#DRAMATIC BASEBALL 2024

[toralog]

【とらほー（18）2025/5/6 動画ハイライト】球団史上初・東京D開幕5連勝！森下の一打と才木の粘投が導いた単独首位の夜ハイライト

東京ドームの夜空に「とらほー！」の歓声が響いた5月6日、阪神タイガースが巨人に7対1で快勝。ついに今季の東京ドーム5連勝、そして対巨人戦7勝1敗とまさに無双モードに突入しました。 この日も主役は森下翔太選手 初回に先制のタイムリー、2回には3試合連続となる第5号2ランを左翼スタンドに突き刺し、若き4番が確実に勝利を手繰り寄せてくれました。1打席ごとに自分の課題を持って臨むというその姿勢が、ぶれない結果を生んでいるのでしょうね。ヒーローインタビューでも「いい角度で上がってくれた」と語るその笑顔が、まさに今のタイガース打線の象徴のようでした。 エースの粘り 一方で、5回無失点で3勝目をあげた才木浩人投手も忘れてはなりません。毎回走者を背負いながらも粘り強く抑え、吉川選手の打球を左腕に受けるアクシデントがありながらも最後まで気持ちで投げ切りました。試合後には「球数が多くなってしまった」…

[heaven-s-black-box]

Notes- Star Crossed Lovers; Miyuki & more x gn!Reader

Return to File

Recovery date: October 18th, 2024

Description: Can you do hcs for Miyuki, Furuya, Mei or masumane for dating someone from their rival school

Notes: Recovered in conjunction with an anonymous researcher, we thank them for their contributions. I did Mei and masamune!

Back to directory

Miyuki

Of course you go to Inashiro, and even worse you’re related to Mei/someone in his dream team (keeping it open ended, take your pick)

You literally meet by chance while he’s running errands one weekend

You know, those ace of the diamond calendar arts

Mei jokingly uses it as leverage to try and convince him to transfer

He doesn’t take the rival school thing super seriously, but he likes to be dramatic

Had to read Romeo and Juliet at some point in his first year and now refers to you two as star crossed lovers

Your relationship is built on errand dates and snarky texts

When Ryou found out, and eventually Sawamura, there were jokes about fraternizing with the enemy

He promises to take you on a “real” date once he takes nationals in his third year

Your team tells you not to hold your breath, you respond by dramatically holding your breath

When he becomes captain, the stress puts some strain on your relationship because his short fuse makes his normally jokey comments carry a bit more bite

If you’re a player on Inashiro’s team he jokes that you should transfer and join him at Seidou

Furuya

You two were childhood friends, meeting before he moved to Hokkaido

When he decides to go to Seidou, he doesn’t even realize he’ll be near you again

You run into each other at his first game in the Kanto tournament

He doesn’t really care about rival schools

His teammates certainly make a deal out of it though

It becomes a joke about him fraternizing with the enemy

You end up “dating”, as much as he has time for considering you’re at different schools, after the team gets their ticket to nationals

Which ends up making things really rocky when he starts to channel every waking minute into baseball after they lose

Your relationship is mostly you visiting Seidou with a packed lunch for him and watching any game you can make it too

Your own team complains that you show up to root for your boyfriend and not them

If you’re the manager for your team he’s ecstatic to see you at practice games, always asks coach if he can schedule one

The team joke that he’s whipped

If you’re a player he’s definitely competitive with you, especially if you play against each other

Mei

You are related to Miyuki Kazuya (adopted, step-sibling, twin, whatever, take your pick) and it is one of his favorite things about your relationship

Like, he hounds on that fact until you kick his ass because it feels like he’s just with you to bug your brother

You are one of the few people he will genuinely apologize to

This fucker read Romeo and Juliet by choice and quotes it regularly

Look, if Mei wasn’t into baseball he’d be a theater kid

He has read Shakespeare, fight me

Likes to play up the “secret relationship” bit

It’s not a secret, everyone has seen you at Inashiro and Mei practically jumps you when they go to Seidou for a practice match

When he spares the time for errands, he messages you to meet him and you stop at a cafe

If he’s not practicing he might as well enjoy the time off, he hates errands

If you’re a player, he’s super competitive and it definitely affects your relationship more than his attitude already does

Hopes to play on the same team as you some day, can already see the headlines “star crossed lovers reunite on pro team”

He’s so fucking dramatic

Masamune

I feel like he takes inter-school rivalries seriously

So you must have been friends, at least, before going to rival schools

He was kind of sad when you went to a different school

You “date” start in your second year

But, funny enough, it’s a lot like with Furuya where he’s really busy with baseball

Always happy to see you watching his practices, but in the winter he’s worried about you sitting out in the cold

Literally buys you a new scarf, and pretends he just had it laying around

Also kind of wishes you wouldn’t watch practice so that you only see the perfect pitches that take down your team

Kind of cocky when your team complains you don’t love them

Your relationship basically survives on good morning and goodnight texts

If you’re a player I think, since you were friends before going to rival schools, you have a very friendly rivalry

Whoever loses your practice game or tournament game has to pay for the next date kind of relationship

[hiraethminds]

how'd ya first get into object shows?

i feel like everyone has a different story on how they found out about em

thank u for giving me permission to talk about myself. young little Monty with his giant lollipop and overalls watched BFDI, II s1, and object show movie as a mere 11-year-old child, (i didn't really understand what was going on i just liked youtube animation as a kid) THEN he got bored and forgot about it, Monty left object shows to pursue greater heights (my little pony gore videos).

time skip to the summer of 2024, I was bored as fuck

fresh outta the dsmp womb and aimless, then meow (twitter friend) kept putting some dumb lantern on my twitter feed, curiosity piqued, I promptly forgot and moved on with my life (i think i was posting about ocs, phighting, and gta6)

fate intervened in August and put a goated airy edit on my reddit feed, now i had to watch this dumb baby object show, srsly how dramatic could it be lol

they grew on me so quickly, i feel ill thinking about them all. Liam i need to maul you.

anyways

It was a slippery slope! now im all caught up on Tpot, II, Cfmot, Showvember, and other ones im not remembering rn. II was first bc i liked baseball as a kid (wow he has changed alot) Tpot was second bc i saw a PDA youtube short, and I got so pissed that she was snubbed I had to watch everything to see if she would return. I was the dog begging for boiling water on the stove.

i can't deny alot of this media is still made for a younger generation, but i enjoy the diversity and artistic skill of the osc immensely, i hope to make my own show or comic whatever in da futureeee :)

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #4 – War in Human Civilization by Azar Gat

This is my first big history book of the year, and one I’ve been rather looking forward to getting to for some time now. Its claimed subject matter – the whole scope of war and violent conflict across the history of humanity – is ambitious enough to be intriguing, and it was cited and recommended by Bret Devereaux, whose writing I’m generally a huge fan of. Of course, he recommended The Bright Ages too, and that was one of my worst reads of last year – apparently something I should have learned my lesson from. This is, bluntly, not a good book – the first half is bad but at least interesting, while the remainder is only really worth reading as a time capsule of early 2000s academic writing and hegemonic politics.

