I was unable to watch the ceremonies last night, but watched them this afternoon. No matter what you think of the politics of it all, that was simply the most spectacularly choreographed Olympic opening ceremonies I have ever seen. Congratulations to the organizers and to everyone who has spent their money at Wal-Mart. Money well spent.
Seriously, incredible.
HyperIon
i don’t get it.
jack fate
I was playing a happy hour gig last night and they had the coverage (live?) on three large TVs. It was next to impossible to not watch it. T’was very amazing.
Voice of Reason
When you kill or imprison the ones that can’t learn the choreography, the whole show comes together.
Bob Fosse taught us that.
w vincentz
Yes. It was nice.
The only thing that I’ve seen to rival it was my neighbor, Ralphie’s, back-yard July 4th celebration. Great fireworks, cold keg, and topless chickitas.
Keep tryin’ China.
Octavian
NBC’s “China analyst” who was doing commentary alongside Lauer and Costas was just atrocious. He also has strong ties to Henry Kissinger. The children handing off the Chinese flag to goose-stepping soldiers was described by him as being representative of “the State being the guarantor of the children,” which I thought was frightening.
Here’s a little more on this guy:
Octavian
For some reason the link didn’t show up in my last post.
Here it is: link.
jake
And the Russians put on some great ballets.
Listening to one of the chattering nimrods last night go on about how China’s leadership values harmony pissed me off no end.
jake
Slightly OT: How much does a 30 second spot during the Olympics cost? I’m wondering if it is too much to hope Camp McMaverick will go broke.
The Moar You Know
There are still people so far behind the times that they refer to it as “Communist China”. I’ve got news for them. I’ve been there. It’s about as communist as Texas.
Our media fails at so many things, as we on the liberal side of things know, but there’s still an ingrained respect for them, that somehow, in spite of the fact that they are willing to just make shit up about Democrats, that they’re usually right about other things. They are not. Whether it be about the current conflict in Georgia/Russia, guns, aircraft crashes, the economy, auto safety or the easiest thing to get right, the goddamned weather, the media fucks it all up.
“Pulling it out of your ass” has worked for so many decades for these spokesdroids for the status quo that they will literally be the last ones to realize when they jump the shark – and the American public finally understands that they’ve been lied to about literally everything for years. I hope, on that day, that we get reacquainted with our revolutionary roots and have us a little good old-fashioned bloodshed. Because no one deserves a rope party more than the media and the “pundit class”.
The Cinese have a lot of things, but they will never have good old-fashioned American tits. This country is awesome. God Bless America.
Darkrose
We went out for sushi last night, and they had the opening ceremonies on, or at least the Parade of Nations part. I love watching that, and seeing how the different delegations present themselves, and cheering for the really tiny countries.
I do want to know who thought that white pants, dark blazers, and white golf hats were the best fashion choice for the U.S. team.
w vincentz
@ Moar,
Yup, USA has tits.
OT- Check out what’s going on with the International Naval blockade, soon to be put in place to prevent Iran from obtaining benzine for their refineries. US, UK carriers groups and FR subs are almost in place. This brinkmanship is coming down. Aww, shit…again.
dmsilev
According to the NBC blatherers, Ralph Lauren is the one to blame for that.
-dms
jake
I heard Former First Lady Bush picked their outfits. You know, to recall a time when the only people who dressed that way were the sort that didn’t clutter up the Astrodome and trouble her beautiful mind. I completely made that up by the way.
Sirkowski
Totalitarian regimes are always good with ceremonials.
Original Lee
The opening ceremonies were excellent. I watched it mostly on mute, which probably meant I lost some of what was going on, but on the other hand, I didn’t need the blather.
I have also been watching this afternoon, and McCain’s attack ad is airing approximately twice an hour here. I have seen one Obama ad. If I were playing a drinking game with McCain’s ads, I’d be about +3 right now.
The Dangerman
I have to confirm Moar’s evaluation; China is a highly capitalistic, market oriented economy. Sure, it has a highly compliant Media (sound familiar?), has occupied foreign countries for strategic purposes (sound familiar? and doesn’t tolerate dissent (well, I’ll hold that against them).
Not to say China doesn’t have a boatload of issues (I saw pollution activity that you wouldn’t fucking believe), but they are not a threat to us. Given the debt they hold, they could sink our economy tomorrow. They don’t and won’t.
Whammer
@ Dangerman,
We have instituted a new form of Mutually Assured Destruction with China. If they demand that we pay of our debt, it wrecks us, but then we can’t buy their stuff, which wrecks them. Of course, we’d be much better off if we weren’t in this situation. Basically under GWFB, we got drunk and China isn’t taking the keys away.
jo6pac
Of course, we’d be much better off if we weren’t in this situation. Basically under GWFB, we got drunk and China isn’t taking the keys away.
