Two games last week. One of them was the biggest night of L’s young career.
Tuesday we played Ben Davis, a west-side of Indianapolis school that is the second-biggest in the state.[1] Their athletic program is generally quite good. Their football team just won the 6A state title and their boys basketball team was undefeated 4A state champs in March. The girls hoops program made it to semi-state last season. Back in the day - 2000–2009 - they won four state titles in ten years, two of those undefeated seasons, and in 2009 were crowned national champions by USA Today.
Jayhawk Talk What a game Friday night between #5 KU and #4 UConn! Since this is rolled into a Weekend Notes post, I’ll chop my thoughts up into chunks tied to the four quarters of the game. Opening tip to 10:00: This is awesome! The Jayhawks are unbeatable! UConn are frauds! The crowd is AMAZING! Why is Jason Sudeikis hanging out with Sue Bird?
10:00 to Halftime: OK, that could have ended better, but we still have a seven-point lead.
Another pretty light month. Movies, Shows, etc Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland An amazing five-part documentary about The Troubles in Northern Ireland. It is a balance of archival footage and interviews with people who lived through the worst years of the conflict. One of the most moving aspects of the series was seeing these people interviewed in the 2020s and then again in newsreels from 30 or 40 years ago, in a moment of grief when a loved one had been killed.
We’ve reached December, the month when these playlists can get a little squirrelly. There’s less new music to begin with. I’m listening to holiday music much of the day. I’m also focused on my Favorite Songs of the Year playlist. This year has the added element of me just reading a book about Eighties music, and being neck-deep in a book about Nineties music. I could easily just play songs pulled from those books this week.
Time to catch up with L’s exploits on the hardwood.
Two Fridays ago we traveled to North Vernon, IN, about 90 minutes south, nearly all the way to Louisville. The varsity team was playing the #14 team in the state, which features a senior who signed with Michigan State earlier this month. She averaged 22 & 12 as a junior and is ranked in the top 60 in the country. We weren’t sure if she was the one good player down there, or just a sign of a good program, so had no idea what to expect from their JV squad.
For the first time in three years we were home for Thanksgiving week. We packed a lot in, and it deserves a wide-ranging, extra-long breakdown.
College Visitor I picked M up Tuesday around noon after her last scheduled class of the week. We grabbed lunch at Hangover Easy, a place just off campus I’ve wanted to try just because of their shirts. It was solid, but I couldn’t find any shirts for sale.
Chart Week: November 14, 1981 Song: “Never Too Much” - Luther Vandross Chart Position: #37, 6th week on the chart, first week in the Top 40. Peaked at #33 for two weeks.
Happy Thanksgiving week to you all! A quick entry based on a Casey anecdote about how a pop artist paid the bills before he started making hits of his own.
The Voice of a Generation. The Velvet Voice.
Kind of a chill weekend, with the holiday ahead of us. M does not come home until Tuesday so it was the usual crew around the house. L had a game Friday, more on that later. The weather was nice, so S and I did some yard work at a sister’s house Sunday. And a fair amount of football, the biggest game being a certain showdown in a certain state when a certain blogger attended college.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Beaming” - The Treasures of Mexico What a glorious piece of jangle pop this is, harkening back to the mid-80s college rock scene.
“What Now” - Brittany Howard Howard bringing the funk to her blues. If you don’t like this, stop reading these posts.
“Beautiful Sky” - Semisonic featuring Jim James I gave Semisonic’s new album a listen when it came out. Their advance singles were all the best songs, with this one exception, a perfectly named track.
Without going back and reading a bunch of them, I’m assuming my Champions Classic posts have a similar theme every year: that wasn’t pretty basketball. Most years it is at least competitive, but despite the big-time matchup, it rarely has the same juice as a March tournament game.
Chalk that up for another year, with #1 KU outlasting Kentucky by five last night.
It was a game of swings.
KU opened up ahead 8–0 then 11–3.
As promised, I have a big batch of articles to share. I read most of these while on our trip last weekend, thus on my Kindle, which meant I couldn’t clip pull quotes as I read. With a couple exceptions, you’ll just have to trust me that these are worth your time. Most are pretty lengthy, so if you have travels planned for next week, or just need some distractions to get away from “loved ones” who rub you the wrong way, these could be ideal.
It was Adult Fall Break time for S and me, the first time we’ve done this in a couple years. This was for a medical conference, the first time we’ve done that since before Covid. We spent Thursday through Sunday in Clearwater Beach, FL, staying right on the beach. Like in a hotel, not in a tent or something.
The weather was perfect, low 80s each day. Someone told us it was a little warmer than usual for this time of year.
Chart Week: November 5, 1983 Song: “Automatic Man” - Michael Sembello Chart Position: #34, 7th week on the chart. This was the song’s peak.
A quick RFTS to fill the place of the Friday Playlist as we are taking an adult fall break for the next few days.
The 100th entry in this series is getting very close. I’ve been reading through most of the previous posts, both to refresh my memory and to look for trends.
Welcome to the first post in a new, recurring series in these parts. L started her high school basketball career Tuesday night, and I think that deserves a clearly identified set of entries to document her adventures.
The season opener was against the Jesuit school not too far from our house, BPHS. We have good friends who have a son who goes there and it was fun to see him working as a team manager when we walked in.
The Kennedy Men - Laurence Leamer After about a month of reading, split into sections, I knocked out my Big Book for the fall. A neighbor passed this to me over the summer. We were sitting on the porch having some drinks and somehow books or the Kennedys or something along those lines came up and she mentioned she had read this book and loved it. She offered it to me.
Not a bad weekend at all. The weather was wonderful, and looks to remain that way for a few more days, then seasonably warm after that. Changing the clocks always sucks. And plenty of football, of course.
HS Football The Cathedral game was on TV so we were able to watch them get a relatively easy 20–3 sectional championship win over Lawrence North. Their defense was great and their running back went for over 260 yards.
An extra-stuffed playlist this week, heavy on tracks from albums I have previously shared songs from. Also, a heads up that there may be no playlist next week. I will be traveling for a couple days and may leave the playlist machine at home. Then again, maybe I’ll whip something together before we depart. It will be a surprise for us all!
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Now And Then” - The Beatles Let’s get the biggest song in the world (for the moment) out of the way first.
Chart Week: October 30, 1982 Song: “I.G.Y. (What A Beautiful World)” - Donald Fagen Chart Position: #36, 4th week on the chart, debut week in the Top 40. Peaked at #26 for three weeks in November and December.
Pop music tends to be pretty limited thematically. Amongst the bazillion or so songs about love, lust, and heartbreak, occasionally one will emerge from left field about a topic that makes no sense as the basis for a radio hit.
I’m clearly not wasting enough time watching TV or stuff on my computer as this month’s list is again rather lean. Don’t worry, with colder weather arriving and the holiday TV season beginning, I expect to get this back where it should be soon.
Movies, Shows, etc Halloween Baking Championship It’s holiday baking show season, bitches! The kids don’t watch anymore, but S does. And I’ve cut Halloween Wars from the rotation so start with just this.
What a weekend, filled with swings of mood and weather.
KANSAS FOOTBALL!!!!!!! Kansas 38, Oklahoma 33. LET’S GOOOOOO!!!!! One of the biggest wins in program history. That alone would make Saturday’s win over the #6 Sooners memorable. It just had so much of…everything, I guess, that no KU fan who watched it will ever forget it. This feels like a game that could easily turn into a 5000 word account.