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Once again we arrive at the biennially quadrennial ritual of spending two weeks absorbed in the spectacle, the drama, and the effort of denying our desperate urges to strangle Bob Costas. While the undisputed low point of recent Olympics coverage was the travesty of CBS's "coverage" in Nagano (during which I ended up watching most of the hockey tournament out of desperation because it was the only event being carried live), this year's combination of Costas' uncontrollable blithering over any and all attempts at solemnity with the fatuous-sidekick act of Katie Couric promises to be a disaster for the ages.
I took notes during the Opening Ceremonies, so as to pad out this post in between the threatening remarks about Bob Costas. Oh, and the threatening remarks about the NBC cameramen, who if tonight's coverage was any indication still haven't grasped that most basic of camerawork principles that their footage will be more effective if the camera is actually pointing in the direction of the thing that the organizers of the event are intending to showcase. But I digress.
We begin with the "tribute to Greek sculpture", which is where I got up to go fetch a notebook. This was a nice sequence, with huge artworks breaking apart to reveal successively smaller and more advanced forms as the shells of the previous unit drifted away on roof-mounted cables. The display would have been a lot more effective if the cameraman had been briefed beforehand on where everything was going to be happening next; as it is, I'm left with the only lasting image from this portion of the program being the lens realizing that it had focused in on a sculpture of a male nude and jerking away in embarrassment to spend the rest of the sequence wandering around aimlessly on the outskirts of the arena, occasionally daring to point in the general direction of whatever it is that was happening on the field with the rest of the artworks.
The next highlight of the program, after the obligatory Child Representing The Future sequence, was a procession of floats bearing tableaux made up in successive styles of Greek artwork, from the Minoans to the first Games of the modern era. I would very much like to see this again, perhaps on a DVD where one can switch off the Costas/Couric blitherings track. (I think it's repeating at 1:30, so I shall wander back into the living room and wake Mum up to watch it.) The costuming was spectacular, obviously representing years of work, and I wish that the cameraman had had some clue as to the direction to point himself in throughout. But what I did see overall was comparable to the wonderful "Gates of Hercules" opening show in Barcelona, and loads better than the WTF?-fest that was Atlanta's opening ceremony. (We shall not even get into the "Cirque D'Albertville". We shan't.) One keeps hoping for the NBC camerapeople to catch on one of these Games, but given that in Sydney they managed to cut away to the long-range camera in the middle of the closing parade, just as the "Priscilla" float was making its silver-bannered entrance, and never came back to the track, I'm not too optimistic.
Because the Opening Ceremony was not airing live, NBC had the leisure of inserting commercial breaks wherever it wished, and it abused this freedom with wild abandon, liberally sprinkling the parade of nations with breaks after every third or fourth delegation. However, they didn't have the concomittent decency not to let the parade unfold while they were away. Alas, poor Kyrgyzstan, but your moment in the sun is simply less important than the burning need to sell more beer. Host-babble betrayed shocking sense of provincialism -- especially irritating from Costas, who has after all done this before and ought to at least have figured out some of the pronunciations by now. Notes from this segment read, Albania -- spiffy outfits, kill Costas, commercial, commercial, Brazil in very untelegenic shade of green, who invited Couric anyway, oo he's hawt, commercial, commercial, kill Costas, Ireland dressed in gangster pinstripes, commercial, kill Costas... And so forth. I will not dignify the "Djibouti" joke by repeating it here.
Mum came home in time to see the Greek delegation of athletes making their entrance behind a flagbearer who knew he was the hawttest thing in the entire stadium. (She brought sandwiches, which she had called to ask me about just as the combined North and South Korean delegation were entering -- thus somehow managing to hit one of the 90-second bits of programming between the 3-minute commercial breaks.) Her timing was somewhat unfortunate, because it meant that she also got subjected to the part with Bjork, whom she can't stand. But Costas talked over the whole number, so that was almost all right.
Costas actually referred to Athena as the patron saint of the city of Athens. I may swim over to Greece to kill him with my teeth before this whole thing is over...
Children's choir singing Olympic hymn were outfitted in peculiarly prison-like garb. What was the deal with that? Did they rent them from the nearest Orphanarium for the event?
[EDIT, as second showing begins: Oh, and I missed the note here that there was a bit where people flying on wires came in wielding neon tubes meant to represent the Olympic torch, in a sequence that made Mum remark, "Hey, it's the 'carousel' part from Logan's Run!"...]
And then the big moment, the arrival of the Olympic torch! It passed from runner to runner around the stadium, and on to the last torchbearer, who ascended the final flight of steps to the cauldron of the flame for the Games of Athens 2004, already swivelling into position to receive the fire kindled at Olympia so many months and miles before...
And looking like the world's most gigantic joint, held aloft in a roach-clip waiting to light up.
(What I wouldn't have given to be in Athens for that moment, to yell, "It's a giant doobie, man! Shit, it's not catching, puff harder!" Kinda goes with those two ambulatory dildoes they've got for mascots, really...)