August 9th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
After the games this will happen but if we start the Iran war in the last days of the games it becomes a game with US spinning into MIlton Freidmans of income for the little people. I’m 1
jo6pac
w vincentz
I saw Chimpy’s photo-op with the US beach volleyball girls while wifey Laura was taking the sights around town. Why was that clown grabbing their tight little asses if not to show patriotism?
Steve S.
Can somebody please explain to me when everybody in America became twelve years old and started to equate entertainment with gross displays of pointless excess? You know, back when you simply had some semiclothed runner jog a torch into the stadium, pause a moment, then light a simple cauldron the ceremony had a little meaning. Now it’s just a sickening orgy of oneupsmanship. Olympic opening ceremonies are tributes to the world’s cultures in the same way that Cameron’s “Titanic” was a tribute to the victims of that tragedy. “Sure, we’re all dying horrible deaths, but at least we’ll be remembered as fictional characters in a stupid movie that will make hundreds of millions of dollars for its makers!!!”
I flipped back and forth to the opening ceremonies, digesting as much at a time as I could stomach (probably 20-30 minutes total), and as bad as it was it still couldn’t reach the all-time nadir; 1984, Los Angeles, “Rhapsody in Blue” turned into a Hollywood spectacle on dozens of grand pianos. Say, I have a great idea for the London opening ceremony, have 12,000 guys dressed as Laurence Olivier do “Hamlet” soliloquies while 600 Beatles tribute bands do “A Day in the Life” in the background. Wouldn’t that be a spectacular and moving tribute to British culture? Then 2000 pantomime Princess Margarets doing Lulu’s greatest hits! Then light the main cauldron with a buzz bomb! Yowzer!
The Dangerman
No doubt on the MAD; just that economic MAD is far less a frightening scenario than the previous one. “Businessmen” on both sides have cool heads; there are no such things as hawks, per se. As for getting drunk, not quite the comparison I would make; however, the list of shit that we will have to clean up in the years (decades) to come is truly breathtaking. And that doesn’t even factor in something bad with Iran – if that goes to shit, well, I hope we still HAVE an election.
The Moar You Know
This is the second thing he’s ever done that I completely agree with.
The first, BTW, was signing the extension of Daylight Saving Time.
Never let it be said that I didn’t have anything positive to say about the man, although I’ll admit that’s pretty thin gruel for eight years in the Oval Office.
Bostondreams
And of course, there is a fascinating connection to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, also held in a brutal dictatorship: A guy named Speer helped design the ceremonial routes.
History is funny.
skippy
i thought the ceremonies were spectacular in the literal sense of the word. the amazing thing, aside from the engineering of the stadium to accomodate such magnificent visual effects, was the choreography of all the people invovled, knowing exactly at what instant they had to be where and when. truly beautiful!
and, speaking of awol, did you see the shot of him sitting in the stands, absent-mindedly beating his little american flag against his knee in time to the music?
you know if that was a democrat, it would be top story on the news tonite: “dem president disrespects america’s flag on communist soil!”
bago
In communist china, wal-mart buys you!
bago
Uhm, when the first oral tradition/novel/opera/musical/movie/ceremony was made?
slippytoad
And about as democratic as Caesar’s Rome. And as socially equal as Louis XVI’s France.
I’ve been there too, bud. China’s society is currently in the midst of a state of massive flux. One thing that my tour guide said to us was that a lot of Chinese privately wished for the bad old days of Mao, because back then at least all Chinese could feel as though they were in it together.
The police patrol the city but they only keep order for a few seconds while they’re around. The moment they are out of sight around the corner, the beggars and peddlers reappear and carry on as before.
Certainly in a country with an engaged citizenry you wouldn’t be finding citizens dousing themselves with gasoline in the midst of the capital and setting themselves on fire.
Sometimes those guys survive and wander around Tienanmen Square in their yellow robes, begging for handouts. They usually can’t work anymore, you see, because they can’t walk or pick things up with what’s left of their hands.
And the poor in Beijing are desperately poor and being on the streets of Beijing at night more than half a mile from my bus, though I towered over most of the population, was definitely one of the more nerve-wracking 15 minutes of my life.
jake
Fixed.
Steve S.
“Uhm, when the first oral tradition/novel/opera/musical/movie/ceremony was made?”
No, I don’t think that’s when America became twelve years old.
ThymeZone
Meh. You just described the conditions in many big cities including the one where I live. There are districts here where nobody in his right mind would be on the streets after dark without a police escort.