The book purports to be a survey of warfare from the evolution of homo sapiens sapiens through to the (then) present, drawing together studies from several different fields to draw new conclusions and a novel synthesis that none of the authors being drawn from had ever had the context to see – which in retrospect really should have been a big enough collection of dramatically waving red flags to make me put it down then and there. It starts with a lengthy consideration of conflict in humanity’s ‘evolutionary state of nature’ – the long myriads between the evolution of the modern species and the neolithic revolution – which he holds is the environment where the habits, drives and instincts of ‘human nature’ were set and have yet to significantly diverge from. He does this by comparing conflict in other social megafauna (mostly but not entirely primates), archaeology, and analogizing from the anthropological accounts we have of fairly isolated/’untainted’ hunter gatherers in the historical record.

From there, he goes on through the different stages of human development – he takes a bit of pain at one point to disavow believing in ‘stagism’ or modernization theory, but then he discusses things entirely in terms of ‘relative time’ and makes the idea that Haida in 17th century PNW North America are pretty much comparable to pre-agriculture inhabitants of Mesopotamia, so I’m not entirely sure what he’s actually trying to disavow – and how warfare evolved in each. His central thesis is that the fundamental causes of war are essentially the same as they were for hunter-gatherer bands on the savanna, only appearing to have changed because of how they have been warped and filtered by cultural and technological evolution. This is followed with a lengthy discussion of the 19th and 20th centuries that mostly boils down to trying to defend that contention and to argue that, contrary to what the world wars would have you believe, modernity is in fact significantly more peaceful than any epoch to precede it. The book then concludes with a discussion of terrorism and WMDs that mostly serves to remind you it was written right after 9/11.

So, lets start with the good. The book’s discussion of rates of violence in the random grab-bag of premodern societies used as case studies and the archaeological evidence gathered makes a very convincing case that murder and war are hardly specific ills of civilization, and that per capita feuds and raids in non-state societies were as- or more- deadly than interstate warfare averaged out over similar periods of time (though Gat gets clumsy and takes the point rather too far at times). The description of different systems of warfare that ten to reoccur across history in similar social and technological conditions is likewise very interesting and analytically useful, even if you’re skeptical of his causal explanations for why.

If you’re interested in academic inside baseball, a fairly large chunk of the book is also just shadowboxing against unnamed interlocutors and advancing bold positions like ‘engaging in warfare can absolutely be a rational choice that does you and yours significant good, for example Genghis Khan-’, an argument which there are apparently people on the other side of.

Of course all that value requires taking Gat at his word, which leads to the book’s largest and most overwhelming problem – he’s sloppy. Reading through the book, you notice all manner of little incidental facts he’s gotten wrong or oversimplified to the point where it’s basically the same thing – my favourites are listing early modern Poland as a coherent national state, and characterizing US interventions in early 20th century Central America as attempts to impose democracy. To a degree, this is probably inevitable in a book with such a massive subject matter, but the number I (a total amateur with an undergraduate education) noticed on a casual read - and more damningly the fact that every one of them made things easier or simpler for him to fit within his thesis - means that I really can’t be sure how much to trust anything he writes.

I mentioned above that I got this off a recommendation from Bret Devereaux’s blog. Specifically, I got it from his series on the ‘Fremen Mirage’ – his term for the enduring cultural trope about the military supremacy of hard, deprived and abusive societies. Which honestly makes it really funny that this entire book indulges in that very same trope continuously. There are whole chapters devoted to thesis that ‘primitive’ and ‘barbarian’ societies possess superior military ferocity and fighting spirit to more civilized and ‘domesticated’ ones, and how this is one of the great engines of history up to the turn of the modern age. It’s not even argued for, really, just taken as a given and then used to expand on his general theories.

Speaking of – it is absolutely core to the book’s thesis that war (and interpersonal violence generally) are driven by (fundamentally) either material or reproductive concerns. ‘Reproductive’ here meaning ‘allowing men to secure access to women’, with an accompanying chapter-length aside about how war is a (possibly the most) fundamentally male activity, and any female contributions to it across the span of history are so marginal as to not require explanation or analysis in his comprehensive survey. Women thus appear purely as objects – things to be fought over and fucked – with the closest to any individual or collective agency on their part shown is a consideration that maybe the sexual revolution made western society less violent because it gave young men a way to get laid besides marriage or rape.

Speaking of – as the book moves forward in time, it goes from being deeply flawed but interesting to just, total dreck (though this also might just me being a bit more familiar with what Gat’s talking about in these sections). Given the Orientalism that just about suffuses the book it’s not, exactly, surprising that Gat takes so much more care to characterize the Soviet Union as especially brutal and inhumane that he does Nazi Germany but it is, at least, interesting. And even the section of World War 2 is more worthwhile than the chapters on decolonization and democratic peace theory that follow it.

Fundamentally this is just a book better consumed secondhand, I think – there are some interesting points, but they do not come anywhere near justifying slogging through the whole thing.

[writergirl2011]

I got tagged by @musing-and-music!! Thanks!! 😊 So here goes...

Story I'm proudest of...

Argh. That would be so unfair to the other stories I've written. But if I had to choose, it would be the baseball story, Diamond in the Rough simply because I always wanted to write about baseball and finally found the perfect pairing for it! Not to mention how much research went into the story.

Your story that's gotten the most love online...

Funny that this came up because this just overtook the baseball story for most hits--though to be honest, I probably would've put this anyway given that it actually got several mentions on Twitter during the 2022 J/B fic exchange: you who know what love is (lol, musing-and-music, you tagged me in this and our regency stories are the most popular!!)

Tease a current WIP or idea that you're currently working on...

Speaking of fic exchanges, I just started working on my very short story for the 2024 J/B fic exchange. So sorry, can't...oh, what the heck. Heeeeeere's...a little bit from the next story in the "A Girl for All Seasons" series!!

JAIME: I don’t know whether I’m going to kiss you or kill you next time I see you

TYRION: ahhh I see you talked to ros

JAIME: you didn’t think she’d keep that to herself did you

TYRION: guess not

TYRION: it was for your own good

TYRION: not to mention mine because if I had to listen to you moaning about your blue balls one more minute I was going to smother you in your sleep

TYRION: though now that I think about it that would’ve cured yoru problem too

Your top 3 fandoms...

I only have two. A Song of Ice and Fire and Bridgerton at the moment.

Your top three ships...

