Wow! It is quite an experince indeed to be able to just watch bit and parts of a movie and be totally blown away! I just saw the trailer to the upcoming film, The Soloist, which stars two of my favourite (and very talented!) actors: Robert Downey Jr and Jamie Foxx. It is a profound tale of friendship and life that is rich and, as a drama, it is going to be the best film to be released this year.
Photo is from New York Times.
In my book, Manohla Dargis is the best movie reviewer in the world. She writes very well and engagingly and says things that are spot on. Oh, and her mastery of the English language is sheer delight! Mmmmmmm (that's an orgasmic "mmmmmm", in case you wondered!)
Anyway, the glorious Manohla Dargis writes movie reviews for the venerable and venerated New York Times.
And here, without wasting any more time, here's Manohla Dargis' review....
November 21, 2008
The Love That Dare Not Bare Its Fangs
By MANOHLA DARGIS
It’s love at first look instead of first bite in “Twilight,” a deeply sincere, outright goofy vampire romance for the hot-not-to-trot abstinence set. Based on the foundational book in Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling multivolume series, “The Twilight Saga” (four doorstops and counting), this carefully faithful adaptation traces the sighs and whispers, the shy glances and furious glares of two unlikely teenage lovers who fall into each other’s pale, pale arms amid swirling hormones, raging instincts, high school dramas and oh-so-confusing feelings, like, OMG he’s SO HOT!! Does he like ME?? Will he KILL me??? I don’t CARE!!! :)
And, reader, she doesn’t, the she being Bella (for Isabella) Swan, played with tremulous intensity and a slight snarl by Kristen Stewart. A sylph with a watchful, sometimes wary gaze who’s often cast in daughter roles, Ms. Stewart transformed from an appealing actress into something more complex with her brief, memorable turn in the 2007 movie of Jon Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild.” As the child-woman whose longing for the ill-fated wanderer Christopher McCandless is largely expressed through piercing looks and sensitive strumming, Ms. Stewart gave form and feeling to the possibility that the search for freedom and authentic experiences can be found in the embrace of another human being. This was a girl worth living for, if not for that film’s lost soul.
Since living really isn’t an option for Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), the moody, darkly brooding vampire who catches Bella’s eye and then her heart, she becomes the girl worth fighting for, a battle that, as in the book, involves not just malignant forces, but also ravenous appetite. Like all vampire stories, “Twilight” is about repressed desire and untamed hunger and the possibility of blood, the blood that flows from violently pierced necks and that, from John Polidori’s 1819 short novel “The Vampyre” to Alan Ball’s new HBO series, “True Blood,” represents ravishment of a more graphic kind. This is the ravishment that, in its pantomime of seduction and surrender, transforms innocence — like that of Bram Stoker’s sacrificial virgin, Lucy, in “Dracula” — into “voluptuous wantonness.”
Ms. Meyer’s contribution to the vampire chronicles, the trick that transformed her into a best-selling brand, has been to stanch this sanguineous emission, turning a hot human flow into something less threatening and morally sticky. Edward, you see, burns but doesn’t bite. As in the book, he leads a numbingly quiet, respectable life with his vampire family in Forks, a small Washington town under a near-permanent cloud cover. His father, Carlisle (Peter Facinelli), a doctor with a ghostly pallor and silky gait, tends to the living, while the rest of the brood, including his monochromatic mother and siblings, strike pretty poses, play baseball (in thunder and lightning) and occasionally hunt for animals. We think of ourselves as vegetarians, Edward jokes.
It’s no wonder he looks famished. When Edward first meets Bella, who has moved to Forks to live with her father (Billy Burke), he glowers at her threateningly, his hands clenching into fists. Bella is mystified, and you might be too, if Melissa Rosenberg’s screenplay didn’t turn up the volume as the teenagers grow closer and Edward hints at his true nature. “What if I’m the bad guy?” he asks. (Cue the shrieking virgins.) “I still don’t know if I can control myself,” he later confesses, as someone’s guitar gently weeps. A self-described monster, he has all kinds of cool, superhuman powers (running, leaping, mind-reading), but nothing compares to how he masters his universe: he keeps his fangs in his mouth.