Our court system processes well over 2000 felony convictions per month in this county. Those are the people who get caught.
Steve S.
“Then Margaret Thatcher can light the main cauldron with a buzz bomb! Yowzer!”
Whilst pantomime Tony Blair bends over and takes it up the keister from pantomime George Bush.
mrmobi
I personally found it unwatchable. Slick, high-tech, and grounded in the kind of un-reality which is able to dismiss the fact that the only reason the thousands who watched were able to breathe is that the government found it necessary to stop factories and most cars to enable the air to be breatheable. Nice.
The Chinese are much better at fucking their people than we are. Republicans, take note, you can do whatever the fuck you want, crush the environment and dissent, but only if you have enough troops. I see a draft in our future.
The Taiwanese were forced to march in under a completely fabricated olympic banner which calls the inhabitants of Taiwan “Chinese Taipei.” It’s fascist, but it’s ok, because the Chinese pretty much own the future of the planet, given the the almost total corruption of our own government.
For those of you under 40, I’d start learning Chinese real soon now. We have seen the future, and it is not us.
Bob In Pacifica
Why have I had no desire to turn the Olympics on at all. Last night I actually listened to a blacked out Niners-Raiders pre-season game and watched Barry Zito lose one to the Dodgers on mute. No desire to see anything except maybe the 100-meter dash, and that shouldn’t take long.
john b
i was pretty annoyed that the nbc commentators didn’t mention the composer of the music (tan dun as far as i know), yet mentioned the director once every five minutes. tan dun did a marvelous job of setting a mood with music and went un-recognized in the american broadcast. i feel tan dun is as much a world treasure as the director of the show.
john b
i was pretty annoyed that the nbc commentators didn’t mention the composer of the music (tan dun as far as i know), yet mentioned the director once every five minutes. tan dun did a marvelous job of setting a mood with music and went un-recognized in the american broadcast. i feel tan dun is as much a world treasure as the director of the show. (/modern music snob rant)
Prince Roy
NBC’s China guy is Joshua Cooper Ramo, who as noted, works for Henry Kissinger’s consulting group which does a lot of its business in China. This no doubt explains the worshipful nature of Ramo’s commentary. I found it excessively patronizing and insipid–but he’ll be fawning all the way to the bank, because the PRC knows how to reward bootlickers.
Joshua Norton
Ralph Lauren – typically American – create something combining taste and quality, and then reduce it to rubble it by advertising where you bought it – and how much you paid.
Lauren also presented George Bush Jr. with his own “opening ceremony uniform”. His navy blazer, however, is embroidered with his title. Bush didn’t wear it; Obviously Laura does have a brain.
Here’s a tip for all of the tasteless Neocons. They can buy a replica blazer from Lauren for only $695.00 (or 445.00 Euros).
incontrolados
A Bush or more at every medal or skin opportunity.
How would Jen phrase it?
Harley
Credit where credit is due. The Opening Ceremonies were directed by Zhang Yimou, a truly great filmmaker responsible for small perfectly crafted films (Happy Times, The Long Road Home) and impossibly ambitious epics (Hero, House of Flying Daggers). Oh. And he introduced both Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi to the movie-going public.
Kevin
Holy shit, I happen to have USA HD on right now, and they’ve got a basketball game on, Spain vs. Greece. The two douchebag announcers have been ignoring what is happening in the game, and have been rattling on about the “Dream Team” USA team who were in Barcelona. WTF?
Brachiator
I’ve never been to China. But I have been to Tibetan refugee camps. What’s your point?
Your comments remind me of a friend who had been to Russia numerous times as member of a college chorus. He would go on about how biased our view of Russia was. But then on one of his last trips back, some of the people he had stayed with before finally trusted him, didn’t think that he had been interviewed by the KGB, and begin to tell him about the degree to which they had extra police observation to make sure that they were not engaging in anti-Soviet behavior. And a couple of people he had visited before had just … disappeared.
My friend came back chastened and shaken.
China has always had a capitalistic streak, sometimes suppressed, but this has nothing to do with the totalitarian nature of the country.
Including being dishonest about China. The media cannot go where they want. They cannot interview citizens at random. They must pretend that dissidence does not exist, for the sake of courtesy, profits, ratings, and access.
There is no independent Chinese media, period.
The ceremonies were spectacular, and one can be hopeful about China’s future. But you cannot be dishonest about the present.
China could never “demand” that we pay our debts. During the 1970s, people clutched the pearls over the idea that Arab petrodollars would see the ruin of the United States. Never happened. In fact the Arabs, and the Japanese, got suckered into investing in over-valued US real-estate.
