NBA players talk about Larry Bird
I was only nine years old when Larry Bird retired, so I don't have any real big memories of him playing. But he was omnipresent in the NBA conversations and years to follow as I grew up. Sure, Michael Jordan took over the scene and his marketing was out of this world, but Bird also continued to coach, etc.
So, I started to write about my thoughts on Bird's coaching career being relatively mediocre given how cerebral he was about the game. But then I went to up his stats. He coached the Pacers for seven years and during that time he wracked up the FOURTH all-time win-rate. Behind Joe Mazzulla (Celtics from 2011 to present), some guy named Phil Jackson, and Billy Cunningham (who coached the 76ers '77-'85.)
If Bird had been given an all-star roster, it seems to me he'd be possibly in the conversation for greatest coach of all time. He then went on to be a team executive, etc.
Needless to say, Bird loves Basketball and lived it and thought (and probably still thinks) about it every hour of every day.
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Modern rules of etiquette
Some of them are silly or obviously byproducts of the author's life experience, but others are good summations of current societal norms in the US which are not immediately obvious to outside observers.
People have a hobby of doing road trips in a wagon with mules
(Photo by the author, Lisa Whiteman)
I found this via Jason at kottke.org, he said:
When I saw a link to Lisa Whiteman's photo essay on "muleskinning", I was like oh dear god what am I getting myself into here. But it turns out that a muleskinner is a mule driver, particularly one who travels by mule in groups.
What a fascinating read. This is from the first few paragraphs of the article and it is well worth reading more.
... He has a calmness I associate with Southerners — not anxious or hurried. I suppose if you were hurried, you'd be a poor match for a mule, which has been Ronald's most constant companion for the last 50-plus years.
Mules travel at a clip of about 3 miles per hour and famously do things, or don't, at their own pace. "M'yuuu-uhl" — Ronald makes a meal out of the word, saying it with a drawl that seems fitting for such a slow and sturdy beast.
I met Ronald in 2009, when I attempted to make a shot-but-never-finished documentary about him and a group of his muleskinner friends who regularly take recreational road trips across North Carolina. A "muleskinner" is the term used for a mule driver, but it also refers to the microculture of the caravan. They pull over at night to sleep on farms and in the yards of churches and friends, their sleeping bags or old quilts laid out in the backs of their wagons. They open up a can of Beanee Weenee, or splurge on a "fish dinner" — what they affectionately call a tin of sardines. Sometimes they chase it down with a few sips of homemade moonshine they've brought in Mason jars, sitting around a campfire and telling stories they've shared a thousand times.
"The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" - 3 / 5 Encoded Messages
I was in the mood for a spy novel so I checked this out from the library via the Libby app. I didn't realize it was the third in a series, though I don't know how much linear narrative there is given how this one went.
Overall, I really enjoyed the narration but the story was only so-so for me.
Automated Archives for February, 10th 2023