That may make him catnip to anyone with OJD (obsessive Jonas Brothers disorder), but it also means he’s a bore, despite the efforts of the capable and exotically beautiful Mr. Pattinson. (The actor first broke hearts as the martyred Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter cycle.) Though her filmmaking can be shaky, the director Catherine Hardwicke has an eye for pretty young things and a feel for the private worlds that younger people make for themselves. But she’s working in shackles here. In her best movie, “Lords of Dogtown,” about the birth of the modern skateboard movement, a teenage boy sneaks out at night by slaloming off a roof while holding a surfboard. It’s a blissful declaration of freedom, including freedom from the big parental no.
Though Edward and Bella reach certain heights in “Twilight,” notably during a charming scene that finds them leaping from piney treetop to treetop against the spectacular wilderness backdrop, the story’s moral undertow keeps dragging them down. If Ms. Meyer has made the vampire story safe for her readers (and their parents) — the sole real menace comes from a half-baked subplot involving some swaggering vampires who like their steak saignant and human — it’s only because she suggests that there actually is something worse than death, especially for teenagers: sex. Faced with the partially clad Bella (who would bite if she could), Edward recoils from her like a distraught Victorian. Like Ms. Hardwicke, the poor boy has been defanged and almost entirely drained. He’s so lifeless, he might as well be dead — oops, he already is.
“Twilight” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Some violence, little viscera.
TWILIGHT
Opens on Friday nationwide.
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke; written by Melissa Rosenberg, based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer; director of photography, Elliot Davis; edited by Nancy Richardson; music by Carter Burwell; produced by Greg Mooradian, Mark Morgan and Wyck Godfrey; released by Summit Entertainment. Running time: 2 hours 1 minute.
WITH: Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan), Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen), Billy Burke (Charlie Swan), Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen), Nikki Reed (Rosalie Cullen), Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Cullen), Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen), Peter Facinelli (Dr. Carlisle Cullen), Cam Gigandet (James/Nomad Vampire), Taylor Lautner (Jacob), Anna Kendrick (Jessica), Michael Welch (Mike Newton) and Justin Chon (Eric).
(Click on the photo for a bigger version of the Twilight poster.)
One of my latest craze is cars -- as someone who is just re-learning to drive, cars have suddenly taken on a more sexier turn and I am beginning to understand what the fuss is about when it comes to auto-erotica.
While reading about the recent Los Angeles Auto Show on my information-bible New York Times (www.nyt.com), I spotted two gorgeous muscle merries indeed: the Porsche Boxster and the Nissan 370Z. Never mind that I cannot afford these things on my pathetic third-word reporter salary!
Here, have a look at these two beauties and see if you agree that these sexy beasts are drool-worthy.
(Photos are from NYT)
November 5, 2008
EDITORIAL
The Next President
This is one of those moments in history when it is worth pausing to reflect on the basic facts:
An American with the name Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a white woman and a black man he barely knew, raised by his grandparents far outside the stream of American power and wealth, has been elected the 44th president of the United States.
Showing extraordinary focus and quiet certainty, Mr. Obama swept away one political presumption after another to defeat first Hillary Clinton, who wanted to be president so badly that she lost her bearings, and then John McCain, who forsook his principles for a campaign built on anger and fear.
His triumph was decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He offered a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world.
Mr. Obama spoke candidly of the failure of Republican economic policies that promised to lift all Americans but left so many millions far behind. He committed himself to ending a bloody and pointless war. He promised to restore Americans’ civil liberties and their tattered reputation around the world.
With a message of hope and competence, he drew in legions of voters who had been disengaged and voiceless. The scenes Tuesday night of young men and women, black and white, weeping and cheering in Chicago and New York and in Atlanta’s storied Ebenezer Baptist Church were powerful and deeply moving.
Mr. Obama inherits a terrible legacy. The nation is embroiled in two wars — one of necessity in Afghanistan and one of folly in Iraq. Mr. Obama’s challenge will be to manage an orderly withdrawal from Iraq without igniting new conflicts so the Pentagon can focus its resources on the real front in the war on terror, Afghanistan.
