If you, too, haven't seen it, it's available on Tubi for free and documents the path of eight students to the 1999 Bee. It's, uh, more casually racist in the beginning than I would have expected. But then it's a delight. And knowing that I'm not going to the Bee next month (like many other things, it's not happening as originally scheduled, if at all) it was really spectacular to see it in action 21 years ago. The film cameras! The hair! The clothing choices!
There were a few things in particular that delighted me, having been a part of the program for the better part of a decade:
- The calming tones of Mary Brooks, the head judge, and glimpses of other judges.
- Dr. Bailly, then the associate pronouncer and now the head pronouncer, asking "What's a Corolla?" in response to a speller's question. (This is totally in character.)
- The eventual 2000 winner, George Thampy, as an 11-year-old who went by "Georgie." He's also a judge now.
- Seeing the childhood bedroom and rivals of Nupur Lala, the winner, who I became friendly with after meeting her as an adult.
- The amazing, incredible, brilliant kids trying so hard and with such verve.
- The words! Zwieback was in an alphabet book I made in fourth grade; I swear I heard xeropthalmia (which also has a fourth grade reference for me); and of course kookaburra, he of the old gum tree.
(Dr. Bailly more recently, gettin' jiggy with it.)
This was not my favorite day of the quarantine, so those smiles were more appreciated than they would even have been on other days.
I've also been listening to Fountains of Wayne after learning that Adam Schlesinger died today. You probably know Stacy's Mom, but there's so much more that he did -- including writing That Thing You Do! and many of the songs from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It's a loss and I'm bummed about it, but glad that I'm able to listen to his music and that a little bit of him can live on.
No comments:
Post a Comment