Saturday, August 14, 2004

WHEN CHILDREN RULE THE WORLD . . . TONIGHT! As Opening Ceremonies go, that was, yeah, Greek and stuff.

Opening ceremonies are one of those ridiculously self-important and over-the-top things that, well, I'm glad we do them every couple of years. Because if you had an unlimited budget to tell the story of your country, how would you tell it? Atlanta chose pick-up trucks. Athens chose freaky human statues, a lot of really impressive floating-in-the-air-on-wires work, noted Greek singer Bjork Gudmundsdottir, an Olympic cauldron that once was a prop at a Cypress Hill concert and, well, I don't think you saw this angle on American television. Or her.

("Hey, Jen," I called on the phone based on early reports. "You need to watch the early part of the ceremonies. Apparently, they've got a centaur. . . . no, not a guy dressed up like a centaur -- an actual, living centaur, who they found on some island and kept in lockdown until tonight." She didn't buy it.)

A.I. looked either overwhelmed or bored, and I'm already sick of the diving lady with the long hair. As for Rulon Gardner, I like athletes with an odd number of digits, so he's alright in my book. While Katie Couric always sounded like she was reading off cards (why not get an actual Classics major in the booth?), Costas was his normal, affable self, with my favorite moment was when he started talking about the great Greek mathematicians like Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes, and he started to bring the glib, if not the snark.

Your thoughts, on all this, are of course welcome, even after Bravo's badminton and table tennis coverage starts Saturday.

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