C M Y K C10
DAILY 03-11-10 MD RE C10 CMYK
C10 R KLMNO THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2010
etball
TODAY: Rainy
The last college baskect season
HIGH LOW
team with a perf
w
as the Indiana Hoosiers in 63 51
19
76
. T
he team had a 32-0
ILLUSTRATION BY OSCAR
recor
d and won the NCAA
HERNANDEZ, 9, WASHINGTON
championship.
s THE SCORE by Fred Bowen
TODAY’S
Why mess with
NEWS
sports perfection?
M
ore is not always better. Take
the NCAA basketball tourna-
ment, for example. As hoops
fans get ready for March Madness
next week, there is talk that the
NCAA wants to expand the men’s
HIGH FIVES There’s no arguing over how many players should share the court.
ADAM HUNGER/REUTERS
tournament to 96 teams.
I think letting more teams into the
Chocolate helps make this car go
Five on a side for basketball. When James Naismith invented the game in
as fast as 135 miles an hour.
tournament would be a big mistake.
1891, he didn’t say how many players should be on each side. Five players on a
Right now, the NCAA tournament in-
side became standard around 1900.
cludes 65 teams playing games on
My car gets 30 miles
three weekends. Smaller schools get a
to the Hershey bar!
chance to play, and maybe upset, the
A baseball. When The Colts helmet. I
big basketball powers. Every once in
you take a new base- just love the blue a71 Scientists are trying to come
a while, a Cinderella team such as
ball out of a box and horseshoe on the up with new kinds of fuels —
George Mason University makes it all
hold it in your hand, side of the Indian- but chocolate? Researchers in
the way to the Final Four.
you can’t wait to apolis helmet. I only England have developed a fuel
Thirty-one more teams would
throw it. That’s be- wish the Colts and made from chocolate, mixed
mean another weekend of games.
cause a baseball is their helmet had with a few other ingredients,
Most of those 31 would just be medio-
the perfect size and weight for throw- stayed in Baltimore. including carrots and flax.
cre teams from the big conferences
ing, even for kids. There is nothing
IDEAL
They even created a Formula 3
Yankees star Mickey Mantle
such as the ACC, the Big Ten and the
wore a uniform that can’t be beat.
quite like it. Although a new leather race car that runs on the new
SEC. Who needs to watch them play?
football is pretty close to perfect.
The Olympics. If the
fuel. The car has a top speed of
The NCAA tournament is perfect. The New York Yankees uniform. I
Olympic Games
135 miles per hour and can go
Very few things in sports are perfect. don’t root for the team, but I’ll admit
happened every
from zero to 60 mph in just 2
1
⁄2
So why change them? that the Yankees home uniforms with
The Masters in year, they would
seconds!
Here are a few other examples of the pinstripes and the dark hat with
April. This famous stop being so spe-
sports perfection that I hope will nev- the white “NY” in the middle are the
golf tournament is cial. Having the
Bracing for a mean
er change. best uniforms around.
always played when Summer and Winter
the flowers on the Olympics only every four years is just season for storms
Augusta National right. It is the same thing with soc-
a71 Last year’s hurricane season
golf course in Geor- cer’s World Cup. Playing such a huge
was very mild, with just nine
gia are in bloom, reminding everyone worldwide event every four years is
named storms, the fewest in 12
FRAZZ JEF MALLETT up north that spring is on the way.
perfect.
years. But many forecasts say
The Masters tournament in June or Just like the NCAA basketball tour-
that this year will be worse —
September just wouldn’t be the same. nament.
maybe a lot worse. AccuWeath-
er says 2010 could be an “ex-
Next week: Fred’s teams to watch as the NCAA tournaments get underway.
treme season,” with 16 to 18
storms. The predictions are
Fred Bowen is the author of 14 kids sports books, including his first picture book, “No based on global weather pat-
Easy Way: The Story of Ted Williams and the Last .400 Season.”
terns and ocean temperatures.
