JPTV: What I'm Watching Tonight
Competing at the 2006 bee, Finola Hackett and winner Katharine Close (seated). ESPN Photo: Mark Bowen
The 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee, baby! I can't even do this event justice in a small blog post. American kids of far-flung nationalities puzzling over the etymologies of the same dead languages. The dissonance of the ding! of elimination, which sounds like it should signal a correct answer but means the opposite. The eternity between when a kid misses an early letter in a word and when he finishes it.
The final airs on ABC in primetime, but the competition aired on ESPN this morning, and is on ESPN News as I write. The drama moment came when 13-year-old Samir Patel, of Colleyville, TX, a previous 2nd and 3rd-place finisher, was eliminated on clevis, a word of Scandinavian origin that means "any of various connections in which one part is fitted between the forked ends of another and fastened by means of a bolt or pin passing through the forked ends." [He lodged a protest that the word was mispronounced, but his appeal was denied.]
The crowd gasped. The commentators were stunned. And his opponents were visibly moved as they stood and gave him a standing ovation. You'll have to excuse me. I'm getting a little verklempt.
Tangentially related trivia question: Who can name a short-lived past sitcom about homeschooling? Your bonus time starts now...
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1
Can I have the network of origin, please?
Actually, I think it was on the WB and the name of the show was the name of the home-schooling family. The Keefes or something like that?
I won the spelling bee in 7th grade. The second-place kid spelled "cemetery" wrong. It was fun, but the celebrity was too much for me -- women, parties, drugs, you know the drill. I never defended my title.
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2
Close enough for Tuned In. It was the O'Keefes.
I finished 4th in the countywide spelling bee in 5th grade, misspelling "jib boom," which I believe I took for one word and spelled "jiboom." Shut up.
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3
Clevis. Funny, I used this word in a sentence just yesterday evening at a local outdoors store. I was looking for replacement clevis pins for my son's external frame backpack before we leave for a trip this weekend. Who'd a thunk it?
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4
James,
I made the mistake of watching Pirate Master last night. Have you caught it? Thoughts? I just don't see it making it past this season. I was glad to see "John" get cut adrift at the end. Who has ever heard of a Scientist/Exotic Dancer? He was so annoying with his "I'm a gift from God to mankind" attitude and the look on his face when the vote was unanimous against him was priceless? It was worth the whole stinker of a show.
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5
Did anybody see the new episode of Studio 60 last night?
I know its on it's last legs, and the previous weeks epsiode was almost embarassing to watch, but i think last night, they got back on track.
James
any comments? -
6
@anonymous:
I did not watch last night's Studio 60, though for some reason I did watch last week's. I was not a fan of the show from the get-go, and I blogged about that at length several times in the fall... but after it became clear the show was not going to make it, it seemed like piling on to criticize any more.
So I'm going to uncharacteristically bite my tongue except to say that, since I never thought they were on track in the first place, I'm probably not the guy to ask.
- poniewozik Loved the season. Mrs Tuned In wd have put u on the main list RT @boredtodeath Thank u for incl us in Time's Top 10. We'll take hon mention. - 4 hours ago
- poniewozik @carr2n Virgin is the best, LAX-JFK - 5 hours ago
- poniewozik Did NPR interview abt multiscreen multitasking. After, automatically reached for iPhone in pocket. Like don draper wd have for cigarettes. - 6 hours ago
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