All attempts at solemnity and dignity destroyed by the combination of Costas, Couric, and the MegaMechaHandrolled, the Opening Ceremonies came to a close with some throat-clearing and the collective embarrassed slinking off into the night of the athletes, who might just be having some confused dreams about their drug-tests tonight. In between dodging the Rogers Park JazzFest and the exterminators, I'll be glued to the set for the next two weeks, cheering, and crying, and cursing Bob Costas...
I took notes during the Opening Ceremonies, so as to pad out this post in between the threatening remarks about Bob Costas. Oh, and the threatening remarks about the NBC cameramen, who if tonight's coverage was any indication still haven't grasped that most basic of camerawork principles that their footage will be more effective if the camera is actually pointing in the direction of the thing that the organizers of the event are intending to showcase. But I digress.
We begin with the "tribute to Greek sculpture", which is where I got up to go fetch a notebook. This was a nice sequence, with huge artworks breaking apart to reveal successively smaller and more advanced forms as the shells of the previous unit drifted away on roof-mounted cables. The display would have been a lot more effective if the cameraman had been briefed beforehand on where everything was going to be happening next; as it is, I'm left with the only lasting image from this portion of the program being the lens realizing that it had focused in on a sculpture of a male nude and jerking away in embarrassment to spend the rest of the sequence wandering around aimlessly on the outskirts of the arena, occasionally daring to point in the general direction of whatever it is that was happening on the field with the rest of the artworks.
The next highlight of the program, after the obligatory Child Representing The Future sequence, was a procession of floats bearing tableaux made up in successive styles of Greek artwork, from the Minoans to the first Games of the modern era. I would very much like to see this again, perhaps on a DVD where one can switch off the Costas/Couric blitherings track. (I think it's repeating at 1:30, so I shall wander back into the living room and wake Mum up to watch it.) The costuming was spectacular, obviously representing years of work, and I wish that the cameraman had had some clue as to the direction to point himself in throughout. But what I did see overall was comparable to the wonderful "Gates of Hercules" opening show in Barcelona, and loads better than the WTF?-fest that was Atlanta's opening ceremony. (We shall not even get into the "Cirque D'Albertville". We shan't.) One keeps hoping for the NBC camerapeople to catch on one of these Games, but given that in Sydney they managed to cut away to the long-range camera in the middle of the closing parade, just as the "Priscilla" float was making its silver-bannered entrance, and never came back to the track, I'm not too optimistic.
Because the Opening Ceremony was not airing live, NBC had the leisure of inserting commercial breaks wherever it wished, and it abused this freedom with wild abandon, liberally sprinkling the parade of nations with breaks after every third or fourth delegation. However, they didn't have the concomittent decency not to let the parade unfold while they were away. Alas, poor Kyrgyzstan, but your moment in the sun is simply less important than the burning need to sell more beer. Host-babble betrayed shocking sense of provincialism -- especially irritating from Costas, who has after all done this before and ought to at least have figured out some of the pronunciations by now. Notes from this segment read, Albania -- spiffy outfits, kill Costas, commercial, commercial, Brazil in very untelegenic shade of green, who invited Couric anyway, oo he's hawt, commercial, commercial, kill Costas, Ireland dressed in gangster pinstripes, commercial, kill Costas... And so forth. I will not dignify the "Djibouti" joke by repeating it here.
Mum came home in time to see the Greek delegation of athletes making their entrance behind a flagbearer who knew he was the hawttest thing in the entire stadium. (She brought sandwiches, which she had called to ask me about just as the combined North and South Korean delegation were entering -- thus somehow managing to hit one of the 90-second bits of programming between the 3-minute commercial breaks.) Her timing was somewhat unfortunate, because it meant that she also got subjected to the part with Bjork, whom she can't stand. But Costas talked over the whole number, so that was almost all right.
Costas actually referred to Athena as the patron saint of the city of Athens. I may swim over to Greece to kill him with my teeth before this whole thing is over...
Children's choir singing Olympic hymn were outfitted in peculiarly prison-like garb. What was the deal with that? Did they rent them from the nearest Orphanarium for the event?
[EDIT, as second showing begins: Oh, and I missed the note here that there was a bit where people flying on wires came in wielding neon tubes meant to represent the Olympic torch, in a sequence that made Mum remark, "Hey, it's the 'carousel' part from Logan's Run!"...]
And then the big moment, the arrival of the Olympic torch! It passed from runner to runner around the stadium, and on to the last torchbearer, who ascended the final flight of steps to the cauldron of the flame for the Games of Athens 2004, already swivelling into position to receive the fire kindled at Olympia so many months and miles before...
And looking like the world's most gigantic joint, held aloft in a roach-clip waiting to light up.
(What I wouldn't have given to be in Athens for that moment, to yell, "It's a giant doobie, man! Shit, it's not catching, puff harder!" Kinda goes with those two ambulatory dildoes they've got for mascots, really...)
All attempts at solemnity and dignity destroyed by the combination of Costas, Couric, and the MegaMechaHandrolled, the Opening Ceremonies came to a close with some throat-clearing and the collective embarrassed slinking off into the night of the athletes, who might just be having some confused dreams about their drug-tests tonight. In between dodging the Rogers Park JazzFest and the exterminators, I'll be glued to the set for the next two weeks, cheering, and crying, and cursing Bob Costas...
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