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M.T. Karthik

~ midcareer archive, 1977 – 2017 plus 2022

M.T. Karthik

Monthly Archives: April 2017

Book Review: Memoirs of a Polar Bear, Yoko Tawada

29 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in Book Review, reviews

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bear, book, culture, ecology, german, humans, ice, japanese, Karthik, m.t., Memoirs, mtk, novel, Polar, review, Tawada, Yoko

A glacial is thousands of years of cold temperatures and glacial advancement. The last glacial ended 15,000 years ago, and we’re told the epoch we’re living in now, the Holocene, is an inter-glacial period.

But the unprecedented speed with which the ice has disappeared over the last 100 years gives us pause.

Humans as a species are having an effect on global temperature and the ice. It is undeniable now there’s at least a chance the change is irreversible. So, some ask the academy and society at large to admit the dawn of the Anthropocene, an era in which the glaciers may never return.

The Holocene was so named for the most powerful force of the epoch, the sun. The Anthropocene declares we, humans, anthros, have surpassed the sun in our ability to affect the planet. Some conservatives and capitalists who don’t want to take responsibility for what’s happening as anything different from anything that has happened in the past, say to call it the beginning of the Anthropocene is jumping to conclusions.

The story of three generations of a family are nothing to a glacier.

But historical records exist, and the stories your great-grandma told your grandma, your mom and you about the world are passed down. The oral tradition which has guided the entirety of human advancement for generations passes information down hundreds and thousands of years.

What if you could interview generations living in the Arctic Circle over the last several decades – this critical time – about what they’ve both seen first hand, and the stories they’ve been told for centuries?

There’ve been some humans who have gone northward a little ways and made some progress, but undeniably the greatest authority in the vast glaciated north are the polar bears who have roamed the ice and seas for thousands of years.

The last 100 years has brought them into contact with us humans, which is how it is possible, Yoko Tawada informs us prosaically in Memoirs of a Polar Bear, that we come to know them just a little bit.

It’s a gorgeous expansion of that little bit that makes this a magical novel.

This slim, beautiful biography of three generations of polar bears living not at the North Pole, but among us – in Russia, Germany and Canada between the 1960’s and today – uses an ethereal, intermingling of human and bear to tell it. In Tawada’s work, exceptionally sensitive humans and very particular bears can communicate profoundly and with feeling.

It amazes me how she creates this delicate balance between what we can understand and what we cannot and what the bears can and cannot grasp. The intersection of human and bear is deliberately an imperfect and haunting space, like any introduction between species at an equal level demands. It makes this book completely inhabitable.

Yoko Tawada was born on March 23, 1960, in Tokyo and studied Russian literature at Waseda. She moved to Germany when she was 22 years old in 1982 – seven years before the fall of the wall.

In her new country, she received a Masters in contemporary German Literature at Hamburg before completing a Doctorate in German literature at Zurich. She writes in German and Japanese and in 1987, she published Nur da wo du bist da ist nichts—Anata no iru tokoro dake nani mo nai (A Void Only Where You Are), a collection of poems in a German and Japanese bilingual edition

And then the wall fell.

I have not read anything else by Tawada except this novel, which comes to me because New Directions published it and Susan Bernofsky translated it. But her wholeness of composition is staggering.

The three parts of this novel are incredibly different and yet weave together perfectly to tell not only the stories of the bears but of all of us as we have gone through what we have experienced these last 60 years.

The grandmother polar bear who begins the story has no name. She mothers Tosca, who not only has a name, but has the ability to engage and relate across continents. Tosca in turn births Knut, whom she rejects, so he is raised by us. It is an amazing idea.

The history of the Soviet Era is held in the grandmother, then the era of change – the end of the Cold War – in the telling of Tosca, and the sad withering of our culture into a global conglomeration bereft of deep and important memories of our past in Knut, a real-life polar bear, who captured the hearts of Europeans and Russians just ten years ago, in the Aughts, and whose history you should only google, read and learn about after you’ve read this novel.