Jaime x Brienne, Eloise x Cressida (shut up) and I guess that's really it. If I had to have a third, it would probably be Sansa x Margaery since I've paired them off in some of my fics, but they're not the main focus of my stories and I don't write for them specifically.

Rec someone else's fic...

Yikes, there are far too many I want to rec, but I'm going with the story I received in this year's smut swap because I just love it to death: BT, Phone Home by @angelowl-fics. Brienne as an alien!!!! Jaime as her wannabe boy toy!!!! If you haven't read this already--go read it!!!!

Pick one!

Fluff or Angst: I don't think I write things that are especially fluffy. At the same time, I don't think my fics are super angsty for the most part. Dramatic at times? Sure, but angst--the part that really, really hurts--not so much. But I'll put angst because I do drift in that direction more often than fluff. Where's the "snark" option? That's definitely my speed.

Oneshots or longfics: 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Was this even a question???????

Canon compliance or canon divergence: I think it depends on the canon. For example, I'm not great at writing canon fic for J/B, so I stick with mod AUs. I was better at writing canon fic in other fandoms, though. So I'd say that for now, canon divergence. But I'll read both.

AO3 or ff.net: I somehow completely missed the ff.net experience. AO3 all the way.

[be-more-silly]

Uhhhm intro post😛

Hiiiiiiiii :D I'm Toby but you can also call me Silly or whatever else as long as its nice (it can only be mean if you give me money sorry 😔) I use he/him I'm trans and asexual AND A MINOR‼️

Im a queer neurodivergent and chronically ill artist, wannabe musician(im in a cover band called Duck Row), sorta writer (one day I'll drop my ao3) (I write more than fics trust), crafty feller, and overall silly guy.

Fandoms I'm in

Be More Chill

Dear Evan Hansen

Ride The Cyclone

Creepypasta

Marble Hornets

EverymanHYBRID

Jackson's Diary

Heathers

Gorillaz

Killjoys comics

Scott Pilgrim

Mouthwashing

Sally Face

Gravity Falls

Dead plate, Rot In Paradise, Married In Red (just combining these 3)

Osemanverse

Spider verse

Ghost (the band)

Moral Orel

Music I like (this is in no rank alphabetically by who follow on Spotify tho) :

Animal Collective

Be More Chill music (both Broadway and Two River but I have some of each that I prefer over the other)

Blink-182 (I SAW THEM LIVE AUGUST 2024 TOP 10 DAYS OF LIFE)

Bowling For Soup

Cavetown (he's great when you don't have someone breathing down your neck saying it's cringe)

Chappell Roan

Daniel Caverly

David Bowie

Death Cab For Cutie

(Also not technically in my followed artist but) Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack 🙏

Doji Morita (森田童子)

Fall Out Boy

The Front Bottoms

Ghost (bc)

Gin Blossoms

Gorillaz

Green Day

Jack Stauber/'s micropop

KFC Murder Chicks

Korn

Lemon Demon

Limp Bizkit

Marina/Marina And The Diamonds

Merzbow

Millionaires

Mitski

Modern Baseball

My Chemical Romance

Nirvana

Paramore

Radiohead

Rat King's Ghost

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Ride The Cyclone soundtrack

Sex Bob-omb

Shauna Dean Cokeland

Sleater-Kinney

Sorry Mom

System Of A Down

Tally Hall

Throbbing Gristle

There's a lot more but we'd be here all day if I listed every song i liked that was from an artist i don't listen enough to follow

My hobbies include:

Drawing

Painting

Kandi making

Yapping

Writing

Reading

Making pins

Writing shitty music

Singing said shitty music

Singing in general

Playing and then forrgetting how to play both bass and acoustics guitar

Ranting about my OCs (i just started an OC notebook so many/180 pages alr started or full)

Being dramatic

Being annoying

Making lists of things

Shitposting

Decorating my bedroom

Listening to music

Not dying

Rewatching the same 3 musicals, 4 movies, and 3 shows

And also here's a drawing of vaguely what I think I look like (I have body dysmorphia sooo drawing myself sucks ngl but I like this drawing)

[gyuyoungarchives]

💬 Vogue Korea [22022025]: Interview Highlights - "Right Now, It's a Time of Pause for Park Gyuyoung"

- Right now, Park Gyuyoung is in a period of pause. She has had a hectic schedule, and there are no planned projects.

"This is the first time I’ve ever had this kind of break since my debut."

... Park Gyuyoung is spending her time as usual, working out regularly and watching Netflix at home.

"One day, I might have a long break again. And I might not know what to do with myself then either. So, I need to figure it out in advance now (Laughs)."

Looking back at her past schedule, it’s easy to understand why she feels somewhat bewildered by this sudden pause.

In 2020, she starred in the dramas It’s Okay to Not Be Okay and Sweet Home. In 2021, she appeared in The Devil Judge and Dali and Gamjatang. From there, she only picked up the pace, working on Celebrity (2023), A Good Day to Be a Dog (2023), Sweet Home Season 2 (2023), and Squid Game Season 2 (2024), as well as the upcoming Squid Game Season 3 (2025). Additionally, she filmed the Netflix original movie Mantis (2025).

If this were an exercise course, even her rest periods would be considered "active rest," where she prepared for the next phase while still in motion.

"There was always something lined up, one after another, before I even had time to empty myself."

"Thinking about the reactions and support from my fans, it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime moment. I was so grateful that I pushed myself even harder."

Noeul, the Turning Point of Squid Game Season 2

In Squid Game Season 2, Kang Noeul, played by Park Gyuyoung, was a character who clearly differentiated Season 2 from Season 1.

A former North Korean soldier who defected, she left her young daughter behind in the North. She worked at an amusement park during the day and lived in a van at night. One day, she received an invitation.

After settling her affairs, she boarded a massive trailer. Viewers around the world initially believed this scene was meant to show that the recruitment system for the games had changed.

But when Noeul stepped into the box labelled “11” and put on a Pink Guard mask, it shocked the audience. It was the dramatic twist that concluded Episode 2 of Season 2. For viewers trying to predict the future storyline, their calculations suddenly became much more complicated.

... "To be able to exist in such a pivotal moment was an incredible opportunity."

She had already experienced a global response through various Netflix projects, with Instagram followers and audience reactions coming from all over the world, but the aftermath of Squid Game was on another level.

After the release of Season 3, her life as an actress could change significantly. However, she finds it difficult to expect any major transformations.

Of course, she does have a small wish.

"Until now, people have remembered me as ‘the girl who plays guitar in Sweet Home’ or ‘Seo Ari from Celebrity.’ If possible, I’d like to leave my actual name behind this time.

But I’m sure I’ll just end up being called ‘the triangle girl from Squid Game’ (laughs)."

Having a character overshadow the actor’s name is not necessarily a bad thing. A well-loved character can have a longer life than the actor who played them.