The campaign began with the war as its central focus. By Election Day, Americans were deeply anguished about their futures and the government’s failure to prevent an economic collapse fed by greed and an orgy of deregulation. Mr. Obama will have to move quickly to impose control, coherence, transparency and fairness on the Bush administration’s jumbled bailout plan.
His administration will also have to identify all of the ways that Americans’ basic rights and fundamental values have been violated and rein that dark work back in. Climate change is a global threat, and after years of denial and inaction, this country must take the lead on addressing it. The nation must develop new, cleaner energy technologies, to reduce greenhouse gases and its dependence on foreign oil.
Mr. Obama also will have to rally sensible people to come up with immigration reform consistent with the values of a nation built by immigrants and refugees.
There are many other urgent problems that must be addressed. Tens of millions of Americans lack health insurance, including some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens — children of the working poor. Other Americans can barely pay for their insurance or are in danger of losing it along with their jobs. They must be protected.
Mr. Obama will now need the support of all Americans. Mr. McCain made an elegant concession speech Tuesday night in which he called on his followers not just to honor the vote, but to stand behind Mr. Obama. After a nasty, dispiriting campaign, he seemed on that stage to be the senator we long respected for his service to this country and his willingness to compromise.
That is a start. The nation’s many challenges are beyond the reach of any one man, or any one political party.
(Photo of Barack Obama from vibe.com)
(US flag photo from http://www.albanyaerialphotos.com/cemetery.htm)
"Omigod! I swear if that old bastard says he fought for the country again, I will go veteran on him! For God's sake -- IF I WAS AS OLD AS HE WAS, I'D HAVE BEEN IN EVERY GODDAM WAR THERE EVER WAS, TOO!!!!!!".... these were the thoughts going through Barack Obama's mind as he sat down with his staff in the room given to him and his staffers before the second presidential debate.
No one said anything. It was one of those moments where Obama demanded silence -- not by using words, but by simply gently raising his index finger (with the thumb sticking up straight just so, like a slanted 'V', apart from the index finger and the other three fingers bent just so slightly -- all at a slight angle) at the person who was just about to say something.
His staffers knew that Obama sometimes needs some silent time before a big occasion. Through the expression -- a frown that brought creases to his forehead or an internal smile that lit his eyes from inside or a look of uncertainty or anger... he was obviously thinking of things and mulling about them.
"That old bastard called me a socialist! What about that stinked-up plan of his to bail out homeowners and letting them stay in their houses? Isn't THAT socialism?! What a moron that old bastard is! All he is going to do is screw things up and ruin this glorious nation of ours exactly as Bush did!"
"He is old and disrespectful! At this stage of the elections, is there a need to be disrespectful?"
Hmmm, Obama reflected on something... "Looking back, I suppose I was slightly mean to Hillary as well. I should not have been. I will not listen to my advisors the next time they suggest I take potshots at a fellow Democrat! I should have put my foot down! I wish I did. All that mudslinging between me and Hillary really did no one any good! I should have nominated her as my running mate. That would have made things easier!"
"But God is not a believer in making things easier. HE wants us all to earn our keeps and places in this world! And I sure as hell will do all I can to take America back to the days of her glory!"
Sir, we have to take our place near the stage. It's time, his aide told him gently.
(Barack Obama portrait shot by Martin Schoeller.
Photo of Obama seated from New York Times)
I can't wait to write a short story about Cuban ex-president Fidel Castro... but before that I must point out some of the more intriguing things he has said in recent times in relation to the US Presidential elections. He basically said of Barack Obama's survival thus far -- LITERALLY! -- things that are in the minds of millions of people around the world who know too well what is going through the minds of white supremacists in the US.
Here, read the following report from: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Castro_says_its_a_miracle_Obama_hasnt_been_assassinated/articleshow/3587065.cms
HEADLINE: Castro says it's a 'miracle' Obama hasn't been assassinated
HAVANA: Former Cuban president Fidel Castro charged that American society was marked by "profound racism" and that it was a "pure miracle" that US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has not been assassinated.
