot more room for improvement in most of the other sports I like. I'd be willing to stake the current UConn women's team against many men's college teams out there. And basketball seems to be a sport that most people can play for fun, even people in wheelchairs. You can play nerf basketball indoors, you can play it with people you don't know, and you can play it all by yourself in the driveway. Yeah, it's a pretty cool sport.

Sports I Love: Figure Skating

Seeing as this blog is, in theory, not solely about books and libraries (shocking, I know), I decided I would write a little bit from the perspective of my evil twin, the unabashed sports fan. I collect sports teams the way that other people collect . . . books. I will watch a sport obsessively until I figure out all of its rules. I will buy team-related merchandise that I absolutely have no use for. And, as the Winter Olympics are currently underway in Vancouver, I thought I would begin with a sport that I have loved for a very long time: figure skating.¹ Thankfully, I am lucky enough to have married someone who shares my love of skating and also indulges my need to watch a variety of sports.

For as far back as I can remember, my mother and I had a standing date to watch Olympics coverage. It was a special time when the usual limits on TV watching were lifted (not that they were all that strict to begin with) and I had full license to be glued to the sporting action. For us, figure skating was the marquee event of the Winter Olympics (gymnastics being the equivalent for the summer). The first figure skating I actually really paid attention to was during the 1988 Olympics. I remember watching the Battle of the Brians, developing what was probably one of my first crushes on Katarina Witt, and cursing those darn Russians Gordeeva and Grinkov.² I am pretty sure I still have some of these routines preserved on VHS at home. It is hard to believe that over twenty years have gone by since then.

There have been many Olympic skaters in my life in the intervening years. Some particularly dear to me: Kristi Yamaguchi, Michelle Kwan, Torvill & Dean. Some Eastern European: Irina Slutskaya, Oksana Baiul. Some just plain odd (and French): Surya Bonaly, Philippe Candeloro. Some Canadian: Kurt Browning, Elvis Stojko. Don't even get me started on Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. They are all part of my internal continuum of figure skating to which I can refer at any moment in time, especially when attempting to identify the participants of Smucker's Stars on Ice.

Things I love most about competitive figure skating:

1. The degree of difficulty. I can't help but be in awe of people who have the ability to move at great speeds and jump around in a coordinated way on a sheet of ice with sharp things attached to their feet, most of the time without looking where they're going. And some of them have to do it synchronized with another person. Trying to combine the athletic part of figure skating with the artistic part (i.e., making it look extra pretty and matching it to music) is one of the great challenges that skaters face, so I am even more in awe of those skaters that can create a seamless performance that delivers in both areas.

2. The drama. There's dramatic music, tense waiting for scores with your coach at hand (less tense with the new scoring system, since the scores won't be intelligible to the general public anyway), and critical remarks from skaters and commentators alike.

3. The costumes. Blades of Glory was really not far off when it put John Heder in that ridiculous bird outfit. Look at some of the things Johnny Weir has been wearing. Much like gown-watching during the Miss America Pageant, costume-watching during an ice skating event is one of the primary reasons to tune in.³

I would have loved to make it home for the Salt Lake Olympics to actually see live Olympic skating with my mother (or at least watch it with her and know that we were within spitting distance of the venues), but unfortunately that didn't happen. When 2006 rolled around, none of us knew in February that it would be the last year of her life, but I guess I had better things to do than watch the world compete, because all I have are vague memories of Sasha Cohen. This year I have rediscovered the magic of the Winter Olympics in general and figure skating in particular, and I am watching and remembering and wishing I had the opportunity to dissect the routines with her. I am appreciating the artistry, the pageantry, and the sheer fun of figure skating.


1 Please don't bother taking the time to argue with me about whether figure skating is a sport. It is because I say it is. Also, figure skating was the first winter sport to be contested at any Olympic competition (London 1908). Interesting side note: The 1908 Olympics were supposed to be held in Rome, but Italy indicated it wouldn't be ready to host, perhaps because of the 1906 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.

2 Poor Grinkov.

3 And watching the figure skating events with people on Twitter is even more fun. It's like being in a room with all of your most witty friends at the same time, each of whom is as interested in the outcome as you are.