Congratulations to the New York Knicks. I was hoping for a good Finals series and it happened in an unprecedented way with the Spurs blowing double digit leads in each of their four losses. San Antonio's youth and inexperience showed and Mitch Johnson's coaching, particularly in Game 4, didn't help.
At the beginning I was pulling for the Spurs but ended up very impressed with the Knicks, particularly with Jalen Brunson. It's very unusual for a small point guard to lead his team to an NBA title. The only other one who comes to mind is Isiah Thomas who captained the Pistons to two titles at the end of the 80s. Because Thomas is so disliked by an NBA player with the initials MJ, and by many fans (including me), it's sometimes forgotten he was a truly great player and leader (which I will grudgingly admit, including he may have been the best small point guard in NBA history). Some place Steph Curry in the same category but he's a bit taller than Thomas and Brunson and not a traditional point guard.
Going into the series I was a fan of Victor Wembanyama but these games took a bit of the glow off. In particular I did not like a couple of his moves on Brunson, most of all in this play from the final game where, I believe, he was actively trying to injure Jalen. You can see Wemby look down to make sure his foot is placed underneath where Brunson is coming down.
The Knicks played Wemby very tough, grabbing and pulling on him, but that's different than intentionally trying to hurt someone. It reminded me of the hated Bill Laimbeer, from Isiah's Piston team. Laimbeer is the one player Larry Bird still despises all these years later because, as Larry said, he tried to hurt you and he specifically mentioned the type of move that we saw Wemby pull on Brunson last night.
From 2000, the title song from Mark Knopfler's album Sailing To Philadelphia, the only pop song about the two surveyors of the Mason-Dixon Line which established the boundary between Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Inspired by Thomas Pynchon's 1997 novel on Mason and Dixon, the song features Knopfler's trademark guitar sound and vocals with Knopfler playing Jeremiah Dixon and James Taylor as Charles Mason.
I am Jeremiah Dixon
I am a Geordie Boy
A glass of wine with you, sir
And the ladies I'll enjoy
All Durham and Northumberland
Is measured up by my own hand
It was my fate from birth
To make my mark upon the earth…
He calls me Charlie Mason
A stargazer am I
It seems that I was born
To chart the evening sky
They'd cut me out for baking bread
But I had other dreams instead
This baker's boy from the west country
Would join the Royal Society…
We are sailing to Philadelphia
A world away from the coaly Tyne
Sailing to Philadelphia
To draw the line
The Mason-Dixon line
Now you're a good surveyor, Dixon
But I swear you'll make me mad
The West will kill us both
You gullible Geordie lad
You talk of liberty
How can America be free
A Geordie and a baker's boy
In the forest of the Iroquois…
Now hold your head up, Mason
See America lies there
The morning tide has raised
The capes of Delaware
Come up and feel the sun
A new morning is begun
Another day will make it clear
Why your stars should guide us here…
We are sailing to Philadelphia
A world away from the coaly Tyne
Sailing to Philadelphia
To draw the line
The Mason-Dixon line
The reference to "Geordie Boy" is because Dixon was born near Newcastle in the north of England whose inhabitants are known as Geordies. Dixon's mother was from Newcastle and Jeremiah spent much time there over the years. Mark Knopfler is also a Geordie, which is why he voices Dixon in the song. The lyric about enjoying "a glass of wine" is a reference to Dixon being a heavy drinker, despite being a Quaker (he also enjoyed wearing colorful clothes, another aspect frowned on by Quakers). The reference to "coaly Tyne" is to Newcastle, on the River Tyne, and one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution and the heavy use of coal.
Mason was born in 1828 in the West Country as the lyric says, specifically in Gloucestershire.
Both Dixon (1733-79) and Mason (1728-86) were well educated, trained in surveying and astronomy, meeting in 1761 when both were sent by the Royal Society on a mission to observe the transit of Venus in Sumatra. Their passage delayed, they made their observations from the Cape of Good Hope.
For many years the precise location of the border between Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware had been the subject of controversy with violence occasionally erupting among settlers. In 1763 the Penns and Calverts, proprietors of the Pennsylvania and Maryland colonies, hired Mason and Dixon to survey and establish the bounds. Their project would take four years.
While it settled the border dispute, the Mason-Dixon Line would take on a broader significance in American history. It was only during the debates over slavery that led to the Missouri Compromise in 1820 that Mason-Dixon Line came into popular usage and from then it came to mean (at least the PA/MD part of the line) the division between free and slave states in the Union. Indeed, it is possible that the term "Dixie" to describe the South may have been derived from Jeremiah Dixon's last name.
After returning to England, Dixon continued survey and astronomical work until his death at the age of 45. He is buried 40 miles from Newcastle. Mason also continued working in England, primarily as an astronomer, but in September 1786 he wrote a letter to Benjamin Franklin informing him he'd returned to Philadelphia with his wife and eight children but was ill and confined to bed. He died the following month and is buried in Philadelphia's Christ Church Burying Ground where Franklin was also laid to rest four years later. It is not known why Mason returned to Philadelphia.
"Efficient bureaucrats can be more deadly than disorganized fanatics".
- from Julian Jackson, France on Trial: The Case of Marshall Petain.
Jackson is also the author of an outstanding biography of Charles de Gaulle, a brilliant, brave, infuriating, and enigmatic figure.
The above observation comes after this passage:
"When asked how he could justify Vichy's measures against Jews and freemasons, Peyrouton, who had been a high ranking colonial administrator under the Republic, told the court: 'I did not ask myself this kind of question. I have told you, and I repeat: I am not a Republican; I am not an anti-Republican. I am an agent of the French government.'"
Another side to this occurs when the bureaucrats through manipulation take on the operation of government themselves (see, for instance, Yes Prime Minister, the classic BBC series). Several years ago I was at a Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) conference in Phoenix which included attending an Arizona Fall League game. At the game I ended up sitting next to a recently retired guy who spent his career as a high ranking civil servant at the US Department of Agriculture. At one point I asked for more details about his job was and he responded, "to make sure the political appointees did not make any important decisions". Just being efficient, in his view.
First heard this song on Live At Leeds, the 1970 album from The Who. Great tune with remarkable bass playing by John Entwhistle. Knew it was a cover of an older song which I assumed was American and from the late 50s. To my surprise I recently discovered it was by a British band in 1960 and was a #1 song in the U.K. and a flop in the U.S.
The band was Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. The song was written by Johnny Kidd and the slinky guitar by Joe Moretti. Very cool sounding song for its time. Johnny Kidd died in a nightime head on car collision in 1966 at the age of 30. Moretti was a session guitarist through the 1960s and 70s, before moving to South Africa in the late 70s where he became a house musician at a Sun City Casino. He passed in 2012.
It is natural to feel nostalgic for what the Empire was, just as one might regret the gentle light of oil lamps, the splendor of the fleet at sail and the charm of the temps des equipages [ship's crew]. But so what? There is no policy worth anything outside of realities.
- French President Charles de Gaulle, August 1960, speaking on the ongoing war in Algeria.
Quoted by Richard Vinen in his recent book, The Last Titans: How Churchill and de Gaulle Saved Their Nations and Transformed the World. Vinen goes on to write of de Gaulle, ". . . de Gaulle was a reactionary . . . this made him unsentimental. He looked back with regret but there was almost a playful self-conciousness about any suggestion that the past could be revived."