"Profound racism exists in the United States," Castro wrote in a commentary that appeared on the website Cubadebate Saturday as he weighed in on the US presidential race ahead of the November 4 election.
"Millions of whites cannot reconcile in their minds with the idea that a black man with his wife and children would move into the White House, which is called just like that -- White," he wrote.
He added that it was a "pure miracle" the Illinois senator, who became the first black politician to win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, had not been assassinated thus far.
The ailing Cuban communist leader, who handed power to his brother Raul earlier this year, described Obama as a politician who "has the habit of looking at his opponent with serenity and laughing at his rhetorical attacks."
Castro's comments came as a war of words with racial undertones marked the US White House race after civil rights icon John Lewis accused Republican candidate John McCain of sowing "hatred" against Obama, who is developing a commanding lead in opinion polls.
Castro also mocked McCain's poor grades at the naval academy and said Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin "knew nothing at all about anything."
(These most excellent photos are from the venerable New York Times' online edition. To see more Castro pictures, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/02/19/world/0219-CASTRO_index.html)
Republicans who caught the debate between Presidential hopefuls Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain must have been shocked by his appearance.
McCain never looked at Obama when McCain spoke. And when Obama rebutted McCain's points, McCain still never looked at Obama.
McCain came across as a nervous little white man, uncomfortable in the presence of a colored man.
It is bad enough that McCain always speaks in a way that seems like he is forcing himself to sound young, he is so insular in his view. His so-called experiences as a veteran mean nothing if he has not grown as a person.
(We expect an old man to sound his age -- like CNN's Larry King or even the late Republican President Ronald Reagan! Not sound like a 30-year old trapped in the body of 72-year old.)
Americans should wake up and know for sure that John McCain is not fit to enter the White House as the next President.
VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA!
PHOTO: From the excellent New York Times.
This editorial by New York Times, discussing Republican Sarah Palin as a very poor choice of vice-president candidate by Republican presidential candidate John McCain is a profound piece of writing. This is the kind of writing that sets NYT worlds apart from the others. Read it...
September 13, 2008
EDITORIAL
Gov. Palin’s Worldview
As we watched Sarah Palin on TV the last couple of days, we kept wondering what on earth John McCain was thinking.
If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible.
It was bad enough that Ms. Palin’s performance in the first televised interviews she has done since she joined the Republican ticket was so visibly scripted and lacking in awareness.
What made it so much worse is the strategy for which the Republicans have made Ms. Palin the frontwoman: win the White House not on ideas, but by denigrating experience, judgment and qualifications.
The idea that Americans want leaders who have none of those things — who are so blindly certain of what Ms. Palin calls “the mission” that they won’t even pause for reflection — shows a contempt for voters and raises frightening questions about how Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin plan to run this country.
One of the many bizarre moments in the questioning by ABC News’s Charles Gibson was when Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, excused her lack of international experience by sneering that Americans don’t want “somebody’s big fat résumé maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment where, yes, they’ve had opportunities to meet heads of state.”
We know we were all supposed to think of Joe Biden. But it sure sounded like a good description of Mr. McCain. Those decades of experience earned the Arizona senator the admiration of people in both parties. They are why he was our preferred candidate in the Republican primaries.
The interviews made clear why Americans should worry about Ms. Palin’s thin résumé and lack of experience. Consider her befuddlement when Mr. Gibson referred to President Bush’s “doctrine” and her remark about having insight into Russia because she can see it from her state.
But that is not what troubled us most about her remarks — and, remember, if they were scripted, that just means that they reflect Mr. McCain’s views all the more closely. Rather, it was the sense that thoughtfulness, knowledge and experience are handicaps for a president in a world populated by Al Qaeda terrorists, a rising China, epidemics of AIDS, poverty and fratricidal war in the developing world and deep economic distress at home.
Ms. Palin talked repeatedly about never blinking. When Mr. McCain asked her to run for vice president? “You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission,” she said, that “you can’t blink.”
