Lip reading as a service
Plenty of pieces have been written about the scuffle between the Washington Nationals' Bryce Harper and Jonathan Papelbon. For baseball fans who missed it or those who care nothing about sports, the summary is that Harper popped up a pitch he thought he should have hit harder and so he didn't sprint to first base because there was a 99% chance it would be caught easily. Papelbon yelled at him for not running, Harper yelled back, and then Papelbon grabbed Harper's throat and attacked him until teammates broke them up.
I thought this piece in Grantland contained a unique twist I'd love to see more of: author Ben Lindbergh asked a deaf friend who can lipread to see if he could figure out what Harper and Papelbon were shouting at each other.
A few years ago, I asked Evan Brunell, a deaf writer and skilled lipreader, to help me transcribe manager-umpire arguments. I asked Evan to take a look at this confrontation, too. Here’s what he thinks was said:
Papelbon: … fucking go! On the fucking … Yeah, run the fucking ball out. [Obscured swearing] … goddamn ball out.
Harper: … the fuck up! Are you fucking kidding me? Chill the fuck out, man. Let’s fucking go! I’ll fucking go right —
If that transcript is accurate, Harper didn’t exactly deescalate, but this was all posturing until Papelbon charged without waiting to find out what would happen when Harper said “now.”
That is fantastic. More sports coverage should include the services of lip readers to help bring us where microphones don't go. Hearing what players say on the field adds an entirely new layer to the narrative of most sporting contests, as anyone who has watched archival footage, with on-field or on-court audio added back in, can attest. Sure, some (much?) of the language is salty, but I'd pay extra for an uncensored audio feed.
Yes, players would probably self-censor once such coverage became common, but even without all the cussing, much of the trash talk or psychological wordplay is amazing. What I wouldn't give to hear some Michael Jordan trash talk from back in the day.
One show comes really close: HBO's Hard Knocks. It's a show I never think I want to watch because it's always about a team I care little about, and then once I start in on the season premiere I inevitably find myself at the end of the five episode miniseries in no time at all. This season was no different. I found myself carried along by Bill O'Brien's constant expletive-filled tirades, J.J Watt's John Bunyan-like athletic feats, and Brian Cushing throwing up for what seemed like half an hour straight. And, as with every season, perhaps the best part of the show, the end of training camp cuts, when one player after another is let go by either the head coach or one of his assistants.
If a Hard Knocks-style of program were produced for every team in the NFL, MLB, and the NBA, I suspect the aggregate ratings across the franchise would be gigantic, and fans' relationships with players and coaches would be deeper, if more complicated. When it comes to sports, a lifetime of being fed clichéd narratives by mass sports media has left me hungry for less mediated coverage. Why settle for a reporter telling us what Bryce Harper is like? Why not let us see him on and off the field and let us judge for ourselves?
Why?
MY NEPHEW: Why?
ME: Because you’re my sister’s son. And I care about her.
MY NEPHEW: Why?
ME: Because I just do.
MY NEPHEW: Why?
ME: Because, I guess, when I was born, she was three years old and, like any younger sibling, I put her on a pedestal.
MY NEPHEW: Why?
ME: I probably idealized her, which is strange considering that your mom was not very nice to me.
MY NEPHEW: Why?
ME: She probably felt a mix of confusing emotions.
MY NEPHEW: Why?
ME: She was an only child, and when I came along she was forced to share everything.
MY NEPHEW: Why?
ME: We each had needs, and I think it was difficult for our parents to satisfy us both.
MY NEPHEW: Why?
ME: Because needs are so ephemeral. I think it was Maslow who said, “It’s a rare and difficult psychological achievement to know what we want.”
With my 21 month old niece staying with me the past few days, I was reminded of this humor piece for the New Yorker by Jesse Eisenberg.
Incidentally, while Eisenberg is an accomplished actor, I'm way more impressed with his body of writing for the New Yorker. I suppose that's largely because I think of him as an actor first, but being published under that banner is an accomplishment in and of itself.
When your nature is not nature
Most moments—in my life, at least—do not involve terror or euphoria. Most moments do not bring extreme pain or some unforgettable lesson about this weird world where we all live. All of them pass somehow or other, though. They make up minutes, and then days, and then a life. Some are shared, some are solitary. In some you’re running late and in others you’re out of breath and in others your back hurts and you’re trying to subtly stretch it in public. In a few you’re wondering if swimming in water this cold can harden and freeze your lungs as you, for some reason, keep kicking away from the shore, your cheeks hurting from laughter or hypothermia. All of these moments, you survive.
And then there are more: You’re thinking of what to say as your “fun fact” in a circle of strangers or you’re wishing you could chop carrots really fast or you’re looking up at bare branches rattling in the breeze. Once in a while, maybe you notice that the mist in the air is coating your hair and clothes with diamonds: thousands of tiny beads of water stuck to the fuzzed stitches of your sweater. You smile. You close your eyes. It’s not quite crying but it’s close.
So: How to live? Just filling a day, I learned in my little cabin, is a tricky but essential business. I could much sooner tell you the way I’d like to spend a life than the way I’d like to spend an hour. Lives are fun to play with: I’ll be a writer! An astronaut! A world traveler! It’s harder to make yourself into a noun in the span of a day. Days are about verbs. In the cabin, there were too many options, and none of them very exciting. Read, write, walk, run, split wood, bake bread, pick berries, call my mom, hunt the mosquitos that had snuck into the cabin? Most of what I did in that cabin was mundane. There aren’t many stories worth telling. There aren’t many moments I remember.
In “The Terror and Tedium of Living Like Thoreau,” Diana Saverin writes with candor of what it was like to live alone in the Alaskan wilderness.
I was in Yosemite for a wedding this weekend, and during a hike I confessed that I had no desire whatsoever to retreat to nature and live a disconnected life. At some point in my life, perhaps it was always my “nature,” perhaps it's the result of coming of age in the information rich internet age, perhaps it's some combination of the two, I became a city cat.
Over a decade ago, during a sabbatical from work, I did a trek in Chile and didn't see another human being, or even a trace of another human (such as trash or a man-made object or structure like a road sign or a house) for three days. By early the second day I was talking to myself, just to hear the sound of a human voice, even if it was my own. I understood, for the first time, why people who live on their own in the woods for extended periods turn into babbling, primal beings.
It's not that my introverted side doesn't love time on my own, but only for short stints, and only of my own volition. One reason I loved living in NYC was the ability to be home alone yet feel like millions of people were just outside my window (or, as was literally true, just on the other side of a thin wall, floor, or ceiling). It's not just the sheer volume of people in NYC but the spatial density. Every so often it would feel claustrophobic and one would need to get away for a weekend, but most of the time it was a cozy shawl of humanity.
True Detective Season 3: Strunk and White
EXT. CITY ALLEYWAY. NIGHT.
Police tape marks the scene. Red and blue lights flash. A young, nervous-looking BEAT COP sees STRUNK and WHITE approaching.
BEAT COP
It’s over here, detectives. The body was found about an hour ago.
STRUNK
Use the active voice, rookie.
BEAT COP
Oh god, it’s horrible. I feel nauseous.
STRUNK
Unless you mean you’re sickening to contemplate, you mean “nauseated.” Now get out of my crime scene before you puke all over it.
WHITE (inspecting the body)
It’s definitely our guy, Strunk.
STRUNK
The Crossword Killer?
WHITE
Yeah. And look, he’s getting more confident. This time, he used a pen.