Hurricane season starts June 1.
MANTLE BY ASSOCIATED PRESS, BASKETBALL BY JAMIE SQUIRE/GETTY IMAGES, BASEBALL FROM BIGSTOCKPHOTO,
COLTS HELMET BY RICHARD A. LIPSKI/THE WASHINGTON POST, MASTERS BY ANDREW REDINGTON/GETTY IMAGES,
OLYMPICS BY MARCIO SANCHEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOOK WORLD
Back to the future — and from there to the Blitz
the two genres apart. Is “A Con- the evacuation of children to ru- study the past in books, they ac- students’ dismay? What is going the madcap Commander Harold,
by Michael Dirda necticut Yankee in King Arthur’s ral villages and country houses, tually travel back to various time on? the elderly actor Sir Godfrey
Court” historical fiction or proto and the life of ordinary London- periods to collect data, observe Merope is sent back to study Kingsman, who constantly
S
cience fiction and the his- science fiction? Certainly, Connie ers during the Blitz. Every detail and learn. To do this, they enter a evacuated children installed at quotes Shakespeare, the knock-
torical novel only seem to be Willis’s new novel, her first since rings true, with the kind of au- force field — described as a kind the country estate of the wonder- out barmaid Daphne, who falls
utter opposites. I mean, fu- “Passage” (2001), about near- thority that only intense research of shimmering net — and are fully repulsive Lady Caroline. for poor Mike. There are also sev-
ture vs. past, right? In fact, the death experiences, is as vivid an can bring. Still, all of Willis’s transported to their selected era, Working as a parlor maid named eral delicious chapters describ-
two genres are closely related. evocation of England during knowledge is subsumed in her wearing appropriate dress and Eileen, she must deal with the ing the gossip and girl-talk of a
Both transport the reader to World War II as anyone has ever bravura storytelling: “Blackout” often with implanted knowledge scapegrace urchins Alf and Bin- group of upper-class volunteer
strange, disorienting worlds, written. It’s also indisputably sci- is, by turns, witty, suspenseful, essential for blending in. The nie, a pair who could teach even nurses, and a comic interlude
where the people, beliefs and so- ence fiction. harrowing and occasionally com- drop site is carefully selected, so the Artful Dodger a trick or two. about decoy tanks and an angry
cial norms are often distinctly “Blackout” plunges the reader ic to the point of slapstick. that no one detects the arrival of Meanwhile, her friend Polly has bull that might have come
alien to a present-day sensibility. right into the middle of three key By the year 2060, time travel the historian; if the drop or its been assigned to London, where straight out of Jerome K. Jerome
In certain kinds of time-travel happenings of 1940: the rescue of has been perfected. At Oxford shimmer can be seen by “con- she takes a job as a shopgirl at (to whose late Victorian humor-
stories, it’s often difficult to tell the British troops from Dunkirk, young historians don’t merely temps,” it will not open. To return Townsend Brothers department ous classic, “Three Men in a
to 2060 Oxford, the student store. Polly is there to study the Boat,” Willis paid homage in her
needs to be at his or her arrival effect of the German air raids on own 1997 time-travel extrava-
point at certain prearranged citizen morale. To ganza, “To Say Noth-
times. Should the historian fail to ensure her own ing of the Dog”).
report in, or if anything seems to safety, she has had Before long, of
have gone wrong, Oxford will implanted the course, all three of our
send a retrieval team. times and places historians are con-
Of course, nothing serious can where all the de- fronted by serious
really go wrong. Oh, there’s been struction will oc- problems: Could Mike
the occasional bit of “slippage,” cur. have actually altered
Be an artist. Be yourself.
in which a historian is deposited Finally, their the past? Why won’t
in the past a few minutes, or at classmate Michael the drops open? Has
most a few hours, earlier or later Davies is given an something terrible
than intended. And there was American accent happened in Oxford?