Fighting terrorism? “We must do whatever it takes, and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.”
Her answers about why she had told her church that President Bush’s failed policy in Iraq was “God’s plan” did nothing to dispel our concerns about her confusion between faith and policy. Her claim that she was quoting a completely unrelated comment by Lincoln was absurd.
This nation has suffered through eight years of an ill-prepared and unblinkingly obstinate president. One who didn’t pause to think before he started a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. One who blithely looked the other way as the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped in Afghanistan. One who obstinately cut taxes and undercut all efforts at regulation, unleashing today’s profound economic crisis.
In a dangerous world, Americans need a president who knows that real strength requires serious thought and preparation.
Photo from New York Times
WEDNESDAY NIGHT WAS SOMETHING ELSE ALTOGETHER INDEED IN THIS MODERN ERA -- IT'S THE BEIJING OLYMPICS, WITH MORE THAN A BILLION PEOPLE INTENTLY WATCHING THEIR TELEVISION SCREENS TO SEE HOW USAIN BOLT WILL DO IN THE 200M RACE.
HE'D ALREADY CLINCHED THE 100M RACE WITH A RECORD-SHATTERING TIME OF 9.69 SECONDS.
TONIGHT, USAIN IS HIS USUAL JOVIAL SELF, FOOLING AROUND WITH THE TELEVISION CAMERAS AND WITH THE AUDIENCE HE KNOWS ARE WATCHING HIM CLOSELY INTHE STADIUM AND ALL AROUND THE WORLD.
THEN, WHEN THE 200M RACE STARTED... IT WAS QUITE A SPECTACULAR SIGHT INDEED SEEING USAIN BOLT OF JAMAICA AGAIN SHATTER THE WORLD 200M RECORD BY CLOCKING IN 19.30 SECONDS AT THE GLORIOUS BIRD'S NEST STADIUM IN BEIJING.
(THE BIRDS NEST IS GORGEOUS AND IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL STADIUM IN THE WOLRD WITH THE CAPACITY TO SEAT MORE THAN 90,000 FANS -- OH, AND THE CHINESE MUST BE CREDITED AS BEING THE BEST OLYMPICS GAMES AUDIENCE EVER... THEY TRULY KNOW HOW TO SPOT AND SUPPORT TALENT!)
ANYWAY, AGAIN, USAIN BOLT WAS HEAD AND SHOULDERS AND ARMS AND LEGS AND TORSO AHEAD OF EVERYONE ELSE. GENETICALLY, THIS FASTEST MAN ON EARTH HAS TO BE AS CLOSE TO PERFECTION AS A MAN POSSIBLY CAN BE.
THEN, FITTINGLY, AFTER HE'D CONQUERED THE 200M RACE, THE CAMERAS FLIRTED WITH HIM AS HE ALSO, IN TURN, FLIRTED WITH THE AUDIENCE BOTH IN THE STADIUM AND THOSE WHO'D BEEN WATCHING HIS FEAT ON TV AT HOME. THROUGHOUT, THE ROAR OF THE CROWD IN THE STADIUM WAS THUNDEROUS. (CROWD THEN SPORTINGLY SANG THE "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" SONG FOR USAIN WHO IS CELEBRATING HIS BIRTHDAY THE NEXT DAY.)
PRIOR TO THE START OF THE 200M RACE, I WAS WONDERING HOW USAIN BOLT WOULD COPE WITH SO MUCH PRESSURE BEARING DOWN HIS BACK AS EVERYONE WHO'S BEEN FOLLOWING THE OLYMPICS GAMES IN BEIJING HAD HIGH HOPES FOR HIM TO OUTDO THE WORLD RECORD. SURPRISINGLY, HE WAS CHARMING AND COOL AS A CUCUMBER AND LAPPED UP ALL THE ATTENTION EVERYONE WAS SHOWERING ON HIM!
TOMORROW, USAIN BOLT OF JAMAICA TURNS 22 AND WINNING THE 200M IN GREAT STYLE IS A GREAT WAY TO START HIS BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS.
