We recorded the opening ceremony last night so we could time-shift it a little. We weren’t exactly ready to sit down at 6:30 pm and start watching hours and hours of Olympics stuff, but we did want to watch it, mostly to see what the Canadians came up with to be as good a China from this summer. Not that I remotely believe we will see anything like the Chinese opening ceremonies again in my lifetime.
Well, as soon as the NBC talking heads appeared, the first thing they wanted to talk about was the luge guy that died during practice. That’s cool, because what a sad thing to have happen to someone so young and on the cusp of doing something awesome like competing in the Olympics, but I expected perhaps some photos of him smiling and happy and maybe a bit of information about his life … not the last two seconds of his life –and his death– played in slow motion over and over and over. That was tacky. Really tacky. So tacky on my scale of tacky I will be writing NBC to complain about it. If people want to watch the guy die and look at the video and photographs, trust me, I am certain they could be found on the internet mere moments after it happened.
There was no need at all to broadcast it on the television repeatedly during what most people consider a program suitable for people (and children) who don’t want to see the last two seconds of a young man’s life followed by his horrible death. Tacky. Wrong. We looked away and ate our dinner until it seemed safe to look again, and then we fast forwarded through all the talking heads babbling about it. Some of us are not quite yet like the Romans and don’t find death on our TVs to be entertainment (or even especially educational or newsworthy enough to show). Talk about it, yes. Repeatedly force people to watch it? No. I imagine they lost some viewers by starting their show with that video, at least I would hope so.
Then we got into the videos about Canada which were nice. It’s a beautiful place, if a little too cold for my liking. Finally the actual ceremony began, and while we didn’t want to be poking too much fun at Canada about not matching up to the show China put on, we did snicker a bit and give Canada some grief, especially when the Olympians started coming in after what seemed like a very short program with not much to it. But after it was explained that the director thought since the ceremony was in honor of those Olympians, which it always is really, they should get to watch it, that made total sense. What a wonderful idea! How true that the very people of honor never get to see the opening ceremony as they are usually standing around in the wings waiting to come in. I hope in the future more countries take this to heart and do the same thing.
Finally, the real show began, and it was quite the show! Sure, it wasn’t China, but then Canada isn’t China either. There are nearly as many people living in Texas as live in the whole of Canada, and I think a lot of people forget that. Just because they have a lot of land mass doesn’t mean they are really that large of a country. The ceremony was a fantastic cultural dance and music event, and I was both moved and entertained. The use of lighting effects and projected video was creative and, well, just plain old awesome. Beautiful. I loved it.
My favorite bits of all –other than the incredible dancing and light shows throughout the thing– were the boy “flying” over the plains, the tap-dancing and fiddle-playing Quebecois (is that what they are called, I don’t know), and the slam poetry. Also K.D. Lang turned in an incredible performance of one of my favorite songs, though I don’t know that the song itself was necessarily the right one for an Olympic opening ceremony. Seemed out of place. Of the lighting effects employed, the whales swimming across the floor was so incredibly cool, I will be watching that part again before deleting the recording. And I can’t really give the Canadians grief about the malfunction during the torch lighting. Stuff happens. It’s unfortunate it happened during a huge one-time event, but yeah, stuff happens during large productions. Sucks, but life goes on. It was a great show anyway.
Now I have heard some people poo-pooing the opening ceremonies, because it wasn’t nearly the thing the one in China was. Get over yourselves. Yes, it wasn’t a spectacular spectacular, but it was a well-done, well-designed, well-performed multimedia dance and music event. If you aren’t into theater and ballet, it might have been lost on you, but that’s your problem. Go out and get cultured. Not everything has to be a spectacular spectacular to be awesome.
On a side note: are the people in Quebec as interestingly strange as they seem to be? I think I want to move there. I tap dance, play fiddle, have a tribal tattoo, and I love tartan plaids. I believe I would fit in well. Guess I better start learning French.
Anyway, aside from NBC’s tackiness in starting their coverage right out of the gate with footage that shouldn’t have been repeatedly broadcast, I enjoyed the opening ceremonies quite a lot, and now I have to see what the sporting schedule is so I can make note of when the things I might want to see are on. As many of you know, I’m really not that much into sports of any kind, but there are a few things in both the summer and winter Olympics I do enjoy watching or keeping up with. During the winter games, I do like the various ice skating and ice dancing events, and even before Stephen Colbert got involved with the speed skating team, I always thought it was fun to watch too. The fact Stephen Colbert is all into speed skating right now is just icing on the cake. We’ll probably catch a little hockey as well. Who doesn’t like hockey?
And now I probably need to go make something to eat for the man and myself, and the cats are whining as well. Must be lunchtime!
If anyone can find a shareable video of the slam poetry from the opening ceremony, that would be cool. I’ve been looking, but I haven’t found one yet. I really, really liked the poetry. Fantastic poet with a great skill with words. Here’s the transcript of it, but reading it isn’t at all like hearing it. And here is a Youtube video of it, though not from last night. Last night’s presentation was much better (less rushed).