Over time, Park Gyuyoung has created many memorable characters. Some, like Yoon Jisoo in Sweet Home, are remembered alongside their baseball bat. Others, like Han Haena in A Good Day to Be a Dog, left behind an impression of adorable, puppy-like expressions.

Park notes that there is no middle ground in the roles she is offered.

"It’s always one or the other. Either a tough action role or a cute character. Right now, there are more projects featuring dry, muted characters."

If she had to choose based on personal preference, she would lean toward the latter. However, these days, she feels differently.

"Lately, I want to play a bright character again."

Most of the characters she has played in the past year and a half have been in extreme circumstances. It makes sense that she would crave something different.

People around her have told her that her characters tend to influence her real-life behaviour.

"My movements, my speed, and even the way I speak change significantly depending on my character. When I was filming A Good Day to Be a Dog, I ate well and laughed a lot, even off-set. But while filming Squid Game Season 2, I barely ate, and even my speech became more sluggish, as if I was still living as Noeul."

From Textile Science Major to Global Star

It took about eight years for a college student majoring in clothing and textiles to land a role in one of the world’s most popular series.

Now, she finds joy in the very act of performing.

"I find it fun when I overcome the tension in front of the camera and fully focus on the emotions with my scene partner."

Of course, she is also aware of the responsibility that comes with being an actor.

"There are people who come home after a long day, sit down, and choose to spend their precious time watching me on screen. That means I have a responsibility to them. But at the same time, it’s also an incredible blessing."

Growing into a “Kind Adult”

Now, Park Gyuyoung has entered her 30s.

"Even before turning 30, I often imagined what kind of adult I wanted to be, what kind of senior actor I should become (laughs)."

Her method of training herself was simple, constant reminders.

"Don’t become an unpleasant adult."

"Don’t become a frustrating adult."

Through this ongoing self-training, she has defined her own version of a “good adult.”

"A kind adult. No matter who I meet, I want to find something beautiful in them and appreciate it.

Rather than being someone who just gives technical help, I want to be the kind of adult who creates a warm and comfortable space for others."

The self-training she started in her 20s will continue into her 30s, and even beyond Squid Game Season 3.

Because for Park Gyuyoung, the journey to becoming a good adult is just another race that she can not afford to stop running.

Vogue Korea, March 2025

[toralog]

【とらほー（17）2025/5/5 動画ハイライト】“こどもの日”の圧勝劇に見た森下翔太の覚醒と輝くビーズリーの初勝利

東京ドームの空気が、5月5日の午後、あれほどまでに澄んで感じられたのは、試合展開の痛快さゆえでしょうか。阪神が10-1と巨人に快勝し、今季最多得点の劇勝で同率首位に浮上。この試合、何よりも胸に残ったのは森下翔太選手の大暴れと、ビーズリー投手の静かな快投でした。 まさに“流れを呼び込む男” 森下選手の活躍、4回2死から同点に追いつくレフトスタンドへの4号ソロ、6回には勝ち越しを決めるライト前タイムリー、そして7回にはレフト前2点打。9回にはフェンス直撃の二塁打まで放ち、4安打4打点。打席ごとに表情が研ぎ澄まされていて、実況の声をかき消すほどの存在感でした。去年までの“若さ”が、今季はすでに“軸”に昇華しているような、そんな印象を受けました。 それにこたえる投手陣 そして忘れてはならないのが、藤川監督の継投采配。先発の富田投手が3回1失点で降板した直後、捕手も坂本選手から梅野選手にス…

[dd-is-my-guiltypleasure]

Rating: I can't remember the last time a movie made me laugh out loud and struggle to hold back tears in the space of a few minutes. “Bucky F*cking Dent” is a tender, raw, deeply dramatic and very human film. It has an exemplary and well-written script (by Duchovny himself), in terms of emotion management, character construction and narrative construction. The cinematography is very good, the use of music is pragmatic and effective and the performances are above average. Anyone familiar with Duchovny's literary work knows that he is a brilliant storyteller, with intelligent, dark and effective humor. But it's above all human, or isn't that what we would like, Tugas, to participate so much in a film in which baseball plays such an important role. Note: ★ ★★★½

[bongaboi]

Los Angeles Dodgers, all of them, are World Series champs

Los Angeles Dodgers, all of them, are World Series champs

Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer Oct 31, 2024, 02:32 AM ET

NEW YORK -- The 2024 World Series is over: Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers are champions in five games, the first title for him and, for the team, the eighth in franchise history.

There were heroes and goats, as there are in every Fall Classic, but no storybook showdown of Ohtani versus Aaron Judge. There were dramatic grand slams, stunning comebacks and horrible defensive miscues. The New York Yankees' title drought reached 15 years, and their captain, Judge, faced struggles that sometimes reached nightmarish levels.

In the end, what we got was a pure baseball matchup decided by baseball factors, and mostly by the fact the Dodgers had more good players than their opponent. They earned it -- as a group.

"They were the better team in this series," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, while praising his own heartbroken club.

This championship, and the way Los Angeles achieved it, is less about the names on the marquee and more because of the ensemble. It belongs to them all, as much to the supporting cast of Teoscar Hernandez, Gavin Lux and Max Muncy as to Ohtani and fellow stars Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts. To anonymous relievers as much as more heralded starters such as Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jack Flaherty. None of this is by accident. The Dodgers won this way because they were built to win this way.

Every season, the Dodgers rank near the top of the majors in categories such as rookie WAR and in total appearances on the transaction wire. Think about that: With all of the resources poured into the L.A. payroll -- the Dodgers spent more than $1 billion this past offseason -- the Andrew Friedman-led front office never stops tweaking the roster mix, addressing needs both immediate and imagined. The Dodgers excel at turning other teams' excesses into gold, with journeymen such as Ryan Brasier, Brent Honeywell and Anthony Banda becoming crucial contributors to the bullpen. Every bit as much attention is paid to the bottom 10 slots on the 40-man roster as it is to the top three.

"It's about getting the right players, the right people," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "Talent is a lot, but it's not everything. You still have to be cohesive. I just think we do a great job of getting the right players in our clubhouse."

The Dodgers have as much star power as any team we've seen in recent years, but they could never be accused of taking a stars-and-scrubs approach, or constructing a top-heavy roster. Depth or stars? We'll have both, thank you.

"We have a culture here at the big league level," Roberts said. "But the scouting and player development is second to none."

After a second title in five years, the Dodgers, from top to bottom, are what Roberts says -- second to none.

THIS WAS SUPPOSED to be the Ohtani-Judge World Series.

Just look at the cover of the official program. On the left is Ohtani, his face exuding focus and exertion, his arms pointing behind him in the act of the backswing that completes the arc of one of his mighty hacks.