The connection between us and the bears, that of our Class, mammalia, is here explored with compassion and interspecies love. I was completely enamored with Tawada’s use of what it means to be a mammal as a means of connecting us to another species as opposed to separating us from other mammalia. We don’t have kinship with bears, we have mammalian-ship with them. Genius.

But more than capturing what little exists of the understanding between us and the polar bears, Tawada has captured the predominant feeling of post-neoliberalism: the feeling of no place, of having no memory that will last, of how much history is disappearing into the sands, or melted seas, of time.

This is a visionary expression of a contemporary crisis that few have yet fully grasped: placelessness. The placelessness of those whose place is being taken away and the placelessness of those who have lost the ability to feel place – bears and humans respectively – is metaphoric for much human experience in the last 60 years: immigrants, refugees, citizenship, culture.

The bears as metaphors for a sensible understanding of what has actually been going on, remind me of the  metaphors for what actually existed that reside in the works of oppressed Soviet writers. Amidst climate change deniers and global warming warriors, Tawada takes a sensitive approach to make us at least observe faithfully.

Great book.

3.5/5

RPRZ End of April Front Field Report

28 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in flora, insects, landscape

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antonio, april, end, field, Karthik, m.t., mtk, nw, point, recharge, report, rocky, RPRZ, San, zone

 

 

 

 

 

 

pollinators and bee-catchers and more

RPRZ Chauliognatha pennsylvanicus, Soldier Beetles

28 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in insects

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antonio, beetle, Chauliognatha, Karthik, m.t., mtk, pennsylvanicus, point, recharge, rocky, RPRZ, San, soldier, texas, zone

 

 

 

 

 

Chauliognatha pennsylvanicus

RPRZ Fox Hunt 1, In Search of Urocyon cinereoargenteus

28 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in fauna, fox

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antonio, cinereoargenteus, gray, grey, Karthik, m.t., mtk, nw, point, recharge, rocky, RPRZ, San, texas, Urocyon, zone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the hunt for the grey fox is on.

 

mtk

Grief and Injury in the Fam

27 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in Commentary

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accident, bereavement, bike, Brandon, bruise, Bumgarner, Crawford, death, dirt, grief, Injury, Madison, ribs, sadness, shoulder, sister-in-law

I haven’t got much to say about the twin issues that suddenly struck the Giants out of the blue – the sudden death of Brandon Crawford’s sister-in-law and the dirt bike accident  that put Madison Bumgarner on the DL for the first time in his career. But I thought I’d use this space to take a second to reflect on how baseball is a family.

You all are my family.

“My Giants Family,” is what I call you when I feel I need to be specific talking to strangers. We are intensely together in spirit every year for at least eight months as our brothers play baseball and fight for another World Series championship.

The long season from April to October, the 162 – 175 games, the multiple games a week – all of this binds us. It takes place daily, weekly, all summer, yearly, as we all live our lives and go about our business, and we are intimately attached to one another through it all.

We all know when someone on the team has something as minor as a hangnail! or a busted clavicle (get better soon JP).

We know if one of the players is getting married (Congrats Hunter and Lexi) or are having a baby (Congrats Hunter and Shelley).

Heck, we know if someone farts in the clubhouse (miss you, Jean).

It’s all pretty intimate.

When Brandon and Jalynne lost her sister last week, I didn’t want anything more than to be there for them. I didn’t care about wins, losses or the standings. It is an incredibly sad stroke of ill luck for a wonderful family within our family. I just wanted to help out.

By the same token, Madison’s dirt bike accident is a family matter, too. I am not as concerned it happened as I am that he’s all right.

I was proud of him for standing erect before a phalanx of reporters and owning up to it not being the most prudent move, but honestly, I know the guy likes to ranch and ride and slay snakes to save jackrabbits. I know he’s a man’s man. I don’t begrudge him a hobby like dirt bike riding, ’cause he’s my brother and I assume it’s the  kinda thing he’d do on an off day.

The beginning of this season has been filled with weird misfortunes among which the death of our sister-in-law is the most significant and important. It exceeds the petty concerns of win-loss and standings.