camp that mix-up — recounted in Wil- and sent to Dover Slowly — albeit just a
lis’s “Doomsday Book” (1992) — as the reporter little too slowly, in my
that left the main character, Kiv- Mike Davis of the view — Willis traces
arena stage
rin Engle, stranded in the middle Omaha Observer. the adventures of her
of the Black Death. But by its very He’s trying to un- BLACKOUT attractive young peo-
a Georgetown-based multi-arts summer
nature, time travel won’t allow derstand the na- By Connie Willis ple as they struggle to
day camp for young people ages 8 – 15
historians to be present at key ture of heroism, Ballantine/Spectra. survive and find a way
“divergence points,” when their and plans to inter- 491 pp. $26 back to the future.
actions or even their mere pres- view the boat cap- If you’re a science-
ence might affect the outcome of tains and rescued fiction fan, you’ll
4-Week Intensive: June 28 – July 23
world-shattering events, such as soldiers as they arrive back from want to read this book by one of
2-Week Session: July 26 – August 6
the Battle of Waterloo. Dunkirk. He can’t, of course, ac- the most honored writers in the
See all there is to do at
ArenaStage.org/Camp
Hah. Let me interject that one tually go to Dunkirk since that’s a field (10 Hugos, six Nebulas); if
Questions? Call (202) 554-9066, ext.808
apt definition for the novel might major divergence point. I mean, you’re interested in World War II,
be “a fictional narrative of a cer- if he were somehow to end up at you should pick up “Blackout”
tain length about what happens Dunkirk, it could affect the out- for its you-are-there authentic-
when something goes wrong.” come of the entire war. But noth- ity; and if you just like to read,
In the early pages of “Black- ing like that could ever, ever hap- you’ll find here a novelist who
out,” Willis depicts a future Ox- pen. can plot like Agatha Christie and
© 2008 Feld Entertainment
ford populated by the usual lively Hmmm. As everyone knows whose books possess a bounce
Opens Next Week!
undergraduates and irascible, ec- from the most famous of all time and stylishness that Preston
If only If only
centric dons, a cozy refuge from travel stories, Ray Bradbury’s Sturges might envy.
the world, bathed in a golden classic “A Sound of Thunder,” That said, “Blackout” does end
you had you had
MAR.
18-21
glow. But lately the Dumbledore- even the death of a butterfly with a cliffhanger, which may
home delivery. home delivery.
like Mr. Dunworthy, master of might subtly change the course leave some readers dissatisfied:
MAR. 25 -
the historians, seems to be ex- of history. The whole story won’t be com-
ceedingly preoccupied with the It’s hard to know what to pletely resolved till October
APR. 4
early years of World War II. We praise more in “Blackout,” when Ballantine/Spectra pub-
already know, from Willis’s most whether the comic misadven- lishes a second and concluding
1-800-753-POST 1-800-753-POST
APR.
famous story, “Fire Watch” tures of Eileen, or the nightmar- volume titled “All-Clear.” Still,
7-18
(1982), that he greatly loves St. ish confusion of Dunkirk and its this is Connie Willis, my friends,
Paul’s Cathedral, which, we also aftermath, or Polly’s growing af- which means she’s worth reading
Buy tickets at
www.Ringling.com,
know, survived the Blitz only to fection for the people with whom now, and she’s worth reading in
Retail Locations, the Box Offices,
or call 1-800-551-SEAT.
be destroyed in the 21st century she shares a bomb shelter. The the future.
Tickets Starting At Just $14!
by a terrorist bombing. But why supporting cast almost steals the
bookworld@washpost.com
Call or go online for ticket pricing and availability. is Mr. Dunworthy now suddenly show: the irrepressible Alf and
SF SF (Service charges, facility and handling fees may apply.)
changing drop schedules, with- Binnie, the “very particular” Visit Dirda’s online book discussion
out explanation and much to his shop supervisor Miss Snelgrove, at
washingtonpost.com/readingroom.
C M Y K C10
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