Judge is on the right, his mouth open in the midst of a shout, his head turned as he presumably looks at the bedlam in the dugout in the aftermath of one of his missile-like blasts into the farthest expanses of Yankee Stadium.

It would be Ohtani vs. Judge, in the ultimate version of a baseball hero's journey, one with no antagonists but two protagonists on a parallel odyssey in pursuit to slay the same dragon: a career-first championship.

Thus was the hook for the resumption of baseball's most prolific Fall Classic matchup, Yankees-Dodgers, the dream showdown between two of baseball's most storied franchises.

The hype wasn't without justification. This truly was an unprecedented clash between perhaps the best-right-now players in the sport, starring for marquee franchises in the glitziest of markets and biggest of stages. Together during the regular season, Judge and Ohtani hit .315/.423/.672 with 112 homers, 274 RBIs, 256 runs and 69 stolen bases. That's from two players.

This pairing of the game's two best players just hasn't happened very often in World Series history. It's easy to lose yourself in a debate about just who was considered the best in the game at any point, but the clear precedents are few: Ty Cobb vs. Honus Wagner in 1909. Ted Williams vs. Stan Musial in 1946. George Brett vs. Mike Schmidt in 1980.

Let's imagine the Platonic ideal as the climactic scene of "The Natural," when Roy Hobbs -- "the best there ever was" -- homers into the stratosphere, turning another Knights disappointment into an instant pennant. We've never had that payoff -- a championship-winning, come-from-behind home run blasted by the game's best player.

None of the superstar matchups we highlighted had the type of payoff we might dream of, and most of them disappointed altogether. In the just-completed 2024 showdown, while Ohtani played well as a stalwart at the top of the lineup, his series was most noteworthy because he popped his shoulder on a slide, bringing the term "subluxation" into the mainstream. And Judge, homerless until the clinching game, was astonishing to watch for much of the series, after a season in which he recorded one of the best offensive showings in history.

"He's a great player," a sympathetic Roberts said after Game 4. "I have so much respect for Aaron. There's probably a little bit of maybe trying too hard right now."

That's baseball, though, isn't it? When we zero in on a star matchup like Ohtani against Judge, that's the possibility we're teasing, even as we know the nature of the sport itself makes the realization of the dream scenario so unlikely.

In fact, the most cinematic moment of the series was not produced by Ohtani, Judge -- or even each team's next best player, Betts or Juan Soto. That belonged to yet another star, Freeman, in a postseason when his injuries threatened to keep him out of the lineup. His two-out, Game 1-ending grand slam evoked immediate images of 1988 Kirk Gibson and inspired Joe Davis' epic, instantaneous Vin Scully homage.

There's a lesson in there, both about baseball and about the Dodgers. No matter who we zero in on, it's never about only one person. Anybody might be the one to realize a boyhood dream.

"Those are the kind of things, when you're 5 years old with your two older brothers and you're playing whiffle ball in the backyard," Freeman said, "those are the scenarios you dream about. Two outs, bases loaded in a World Series game."

As for Ohtani, he went 0-for-4 in the clincher and struck out with the bases loaded in the sixth. It didn't make his night any less sweet.

"The success of the postseason is very similar to how we were able to pull it off during the regular season," Ohtani said, via interpreter Will Ireton. "Again: The strength of the organization. Extremely honored to be a part of this."

CONSIDER THAT 29 different Dodgers played this October. Nearly everyone had meaningful roles along the way, including a bright-eyed rookie named Ben Casparius, who began October with all of three big league appearances under his belt. He ended up making a start in Game 4 as an opener.

This is every bit as much a characteristic of this era of Dodgers baseball as the presence of household names Ohtani, Betts, Freeman and Clayton Kershaw.

"It takes a lot to get here," Kershaw said. "Regardless of the talent level, everybody just assumes that we're going to show up, win 100 games and win the World Series. It takes every last guy."

Since the start of the 2021 season, the Dodgers have had 68 instances of a player recording at least one bWAR. Only the Brewers and Rays (69 each) have more. But the Dodgers have also had 17 instances of a player reaching an All-Star level of four BWAR, second only to the Astros (18). L.A.'s success is built on stars plus depth.

During the 12 full seasons since the Guggenheim Baseball Management group assumed control of the Dodgers, they've won 99.2 of every 162 regular-season games they've played. During the wild-card era, no team has done better over such a span, one that has included 11 first-place finishes, a 12-for-12 presence in the postseason bracket, four pennants and, now, two World Series titles. And there is no question the Dodgers' economics might play a role in the team's staying power. According to Cot's Contracts, the Dodgers have sported a top-five payroll in all of those seasons. Yet other teams make huge payroll splurges -- including the past two teams they beat, the Yankees in the World Series and the Mets in the National League Championship Series -- and the Dodgers are sometimes outspent by one or two competitors.

A level of investment measuring in the billions sets a clear expectation for everyone who dons Dodger blue: to do what they did Wednesday -- win it all. That expectation isn't just carried by Ohtani, Betts and Freeman, but everyone who steps into the clubhouse. They would have it no other way.

"You've got a lot of good people that care about winning and that want to win," second baseman Gavin Lux said. "None of them have egos."

The Dodgers' stars, including Ohtani, outperformed their New York counterparts, especially Judge, in the Series, but that was mainly because of Freeman's massive output as World Series MVP. That certainly played a part in L.A.'s triumph.

But in terms of the headliner matchup, at no point did this feel like an Ohtani-versus-Judge World Series. If anything, it was the Freeman series, but of course he isn't going to claim that title.

"Sitting here now, I've just been blessed to be able to play this game a long time and be in certain situations because of the group of guys, the organization," Freeman said. "Just from top to bottom, to be put into a situation. … I mean, I got asked about the RBIs, and the RBIs are because there were guys on base. That's my teammates."

NO TEAM LOST more player games to injury in 2024 than the Dodgers. Even as they sprayed champagne and whooped it up in the clubhouse at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, the Dodgers had more than an entire upper-tier starting rotation on the injured list.

That's why Roberts -- whose postseason decisions have been maligned by Dodgers fans and detractors alike over the years -- deserves so much credit for this run. It's not just that Roberts, along with pitching coach Mark Prior, was able to navigate around the losses in the pitching staff. It's also that the skipper, as usual, folded in rookies such as outfielder Andy Pages, Landon Knack, Casparius and even Yamamoto, not a traditional rookie but a rookie nonetheless. It's also that when the Dodgers splurged at the trade deadline, adding Flaherty, Tommy Edman and Michael Kopech, they all fit so seamlessly on and off the field that it's easy to forget they didn't join the team until the end of July.

No game showed it more acutely than the Dodgers' Game 5 win against San Diego in the NL Division Series, when the big three went a combined 1-for-10 but four relievers backed Yamamoto on a two-hit shutout and Teoscar Hernandez and Enrique Hernandez hit solo homers for the game's only runs.