Of course I want to #BeatLA, but as Brandon and Jalynne grieve, and Madison mends and rehabs, I wish and pray most for the health and happiness of our entire family, irrespective of the record.

My best to you all.

Go Giants.

Love,

MTK

RPRZ Front Field Panoramic Time Lapse No. 1

26 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in flora, landscape, sky, weather

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antonio, field, front, Karthik, lapse, m.t., mtk, panoramic, photo, photography, point, recharge, rocky, RPRZ, San, texas, time, zone

 

 

 

 

 

 

love,

mtk

RPRZ April 26 Field Report With Panoramic Time Lapse

26 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in landscape, weather

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antonio, field, Karthik, lapse, m.t., mtk, panoramic, photo, point, recharge, report, rocky, RPRZ, San, texas, time, zone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

love,

mtk

RPRZ T. verticalis Return

25 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in birds

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antonio, Karthik, kingbird, m.t., mtk, point, recharge, rocky, RPRZ, San, texas, tyrannus, verticalis, western, zone

nice to have these guys back

love,

mtk

RPRZ Scissor-Tailed Flycatchers, Tyrannus forficatus, in slo-mo

24 Monday Apr 2017

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antonio, avian, bird, flycatcher, forficatus, Karthik, m.t., mtk, paradise, point, recharge, rocky, RPRZ, San, scissor, swallow-tailed, tailed, texas, tyrannus, zone

 

this footage doesn’t do them justice. I love how they seem to float against the wind when hovering.

 

 

 

 

love,

 

mtk

Book Review: The Terranauts, by T.C. Boyle

24 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in Book Review, reviews, thoughts

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Tags

book, boyle, Karthik, m.t., mtk, novel, review, t.c., Terranauts

The Terranauts

I’m a creative person who is the child of scientists. My father was one of the greatest sulfur chemists of the 20th century and my mother was a physics and pharmacology educator and researcher for decades.

Art and music and writing is my genetic code, while my environmental education and upbringing was always one of deep and proper science. The latter influenced me to be rational and theoretical and to question and wonder about our world, my life. The former, to be social and to feel the world, to dance and to get high. So perhaps I’m biased in my reading of Boyle’s particularly incisive view of the scientists who are the main characters of The Terranauts. But let me tell you, it’s great.

It takes a lot of sensitivity and prosaic power to get inside the hearts and minds of people locked up together in an intense project, a collaborative effort of scale, or a prison, and express that faithfully. You really have to go through experiences like that or understand how working together happens in a deep way to attempt something like this. You have to understand people, socially and personally. Boyle does.

In The Terranauts, T. C. Boyle has invented an immense human project, populated it with entirely believable characters and embarked on a plumbing of their emotional and physical landscape with such brilliant detail, I find myself taken aback at the effort and his skill pulling it off.

His description of the technology of the Terranauts’ sealed-glass home in the desert is so vivid in detail down to the workings of the structure itself and including the flora and fauna – in some instances even described with Latin nomenclature in such a way as to feel beautiful – that I had to remind myself this place does not exist.

The pleasure I got from the contemplation of plants, animals and weather ‘inside’ by his characters is distinctly due to Boyle’s sensitivity, rooted in research and built with great prose. His descriptions of the emotional aspects of the scientists’ relationships to their subjects as well as to their co-workers is equally nuanced but even bolder.

The comfort Boyle has developed in delving into human sexuality here reveals an honest portrayal of our superficiality more than our capacity for love. But it isn’t cold.

Science is calculating.

Yet, there is so much of that capacity for love displayed – in the love of a scientific subject, or for the idea of team, or for loyalty as a badge of love. Even the subtleties of friendship and the complicated feelings that tie people together are handled exceptionally here.

This is a faithful portrayal of the emotional landscape of men and women put together for two years separated from us all, and Boyle has created a believable continuum that speaks to everyone about how we act.

Jealousy, lust, envy, competitiveness, anger, love, longing … it’s humans under glass.