China and the US need each other. For the time being, at least.
zuzu's petals
I’ve only seen the ambitious epics, but my lord they are fantastically beautiful. I was actually thinking of scenes from Flying Daggers when I saw some of the pics of the ceremony.
Yes, I only saw pictures, but now I will have to see the whole thing.
Thanks for the tip.
Blue Raven
Stupidest remark in the whole thing other than “state is guarantor of the security of the children” belongs to the nimrod who called t’ai chi karate.
As for the hugeness of it, how can they do it small when they’re trying to entertain an arena full of people? May as well as KISS to show up at the Madison Square Garden in blue jeans and ditch the pyrotechnics. Oh, wait, they tried that. Look where it got them.
Conservatively Liberal
OT:Via TPM, McCain campaign now claiming that Obama sides with teh evil commies!
I bet Fruit Loops is the breakfast of choice in the McCain campaign.
p.a.
Looking at my current budget and the state of my union’s contract negotiations, I can use some bootlicking money right now. Where do I sign up?
Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi? God bless him.
As for the Olympics themselves, I pay almost no attention anymore, except to keep track of anyone from my area who has made it. I actively avoid basketball and hockey since the pros got involved; I know, I know the Euros are pros too. Does Uruguay have a b-ball team that qualified? It’s fun rooting for underdogs; remember Lake Placid 1980?
Anyone in Vegas or England? Is there an over/under on the number of athletes who get caught doping?
douglasfactors
Looking good, Hungary.
Halteclere
I would really enjoy the Olympics except for the damned incipid commentators. Therefor I can’t stand watching the Olympic coverage.
Just seeing a picture of Bob Costas or Hannah Storm piss me off to no end due to the terrible coverage of the Barcelona (’92) Olympics. Back then I was way big into volleyball, and would have to wake up at 2:00AM just to catch a match on television. The networks would show the first 4 points of a match before switching to whitewater rafting (which wasn’t even a medal event at that time) or some annoying human interest story.
Then they would switch back to the match to show the last point being scored, with Storm or Costas making a vapid recount of the missed action. “While we were away, the best US player suffered some kind of injury, and there is some issue about Bob Samuelson getting his second red card which may cost the US team the victory, but let us tell you about some fuckhead that bravely came back from almost losing his foot when he fell into an icy pond when he was 12, and now is part of the white water rafting team!”
Then, when I went to the ’96 games in Atlanta, the best event I saw was Brazil against Bulgaria in volleyball. The play was incredible, with the overpowered Bulgarians finding ways (thanks to a magician of an outide hitter on their team) to confound and stop the mighty Brazilians. But what was sad was that such a specatular match would never be shown on the networks because no ‘Mercians were involved. “We have got to make room to tell you about the girl who overcame the measels!”
Finally, to end this rant, I absolutely loved the 2004 opening ceremonies in Greece (I wasn’t able to see the opening ceremonies of these games in China), and would have given my left nut to see it all without hearing a single commentator tell me what to think or what I was supposed to take away from the experience. I just wanted to hear the music and see the visuals and get swept up in the event. But I guess to do that the only thing I could do is attend and bypass the networks completely.
End rant.
John H. Farr
This is a fascinating thread. (“Incipid”?)
Anyway, who watches TV? I don’t understand the fascination with an artificial spectacle, either. Was the Olympic pageantry more grandiose than an erupting volcano? Bigger than the thunderhead I saw yesterday that covered half of northern New Mexico?? I doubt it.
Consider your priorities, doggone it, and what makes life not only livable but possible.
iluvsummr
My favorite films from him are Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, and the Story of Qiu Ju.
He did an excellent job with the opening ceremonies and it was great to see all the athletes from different countries in the parade of nations (that’s really why I watch the opening ceremonies).
gopher2b
I love the logic: China’s government sucks = the Opening Ceremonies also must suck.
I haven’t sat through an opening ceremony since I was 12 and this one kept my attention for the whole 3 hours.
HyperIon
shorter Steve S. and mrmobi….
i don’t get it.
Chris Johnson
Seriously, kudos-
…thanking everyone who’s spent their money at Wal-Mart is truly EPIC snark :)
aka The Hammer
It seems like gold plating a turd to me. Also, Busby Berkeley did it better and it cost a whole lot less – and was more interesting – IMO.
slippytoad
I’ve been to every major urbanized nation in the United States.
They got nothing on Beijing.
Halteclere
Damnit, I’m trying to watch the American women’s gymnastic team, and I’m having to suffer through a Costas interview with President Bush. Shut the fuck up Costas, stop trying to discuss politics, and show the athletes!