"He lets you be the player that you'll always be," Teoscar said of Roberts. "He lets you have fun. His communication with his players is one of the best that I've had in my career. I think that's why he's so special for this team and the players."

Roberts' masterpiece was Game 5, when he had to work around Flaherty's too-brief outing and a bullpen with perhaps too few adequately rested arms. So Roberts rode relief ace Blake Treinen for 42 pitches -- seven more than he got from Flaherty. And then he turned to Walker Buehler, his Game 3 starter only two days before, to slam the door in the ninth.

"That's one of the best games I've ever seen managed," Freeman said. "That was special."

Through it all, Roberts spreads the credit steadily away from himself, even as he joins the short list of managers who have won more than one World Series, a list made up almost entirely of current and future Hall of Famers, including Dodgers legends Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda.

"Humbling," Roberts said. "Never thought I would be in that same conversation. I'm a part of a great organization, a lot of great people around me supporting me, and we've won a lot of ballgames. This is something I really wanted. I wanted this one."

If Roberts required validation that perhaps the team's shortened-season 2020 title did not supply -- he has it. He might just be another high-profile cog in the Dodgers' immense apparatus, but he's a vital one. He's also the manager of a dynasty.

This championship -- after a grueling marathon of 162 games plus a month of playoffs, cannot be diminished. It took all of the Dodgers to make it happen, right to the end.

When the Dodgers spilled out of the third-base dugout after the final out, Ohtani, Betts and Freeman were in the middle of the pile. So too were Casparius and Knack. Baseball's latest championship doesn't belong to any one of them, but all of them, under a banner dyed a rich Dodger blue, just how it was drawn up all along.

[heaven-s-black-box]

Notes- Why Him?; Okumura

Return to File

Recovery date: October 12th, 2024

Description: Oh, how would it be to see an Okamura in love with Miyuki's stepbrother, release all the HC possible

Notes: Recovered in conjunction with an anonymous researcher, we thank them for their contributions.

Back to directory

It’s less of a big deal for Miyuki then Okumura

We’ll say you’re a first year in Okumura’s class and you’re there because you tested in academically

The second he hears your last name he’s on guard

I feel like you and Miyuki are really close, after all your parent took care of you both the most

I also think you’ve only recently become step-brothers, like end of Miyuki’s first year

But your parent helped look out for him even before they got with Miyuki’s dad

You were friends as kids and that’s how your parents met

Now that the backstory is out of the way, Miyuki is totally the first to know

He lives with Okumura and heard him mumbling your name in his sleep

The boy was literally just dreaming about having lunch with you, not that Miyuki knew that

As soon as he heard your name leave the younger catcher’s mouth he was out the door

He’s not super protective of you, and Okumura doesn’t seem like a bad guy

But he’s watching over you

Then you start visiting him pretty regularly, and you keep looking at Okumura

And then you come over to his room to help Okumura study, he’s honestly a bit over dramatic when you say you aren’t there for him

Mochi and Zono laugh at him when he asks for advice

So he calls Ryou and Tetsu, and they aren’t much help either

Apparently “what do you do when your roommate who hates you is in love with your step-brother” is a funny question

Ryou announces that no one is good enough for his little brother, and Tetsu points out that Masashi only thinks about baseball

Miyuki wants to help you two get together, but also as Captain and competition for Okumura he’s not really sure he should

On Okumura’s end, he doesn’t even realize

It’s Seto who notices and is left to suffer in silence because he knows Okumura wants to focus on baseball

But Okumura always asks you for help in class when he’s confused, and Seto has been abandoned when pairing up for projects and group work

He’s happy for his friend, but also it’s killing him

So he vents to Kaoru

Look, the whole team finds out you like each other before you two realize

Except Sawamura, and we’ll get back to him in a minute

It gets to the point the team can’t look at you two without smiling and giggling

And Okumura thinks these people like you, which makes him self conscious

It’s a mess

You have to confess, and Miyuki’s the one to push you to do it because it kind of starts affecting Okumura

It’s not his place to meddle in wolf boys life, but it’s basically his right to meddle in yours

If you don’t confess, because you two understand the importance of baseball, he tells Sawamura about the situation

He wasn’t expecting Sawamura to openly confront Okumura, which he really should have seen coming

But Sawamura actually manages to hype him up enough that he decides to tell you

After walking way from Sawamura all grumpy, the pitcher thinks he failed and is ready to go talk to you instead

But when he goes to find you he find you and Okumura having lunch together, practically pressed into each other's sides

He reports back to Miyuki, and by the end of lunch everyone knows you and Okumura are dating

I’m torn because on one hand I think Miyuki would give Okumura a shovel talk

But on the other I don’t think he would for two reasons

The first being he doesn’t want to ruin the tentative relationship they already have 

Honestly Okumura is glad he doesn’t have to worry about Miyuki being petty if you two break up

The second is, it’s way funnier watching Okumura squirm as he anticipates it

Like, for a week straight, everytime Miyuki asks to talk to him he expects the “if you hurt him…” talk

But it’s always stuff like, thoughts on our pitchers? The batters we’re facing next?

And sometimes he actually gives Okumura advice about you, like your favorite snack

[aestheticvoyage2024]

Day 259: Sunday September 15, 2024 - "A Classic"

It was one of my favorite fantasy teams Ive ever had, and I had a pretty low stress fantasy summer thanks to a consistent regular season run but I finally found myself "beat" half way through the second week of this first round playoff matchup with my Dad, suddenly complaining to "Little Brother" about how my bats had just gone cold, after leading the league with .270 all week. I schemed my way back in, and held a comfortable leading going into the last day. And while I had already had to come to terms with the idea that I was most likely getting beat this year, here, by my Dad - it seemed only natrual then on that last morning, today - I kind of was pulling for him to pull it out. You just never know! And so instead of sitting my pitchers down, and playing it safe - I decided to let it roll and see what comes of it. And throughout the day, the Bulls on Parade proudly showed out, just enough to give me a pretty comfortable feeling lead going into Sunday Night Baseball - despite the fact that we both had several guys still going on the last game of the night. The game started and I was sitting comfortable at 7-4-1; some real theatrics would have to happen. My Dad was so done with it he was watching re-run Spartan games instead.... but I was paying attention. Waiting to see if, as I had predicted, the Baseball Gods would find some fun way to work this out for us. A cosmic Rock-Paper-Scissors. But roughly two and a half hours had passed, and the scorecard hadn't changed but I knew there was something in the air. I knew there was one way that this could all go down - if my closer comes in and gives up home runs to his guys, that could flip all this on its heads. And with 2 outs in the 9th inning, when it was close it out and go home, or create one for the history books, the Baseball Gods finally showed out and settled this in the most dramatic way. Back-to-Back HomeRuns. Whats more improbable? The ever inconsistent Max Muncy closed it out for him, on a 3-2 Pitch. He'd only hit 14 Homers all season. What are the chances and a now blown-out-game that he would even attempt for the fences. It maybe wouldn't have otherwise mattered, and in fact, when I called my Dad and made him watch it with me, I hardly believed him at all when he muttered "home run" over the phone slightly ahead of us apparently there in Michigan - but an instant later, the most perfect swing and I was never so happy to have lost before - to lose in that fashion, to be a part of that great story, that my Dad and I will replay for years. Unbelievable. Classic. Thats baseball. Fantasy or Not. Its made to break your heart - its made to make you believe that this impossible turn could be true....even with a full count, with 2 outs in the 9th, of the last game of the series. Tip of the hat - not so much to my Dad, who did deserve to win - but to the Baseball Gods who had their hand in letting the chips fall in a pretty special way. Now I just hope he goes and wins it all so I can send him a trophy for it all!