T.C. Boyle gets us. His characters over the years are always like people I know or meet along the way. Here he throws four men and four women together separated by only inches from a half dozen of their friends, colleagues and lovers for two years solely for the purpose of expressing intimacy. It’s an incredible conceit seen vividly through.

Employing the style of first-person chapters collected together to do the telling works because of Boyle’s talent for briskness of plot. Though I don’t generally love the format, here it lets Boyle expand inner monologue, the guts of people’s feelings in confession, post-facto, as scientists would … really as anyone would.

Confessing after the fact, telling the truth and letting it out feels so good. It’s a really cool way to unreveal the “True Story of the Terranauts!”

The arrangement of these chapters and points of view is beautiful construction. The first-person chapters are woven in a way of telling the tale that seems complete, unfettered, whole. And it happens progressively.

It doesn’t take long to feel a part of this ecosystem and, once you’re in, you’re equally concerned as the characters as to whether the goats are getting fed or whether there are any tilapia left. You’re equally worried about O2 levels.

The characters are genuine, believable and, confessing their relatable flaws, they’re likable. Those who seem initially like obnoxious foes or nemeses go through transitions and humanize while the flaws of protagonists are openly dissected and brought down to earth.

My emotions changed towards characters and so I felt a part of the immense human enterprise. Like I was on the team, in the dome or at Mission Control, not some dopey tourist staring through the glass on my way to the Grand Canyon. Brilliant.

In retrospect the archetypal quality of the characters is resonant. The details make Boyle’s ecosystem a deeply human environment of our typical longings, lusts, and desires met and unmet. The way we see each other in constrained circumstances relates clearly to how we behave in society and Boyle uses an incredible palette of language to achieve this. I could feel the soil of the Ecosphere between my toes. I wanted to hug Linda, hard.

And, I guess typically for me, I felt kinship with Vodge and Linda and Gretchen.

I thoroughly recommend The Terranauts to anyone with brains and a heart – or for that matter a penis or a vagina.

Way to go, T.C.

3.5/5 stars

A Word on T.C. Boyle’s Utter Coolness

T. Coraghessan Boyle is truly a social writer.

I don’t mean socially-conscious. Or Socialist. Or that he seeks to influence or corral a group of readers in some direct manner.

I mean he’s a social being … and an excellent writer.

His ‘socialness’ is apparent on Twitter where I have enjoyed daily images of his routines – the morning, the egg, the paper, the rat – and of his various voyages. But recently I became one of the many readers/followers to whom he has replied. I was reading his novel Talk Talk, (Viking, 2006), and tweeted some friends about it including his handle and what? what? @tcboyle dipped in to the thread to comment. Turns out he’s totally personable on Twitter and comfortable discussing his work in detail. (More on Boyle’s tweets in my review of Talk Talk).

So last week when I picked up his latest novel, I tweeted to tell him I was starting The Terranauts … and he responded! It was crazy. You can see the exchanges @mtksf. His openness and ease daily with his readers or the public or whatever twitter followers are, strikes me as pretty unusual for a novelist of his stature. I mean, he’s just so cool.

After 15 novels and dozens of short stories and collections, a bibliography of 25+ works, numerous national awards – the guy’s a prolific American man of letters – he still takes time out to hang with his twitter followers. Blows my mind. Though I shouldn’t be surprised. The one time I met him, pre-twitter in 2004, at KPFK in Los Angeles, he was totally present and easy-going, too.

He works at his discipline, teaches it, and is un-self-conscious enough to engage with his readers as a regular person. I can only conclude T.C. Boyle is as great a guy to hang out with as his novels are.