THESE EXCELLENT PICTURES ARE FROM NEW YORK TIMES. SEE THE NYT WEBSITE (WWW.NYTIMES.COM) FOR THE WORLD'S BEST COVERAGE OF THE BEIJING 2008 OLYMPICS IN CHINA.
IF EVER CHINA HAD AN AFFABLE AND LIKABLE EVERYMAN ATHLETE, THEN LIU XIANG IS THE MAN. IT IS MOST UNFORTUNATE THAT LIU HAS HAD TO PULL OUT OF THE 110M HURDLES DUE TO INJURY.
ONE CAN ONLY SYMPATHIZE WITH LIU ON THE TREMENDOUS PRESSURE HE HAS BEEN UNDER WITH CHINA BEING THE HOST OF THE OLYMPICS GAMES 2008 AND THE GREAT BLOW IT HAS BEEN TO HIM AND THE CHINESE SPORTS FANS WHEN HE HAD TO PULL OUT OF THE RACE.
MAY HE RECOVER AND SHINE LIKE THE STAR HE IS MEANT TO BE FOR CHINA IN THE NEAR FUTURE AGAIN! SPEEDY RECOVERY LIU!!!
PICTURES FROM NEW YORK TIMES.
A GOD AMONGST MEN
ONE CAN ONLY IMAGINE THAT IF LIL RICHARD HAD BEEN WATCHING THE 100 METERS ATHLETICS OF THE BEIJING 2008 OLYMPIC GAMES, HE WOULD HAVE JUMPED OUT OF HIS CHAIR AND SCREAMED "GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY!" AT THE SUPERHUMAN FEAT OF USAIN BOLT OF JAMAICA WHO SPED TO THE FINISH LINE IN FANTASTIC TIME!
I KNOW WE ALL DID - JUMP OUT OF OUR SEATS IN AMAZEMENT AT THIS SUPERMAN'S SPEED! USAIN IS SPLENDID AND DESERVES THE TAG FASTEST MAN ON EARTH! BRAVO!
FOR FACT FANS, HERE'RE THE DETAILS: USAIN FINISHED THE 100M DASH IN 9.69 SECONDS (STRIDE RATE, ACCORDING TO THE UK'S THE INDEPENDENT: 41 OVER 100M!!!!!!!!!!) -- BREAKING THE WORLD RECORD, WHICH HE HIMSELF SET EARLIER.
THE THING THAT IS GOING THROUGH EVERYONE'S MIND NOW IS THAT IF USAIN DID NOT SLOW DOWN AS HE REACHED NEAR THE FINISH LINE, WHAT WOULD HIS TIME HAVE BEEN?
AS THEY WOULD BE SAYING IN JAMAICA NOW: THAT IS FANTASTIC MON!
ALL PHOTOS FROM NEW YORK TIMES.
BASKETBALL GREATS LEBRON JAMES AND KOBE BRYANT WERE IN THE CROWD TO SUPPORT THEIR FAVOURITE SWIMMER MICHAEL PHELPS AS PHELPS BATTLED IT OUT FOR HIS 8TH GOLD MEDAL IN SWIMMING AT THE BEIJING 2008 OLYMPIC GAMES.
PHOTOS FROM NEW YORK TIMES.
HERE ARE SOME MORE PHOTOS OF MICHAEL PHELPS ON HIS JOURNEY TOWARDS HIS 8TH OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL IN A SINGLE OLYMPIC GAMES.
PICTURES ARE FROM NEW YORK TIMES.
IN WHATEVER CATEGORY HE SWAM, IT WAS ALWAYS THE MASTERSTROKE FROM MICHAEL PHELPS!
PICTURES FROM NEW YORK TIMES.
HERE ARE SOME SPECTACULAR PHOTOS OF MICHAEL PHELPS, THE MAN WHO HAS CAPTURED THE IMAGINATION OF THE WORLD WITH HIS TRULY OLYMPIAN FEAT -- WINNING EIGHT GOLD MEDALS IN AN OLYMPICS GAME. PICTURES ARE FROM THE VENERABLE NEW YORK TIMES.