Quote: “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.”​ — Amelia Earhart

Song: Pink Floyd - Have A Cigar

[laresearchette]

Sunday, September 08, 2024 Canadian TV Listings (Times Eastern)

WHERE CAN I FIND THOSE PREMIERES?: THE WONDERLAND MASSACRE & THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD (MGM+) UNIVERSAL BASIC GUYS (City TV) 8:00pm BOB’S BURGERS (CHCH/Fox Feed/Check Local Listings) 8:30pm THE GREAT NORTH (CHCH/Fox Feed/Check Local Listings) 9:00pm

WHAT IS NOT PREMIERING IN CANADA TONIGHT?: ANIMAL GENIUS (TBD - Nat Geo Canada) MURDER BELOW DECK (TBD - Lifetime Canada) NATIONAL PARKS: USA (TBD - Nat Geo Canada)

NEW TO AMAZON PRIME CANADA/CBC GEM/CRAVE TV/DISNEY + STAR/NETFLIX CANADA:

AMAZON PRIME CANADA SHRINK

NETFLIX CANADA THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2

2024 US OPEN TENNIS (TSN/TSN4) 1:00pm: Men’s Final Preview (TSN/TSN4) 2:00pm: Men’s Final

NFL FOOTBALL (TSN3) 1:00pm: Jaguars vs. Dolphins (TSN3) 4:00pm: Broncos vs. Seahawks (TSN/TSN3/TSN4/TSN5) 8:20pm: Rams vs. Lions

MLB BASEBALL (SN) 1:00pm: Jays vs. Atlanta (SN Now) 4:00pm: Guardians vs. Dodgers (TSN2) 7:00pm: Diamondbacks vs. Astros

2024 SUMMER PARALYMPIC GAMES (CBC) 2:00pm: Closing Ceremony

SPRUCE MEADOWS - ROLEX GRAND SLAM (SN1) 3:30pm

WNBA BASKETBALL (TSN2) 4:00pm: Aces vs. Liberty (SN) 9:00pm: Sun vs. Sparks

NORTHWOODS SURVIVAL (APTN) 7:00pm: It's a return to a life free from the reliance on modern conveniences and away from the hustle and pollution of cities; it's a gamble that comes with a glorious upside, but also frighteningly high stakes.

CAR S.O.S. (Nat Geo Canada) 8:00pm (SEASON PREMIERE): Tim Shaw and Fuzz Townshend undertake dramatic automobile interventions across the U.K.

HOMICIDE HUNTER: AMERICAN DETECTIVE (Investigation Discovery) 8:00pm: Joe Kenda examines some of America's most disturbing and mind-blowing cases.

FIGHT NIGHT: THE MILLION DOLLAR HEIST (Showcase) 9:00pm/10:00pm (SERIES PREMIERE): Atlanta prepares for Muhammad Ali's comeback fight, and everyone wants a piece of the action; Chicken Man sets his eye on the fight night prize; Detective JD Hudson's call to duty is tested.

UNSELLABLE HOUSES (HGTV Canada) 9:00pm (SEASON PREMIERE): With her daughter's dire health crisis alleviated, a mother is ready to part with a 1920s bungalow she bought to be by her side. She's looking to get top dollar, so she's calling on Lyndsay and Leslie go bold with an era-specific, glitzy upgrade.

TROPPO (Super Channel Fuse) 9:00pm: A major breakthrough in the investigation becomes threatened when Amanda's past erupts into the present.

ROCK SOLID BUILDS (HGTV Canada) 10:00pm: A year in the making, it's all hands on deck at the Brigus waterfront as the team races to complete a custom three-story home, and that means completing a pile-up of tricky details inside and out, all in time for the Brigus Blueberry Festival.

[greensparty]

Remembering Willie Mays 1931-2024

Baseball legend Willie Mays has died at 93. My father went to a signing and had Mr. Ways sign a Willie Mays comic book. He was enthralled by the comic and hadn't seen it in years.

the cover of the 1954 comic book

Within pop culture, he appeared as himself on episodes of a number of TV shows including Bewitched and My Two Dads.

The link above is the obit from CNN.

[xtruss]

The western red cicada, Okanagana arctostaphylae, was thought to be extinct for 100 years until a picture of the rare bug was snapped by a citizen scientist. Photograph By Anton Sorokin

How An ‘Extinct’ Cicada Was Rediscovered 100 Years Later

Billions of Cicadas will Soon Flood the Eastern U.S. But their Western Counterparts are Relatively Lesser Known—with One Species Described as "The Holy Grail of Western Cicada Rediscoveries."

— By Anton Sorokin | March 04, 2024

When the striking crimson red cicada known scientifically as Okanagana arctostaphylae was last seen in 1915, World War One was entering its second year, and the House of Representatives just declined a proposal allowing women to vote.

It would be over a century later in 2020 when Lucinda Collings Parker happened across one in her garden in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills. Spotting a bug she didn’t recognize, she took a picture and uploaded it to the online citizen science forum iNaturalist.

In less time than it takes to cook and eat dinner, her observation had already been seen by Will Chatfield-Taylor, an entomologist who studied at the University of Kansas, who forwarded it to a cadre of cicada experts. Jeff Cole, research associate at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and Elliott Smeds, research associate at the California Academy of Sciences, all three agreed—Parker’s cicada was O. arctostaphylae, the holy grail of western cicada rediscoveries.

This spring, from Oklahoma to Virginia, billions of cicadas will disrupt baseball games and weddings, creating an incredible sight and overwhelming chorus. But for entomological mystery, some researchers turn their eyes to the West.

There are far more species of cicada west of the Rockies than east, and these western species are comparatively poorly known. Some species are being recorded for the first time in generations. The poster-bug of these rediscoveries is Okanagana arctostaphylae.