RPRZ SFX Cool Wind Rustling Grass and Rolling a Can

22 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in landscape, sky, weather

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antonio, audio, bird, chirp, effects, field, fx, grass, Karthik, m.t., mtk, point, recharge, rocky, RPRZ, rustle, San, sound, soundscape, texas, zone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

love,

mtk

20 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in architecture, downtown, fauna, landscape

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Alamo, antonio, bexar, de, hd, Karthik, m.t., mtk, night, San, texas, video

yarp

mtk

SA Downtown Towers at Night

20 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in architecture, downtown

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antonio, building, emily, flag, hotel, Karthik, life, light, m.t., morgan, mtk, night, sa, San, spire, texas, tower

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

all right

 

mtk

Nerodia rhombifer, the Diamondback Watersnake, Swimming in SA River

20 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in fauna, reptiles

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antonio, diamondback, Karthik, m.t., mtk, nerodia, reptile, rhombifer, river, riverwalk, sa, San, snake, swiming, watersnake

 

 

 

 

 

cool,

 

mtk

 

 

 

RPRZ April 11 Field Report [feat. the Intern]

18 Tuesday Apr 2017

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antonio, deer, field, intern, Karthik, m.t., milan, mtk, nw, ocean, omm, point, recharge, report, rocky, RPRZ, San, stream, white-tailed, zone

 

 

 

 

GBC Reader Vol. 2, Issue 2: 2017 Giants, a Work in Progress

18 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in GBC Readers

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alex, baseball, blackburn, Bumgarner, Buster, cain, chris, Clayton, de la rosa, frandy, gbc, giants, hundley, Jake, jarrett, Jeff, Karthik, League, m.t. karthik, Madison, major, marrero, mastroianni, matt, mlb, Moore, mtk, National, nick, olney, Parker, pavlovic, Posey, reader, samardzija, sf

Well the first fourteen games (four series) of the season are behind us and a couple of things are already clear.

  1. The NL West is going to be a dogfight. The Rockies, Dodgers and D-backs all expect to be in the hunt.
  2. The Giants are unsettled in left field and in the middle inning bullpen.

Though we’re 5-9 and tied for last in the division with the Padres, we’re only four back because everyone in the NL West is actively beating up on each other. I have a strong feeling that’s how it’s going to be all year.

To get the Negative Nelly out of the way first, Grant Cohn of the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat is convinced after just 14 games that the Giants “dynasty is over,” and that we are not going to make the playoffs.

Me, I am not so sure. There’s a lot of baseball left to play.

Pluses and Minuses

Johnny Cueto is 3-0 while Madison Bumgarner has yet to win in three starts. Once again a Cy Young campaign for MadBum’s hamstrung early. sigh.

Our Gold Glovers Joe Panik and Brandon Crawford look awesome, but we lost Buster Posey to a fastball to the head. John Shea wrote this excellent piece on the after effects of getting hit in the head by a 90+mph baseball. It is reported that Posey may play in the series against Kansas City that starts tonight.

Nick Hundley has been really good in Posey’s absence, a stable veteran behind the plate who instills confidence in the position of backup C.

Nuñez ABs are fun to watch and he is a demon on the bases, but his play at third has been up and down. Let’s hope it’s early season stuff. I really like the guy.

Brandon Belt and Hunter Pence are looking good at the plate.

Matt Moore looks good for about 78- 85 pitches and then the drop off seems a little crazy. The fact Bochy doesn’t feel he can trust our ‘pen hurts in Moore’s starts.

But Mark Melancon turned around after his weak opening day showing and has looked considerably better.

Jeff Samardzija, like last year, is probably going to take a few starts to get going.

Matt Cain got a win! (Olney comments below)

LF has been a problem and it was compounded when Jarrett Parker made a great play only to crash into the wall and destroy his clavicle – gone eight to ten weeks.

On to the Reader

With Parker going down Chris Marrero could be seeing more time in left field. Kaila Cruz thinks that’s a good thing.

We traded Clayton Blackburn to the Rangers for a 21-year-old unproven utility infielder named Frandy De La Rosa – Brisbee explains why.

Jake Mastroianni has a closer look at the pitching and offense two weeks into the season.

Buster Olney had this to say about Matt The Big Horse and his win.