Searching For A Lost Species

In the days after Parker’s observation, Smeds drove for hours across the western slopes of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains with his windows rolled down, listening for the cicadas' call. He had an idea of what they might sound like based on related species.

The strategy paid off, but the first time Smeds tracked them, he could only listen to the ‘zzzzzzzzZZZZzzzztttt’ of their song emanating from an inaccessible cliffside 20 feet overhead. The next day, he found them calling behind a locked gate. He was lucky and met the landowner, who, albeit slightly bemused, allowed Smeds to chase cicadas on his property.

It wasn’t long until Smeds saw them: 1.5-inch-long red insects, dramatic in coloration and appearance. They would stand out if they didn’t perch on the equally red stems of their host plants, Manzanita shrubs. Several weeks after their reappearance, the cicadas vanished again. But now scientists knew where and when to look; they were found again in 2023.

Diligent searching and several more lucky iNaturalist observations revealed the cicadas were found across a wider swathe of California's Western Sierra Foothills than expected. Now the expanse between the northernmost and southernmost observations spanned 130 miles, a distance surpassing the length of Delaware. They were able to evade detection for a century because they spend years underground. When adults emerge, it is in stifling heat and amid dense vegetation.

“Cicadas are basically overgrown aphids,” laughs Cole.

Like aphids and other ‘true bugs’ the cicadas have a ‘straw’ that they stab into plants to suck a liquid diet of sap. This has been a successful strategy for them; over 3000 cicada species are found worldwide.

They’re also characterized by a two-part life cycle. Cicadas spend the longest portion of their lives underground as nymphs, sucking juices from roots. After one to 17 years, depending on the species, they burst from the ground and molt, transforming from a brown bean-shaped subterranean creature to a winged adult—the world’s noisiest insects.

Unlike their eastern counterparts, whose emergence can be predicted decades in advance, the life cycles of western cicadas remain comparatively mysterious. What is their range? When will they emerge, and for how long? Many species have “protoperiodical” life cycles, which means that a few emerge every year, but there are much larger emergences some years, although smaller in contrast to the periodical cicadas of the east.

Figuring out exactly what triggers the emergence of protoperiodical cicadas in the West is still an unanswered question, but rain is a key part of the puzzle. Of studied species, large emergences of protoperiodical cicadas occurred only after a certain threshold of rain fell over several years.

Science Done By The Citizens

Just in California, there are about 80 recognized cicada species, and yet there are just a handful of entomologists focusing on western cicadas. Cicadas have remained relatively poorly studied because their long lifecycles and sporadic emergences are difficult for academics to study. Rarely can scientists wait years for study subjects to pop up above ground, and they can’t be everywhere at once.

Community scientists on iNaturalist have emerged as a critical tool. iNaturalist users snap a photo of a plant or animal, and the photo is immediately visible to a community of naturalists and experts who can confirm or correct an identification.

“I’m guessing a similar situation has happened hundreds of times over the last century, that someone has found this cool red bug when they’re out there in the foothills, and thanks to iNaturalist, this is just the first time that anyone else has been able to hear about it,” suggests Smeds.

iNaturalist users generate tens of thousands of observations daily. Never before have researchers of rare creatures had so many eyes peeled—peering into crevices, scanning thickets, and uploading their finds in real-time. When it comes to cicadas, over 8,500 users made nearly 17,000 records in the western U.S. as of February 2024. Suddenly, the handful of cicada scientists have eyes everywhere.

This is a game changer for cicada research. “Before iNaturalist, there was no way to know where and when they’re coming out. You needed to have a big tank of gas and some luck” recalls Cole.

Chatfield-Taylor sometimes messages users who have logged rare cicadas, asking them to collect and send him a specimen, which allows him to analyze how closely they’re related to other, nearby species and just how many might live out West.

Despite all the new records, some species continue to evade detection.

Chatfield-Taylor wistfully talks of a cicada from Yakima Valley in Washington that hasn’t been seen since its description in the 1930s.

“Maybe it's extinct” he says, or maybe it will turn up on iNaturalist this year.

Already, crowdsourcing information and specimens from iNaturalist, the cicada researchers have gotten their hands on more species faster than they would have believed possible.

These records aren’t only good for species rediscoveries. As a result of iNaturalist and specimens that they were able to obtain, Cole, Chatfield-Taylor, and Smeds determined that several species of western cicada weren’t species at all; they were geographic variants of other more widespread species.

Chatfield-Taylor wants to remind community scientists, “When it comes to western cicadas keep your eyes peeled; you might find something that surprises you.” And for that matter, your find might surprise the entomologists too.

[dweemeister]

July 10, 2024

By Tim Grieving

Before John Williams believed in himself as a conductor, the general manager of the Los Angeles Philharmonic believed in him.

Ernest Fleischmann was a savvy and powerful impresario, born in Germany in 1924, raised in South Africa to escape the Nazis, a frustrated conductor and journalist who managed the London Symphony Orchestra for eight years and ran the European classical division of CBS Records before coming to Los Angeles in 1969 and transforming a “provincial second-rank orchestra,” as L.A. Times critic Mark Swed wrote, “into one of the world’s best.”...

... When Fleischmann saw Star Wars with his kids on opening weekend in the summer of 1977, he thought to himself: God, this score! “It’s really the score and the sound effects that have made that movie what it was,” he later said. “It was almost Wagnerian.” The LA Phil was scheduled to tour Japan that fall, but the tour was canceled at the last minute when the promoter went bankrupt. With his orchestra suddenly freed up, and Star Wars totally consuming the culture, Fleischmann saw a plum opportunity; he paid a visit to John Williams’ Brentwood home and asked the composer if the LA Phil could perform music from Star Wars in a concert of space-themed music. Williams said “Fantastic,” and created a special 28-minute suite from his already super-famous, record-breaking score.

The resulting concert on November 20th, 1977 at the Hollywood Bowl—the iconic outdoor summer home of the LA Phil—was a galactic party designed for young families, complete with a laser light show and readings by William Shatner. The sold-out audience went crazy for it, but the event also highlighted the deep tension between anointed priests of “high culture” and the hoi polloi. “We were criticized very heavily,” recalled Zubin Mehta, the LA Phil’s music director who conducted that night. “Our critics and colleagues said that we had sold our souls to Hollywood. It was really a children’s concert.” The grumpy L.A. Times critic Martin Bernheimer called it “artistic prostitution.”

Fleischmann didn’t care. He had the LA Phil repeat the “Music from Outer Space” program at the California Angels’ baseball stadium in nearby Anaheim, and he commissioned an album of the Star Wars suite and Williams’ new Close Encounters suite, recorded at UCLA’s Royce Hall in December 1977 by Mehta and the orchestra. According to veteran classical music broadcaster Jim Svejda, it was the first time a major American orchestra treated film music “in a very serious way. I think it made a very dramatic statement.”