The Giants’ Matt Cain is facing a similar transition to the one that CC Sabathia has had to go through — adjusting to the reality that he cannot throw as hard as he used to and learning to mix his pitches differently. In Cain’s most recent start against Arizona, he did what catchers and pitchers refer to as pitching backward — by throwing breaking balls in counts in which pitchers typically throw fastballs and using his off-speed stuff to set up the less frequent use of his fastball. Cain allowed one run in five innings. Sabathia recalled an at-bat in which he pitched to Russell Martin a couple of years ago, when the left-hander had it in his mind that he would bust a fastball past his former teammate — but the best he could do was 90 mph, which Martin clubbed for a homer. Sabathia says now that he wishes he had started altering speeds with his pitches earlier in his career.

  • Buster Olney on ESPN

If you haven’t yet read the sweet, sweet quotes in AlPav’s look back at Madison Bumgarner’s relief appearance in Game seven of the 2014 WS in KC, do it now.

Love,

MTK

RPRZ Female B. Lineatus Lets Me Close

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in birds

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buteo, close, closeup, female, Karthik, lineatus, m.t., mtk, perch, perched, point, recharge, rocky, RPRZ, up, zone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

love,

mtk

Series Recap: Opening Series in Phoenix

07 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in Series Recaps

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ugh.

Madison Bumgarner’s historic two home runs in game one of the season were wasted in a bullpen implosion that included Melancon. The debacle was followed by a win for Cueto in game 2, but the G-men couldn’t put it together after that and the snakes took the first series 3-1. Samardzija gotshellacked for three HRs, Matt Moore looked great  until Brandon Belt made a rare error, and then he collapsed into a heap and fell apart.

Dwelling in the cellar of the NL West with the Padres to open the season, the Giants now have an opportunity to separate themselves with three games down in San Diego, where I’m certain there will be the usual cadre of screaming SF gamers to assist the fellas in their pursuit back up the standings.

It’s only the first series of the year and indeed after last year – when we had the hottest, first half in all of baseball only to have an epic second half collapse – I’m cool with losing a few as we settle in and find a groove. We lost three key players in our ‘pen, and have a new look on 3rd and in LF. It’s gonna take time.

Trouble is, the NL West is gonna require maximum wins, especially against division rivals. At this point, the Rockies, Dodgers and D-Backs are all 3-1, while we and the Pads are at 1-3. To stay in the hunt for the second wildcard is going to be difficult with this competition.

The Rockies had a great winter adding Dave Holland and Ian Desmond to an already pretty good team that features Nolan Arenado. While they did pick on a weak Brewers squad to win their opening series, it will be really interesting to see what happens against the Dodgers at altitude this week – can they get to the nemesis’ pitchers?

With the butterflies and yips of opening day and the opening series of the year behind them, the Giants need to jump on the Padres, while the Rockies and Dodgers beat up each other. But looking for a sweep as we head to San Diego, I’m not encouraged Matt Cain’s on the mound today to start things off. We all love the big horse, but he’s been a slow-moving train wreck ever since the perfect game.

Sweep the Pads.

Come On, Big Horse, make it happen!

 

 

 

love,

mtk

GBC Reader Volume 2, Issue 1: Torture While All Hail Madison Bumgarner

03 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in GBC Readers, Opening Day, pitchers

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baseball, corner, Francisco, gbc, giants, Karthik, League, m.t., major, mlb, mtk, National, reader, San, sfgiants

Opening day in Phoenix was a massive, thick-beamed wood rollercoaster ride built by Madison Bumgarner that went off the rails in such a familiar manner it felt sickening – or for the less dramatic and more experienced fans, like typical Giants baseball.

During the frustration, I got into a Twitter discussion over the use of the word ‘torture’ to describe Giants baseball.

We all fell in love with Mike Krukow’s term in 2010 because it felt like a pure assessment of the near-misses that made it up: the earthquake, the 100 win season fail, the Angels in ’02, Pudge in front of the plate.

But personally, the torture I felt for 30 years was washed away by the immense wave of relief I felt on November 1, 2010 when we finally won it all for the first time in SF.

Giants fan Ted G, 57, disagrees. For him, SF Giants baseball is uniquely agonizing across decades win or lose. He thinks Krukow’s phrase, “Giants Baseball … Torture,” is emblematic of our pathos as an organization and the struggles we eternally endure.

“The term torture has nothing to do with not winning. Totally about how they go about creating situations that are torture.” – Ted G, @TedSFGman

I can see that, but whatever remnants of the feeling of torture that may have remained for me were certainly washed away by winning the way we did in 2012 – my favorite of the championships. We had to retire Melky Cabrera. Pablo hit 3Hrs – two off Verlander – and Romo dared and won with an incredible fastball to end it with Miggy looking.

Madison going out there in 2014 and ripping it away from the Royals cemented my feeling that we have earned well-deserved titles, establishing a kind of dynasty in an era when the back-to-back World Series championship has disappeared.

There hasn’t been a back-to-back World Series Champion in the 21st century. So for me, this ain’t torture any more, it’s working the details.

But enough about torture, lets get to

The first GBC Reader of the year:

It was a rough game because of the blown saves, but being opening day on the road, it really shouldn’t matter that much in the face of what Madison Bumgarner accomplished: the first pitcher in the 140 years of this game to hit two home runs on opening day put himself in position to win twice before the bullpen’s struggles came to bear. It was epic and #TheLegendofMadBum continues to grow.

Ashley Verala, the West Coast Fan Girl @wcoastfangirl has a sweet piece she calls Last True Renaissance Man of Major League Baseball about our Mad Bum.

Brisbee noted that Bumgarner was also the first Giant to hit two dingers on Opening Day since Barry Lamar. And Grant’s coverage of the debacle it became is actually considerably temperate – I think fatherhood is mellowing him out.

Hank is back in his seat for another long season and here’s his takeaways.

MLB dot com Columnist Joe Posnanski has some really excellent things to say about Madison’s performance, really putting the scale of MadBum’s audacity in nice perspective. He includes Statcast data regarding the speed of these HRs that if you haven’t checked out yet, you gotta see.

Haft chose to focus on MadBum’s dominance on the mound. Man, did he look good.

I like AlPav’s headline for his pretty close-up view of the guts of this one. Ruthian Game For the Ages from Bumgarner pretty much sums it up.

Baggs however seems to have felt more like I did. His piece drips with the wretched agony of cheating MadBum of the win.

But Mark Simon and Sarah Langs at ESPN were enthralled by our heroic pitcher.

I didn’t really have time to make this great, but hey, it’s the first one of the year. I’ll add some links later if I find more content.

I also apologized on Twitter for rage tweeting the value of Mark Melancon’s contract excessively yesterday. I am sorry. It was petty lashing out at the collapse and an irrelevant memory of last year that fueled my rage.

Which brings us to Jake Mastroianni’s piece about everyone who overreacted to the opening day loss.

Happy New Year everyone.

Love ya,

MTK

Screeee! Thunk-thunk-thunk! Is This Thing On? Opening Day and GBC is Back

02 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by mtk in Opening Day

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It’s opening day! Madison Bumgarner vs. Zach Greinke in Arizona. Here’s your starting lineup:

  1. Denard Span – CF
  2. Brandon Belt – 1B
  3. Hunter Pence – RF
  4. Buster Posey – C
  5. Brandon Crawford – SS
  6. Eduardo Nuñez – 3B
  7. Jarrett Parker – LF
  8. Joe Panik – 2B
  9. Madison Bumgarner – P

Grant Brisbee wrote that the Giants considered using MadBum in the 8-slot! But that the serious shortage of left-handed batting made it unrealistic.

I miss the switch-hitting Panda. He’s in pretty good physical condition this year and I think Boston just might start getting some value from ol’ Pablo, the greatest bad-ball hitter in recent memory.

I hope so. I’d be happy for him.

I got nothing. Just needed to dust this off for the season.

Happy Opening Day, Everyone.

Love,

MTK

M.T. Karthik

This blog archives early work of M.T. Karthik, who took every photograph and shot all the video here unless otherwise credited.

Performances and installations are posted by date of execution.

Writing appears in whatever form it was originally or, as in the case of poems or journal entries, retyped faithfully from print.

all of it is © M.T. Karthik

a minute of rain

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