Imponderables: Fun and Games

by David Feldman

  Seibert and Blumberg’s coach, Claire Dillie, strongly dissents. The purpose of ice dancing, to her, is to interpret rhythms. Dillie feels that there is a strong danger that if vocals were allowed in competitions, skaters would start interpreting lyrics rather than music and that skating doesn’t need vocals and lyrics any more than ballet does. Still, Dillie recognizes the problems in finding suitable instrumental orchestrations of popular music, and she encouraged Blumberg and Seibert to use a piece that was specifically written and arranged for them.

  3. There is pressure to have several tempo changes in the long program. The answer to this unstated law, which is meant to assure the athletic and interpretive versatility of champions, is for skaters to splice together up to four different pieces of music. Often, the surgical procedures help to showcase the performers but are musical abominations. There is a maximum of four-tempo changes per long program, but using four selections in as many minutes usually defies any attempt to make the routine an artistic whole. This is why “theme routines” like Blumberg and Seibert’s Astaire-Rogers medley makes sense—they combine different songs and tempos but provide a sensible context for lumping together the different songs.

  4. It is important that musical selections provide opportunities for skaters to demonstrate difficult technical moves. One reason ice-dancing music is usually superior to free-skating music is that the latter competitions include more acrobatic leaps and spins. Music must be found to accommodate these movements, making the selection of appropriate material that much more difficult.

  5. Many arenas that house ice skating competitions have horrendous sound systems. And when you are hearing the lousy sound secondhand via television (which itself has lousy sound), often with Dick Button wailing away, no music is likely to sound celestial.

  6. Too many skaters and coaches just don’t care enough about musical selection. Many skaters, with excellent technical skills, are just kids. They don’t have the emotional depth to genuinely interpret music. Without a sensitive coach who understands their limitations and strengths, the students can become automatons, oblivious to the music. And if the coach doesn’t care about music, the selections can be as banal and the arrangements as overbearing as many of them are today.

  When we first asked experts about this question, we almost expected them to say that there was a special recording studio in West Germany that recorded muddy, ponderous, Euro-pop versions of songs specifically for skaters. Their strategy would be to drain the original song of all vestiges of life to ensure that the music would never distract judges from the skaters.

  But it turns out not to be true. The skaters and their coaches really are trying to find the best music possible for their performances. But fate has conspired to make this a difficult task indeed.

  WHERE DO THEY GET THAT ORGAN MUSIC IN SKATING RINKS?

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  As we just discussed, skaters are not allowed to use music with vocals in competitions, and we explained some of the reasons why that music sounds so awful. The inevitable follow-up question: What about the music in ice and roller-skating rinks?

  Chances are very, very good that any organ music you hear in skating rinks comes from a company called Rinx Records, the only known source for tempo organ music. Competitive skaters need all-instrumental music of specific lengths (usually three or four minutes, exactly) for competitions and achievement tests. Not only do these songs need to be an exact length, but many need to be an exact number of beats per minute. Rinx Records, for example, provide waltzes with 108, 120, and 138 beats per minute. The records must have a strong beat so that skaters can synchronize their movements with music often piped through horrendous sound systems.

  Rinx Records was founded in 1950, in Denver, Colorado, by Fred Bergen, a man who not only was involved in skating, but was an organist who played on many records. In 1968, Bergen sold Rinx Records to Dominic Cangelosi, who still operates the business from the roller rink he owns. Cangelosi has played keyboards on all of the records he has released since 1968. His music is heard throughout the world, but like the baseball stadium organist, he labors in semi-obscurity, unmolested by rabid fans on the street.

  Rinx is a nice business. Although a few other individuals besides Cangelosi market tapes and CDs, Cangelosi has the record end of the field sewn up. He has a big market, with a mailing list of more than five thousand customers, including not only rinks but skating instructors and individual skaters as well. Ice skating and roller skating share many of the same tempos (though some ice skating music is much faster), so Rinx sells to both markets. In all, Rinx has more than thirteen hundred different records in stock, on seven-inch 45 rpm. If your heart prompts, you can find out more about Rinx Records by contacting Dominic Cangelosi at: P.O. Box 6607, Burbank, CA 91510.

  Although Rinx’s variety of organ music is associated with bygone days, Cangelosi has tried to spice up his arrangements with synthesizers, pianos, and electronic and Hammond organs in addition to the traditional acoustic and pipe organs. On some records, he adds guitar, drums, or other accompaniment. Cangelosi also “covers” popular songs, for which he pays a fee to ASCAP or BMI. Rink operators likewise have to pay a nominal fee to these licensing organizations for playing contemporary songs in their rinks.

  George Pickard, executive director of the Roller Skating Rink Operators Association, says that most rinks have abandoned old-fashioned music for rock and disco. But many have special adult sessions that use Rinx and other more traditional records. There are even a few rinks that still have live organ music, the last echo of bygone days.

  Submitted by Gail Lee, of Los Angeles, California.

  Thanks also to: Joy Renee Grieco, of Park Ridge, New Jersey.

  WHY DOESN’T COUNTDOWN LEADER ON FILMS COUNT ALL THE WAY TO ONE?

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  Remember watching the leader on sixteen-millimeter films in school, waiting for the countdown to go 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2—whoops? It never got down to one.

  Countdown leader, of course, is there to help the projectionist time when a film is going to start. Each number is timed to appear precisely one second after the other. The projectionist usually uses the number two as the cue to allow the projector light to hit the screen and begin the show. What would be number one is simply the start of the picture.

  Wouldn’t it work just as well to have zero represent the beginning of the movie, so that frustrated audiences could have the satisfaction of counting down from ten to one? Of course it would. But as in most areas, tradition and inertia rule. As Bob Dylan wrote, “Don’t follow leaders.”

  Submitted by Ronald C. Semone, of Washington, D.C.

  Follow-Up:

  Your information is correct until you reported that the number one is the start of the picture. Although there isn’t a one on Academy Leader, the picture actually starts on what would be zero. The forty-seven frames of black film that follow the single frame bearing a “2” are for the projectionist to open the dowser and allow light through the projector. A quick “beep” is usually heard along with the number two, indicating that the sound is in sync with the picture.

  In theaters that alternate between two projectors, there is a mark that appears in the upper right-hand corner of the picture, which tells the projectionist to start the other projector up to speed, and then a second mark, which is when the projectionist actually should change over to the new reel. This countdown leader allows a precise amount of time for the projector to get up to speed, so that when the changeover occurs the viewer will not have missed any of the movie.

  Submitted by Brian M. Demkowicz,

  Chief Projectionist, IMAX Theater, Baltimore, Maryland.

  IN BASEBALL, WHY IS THE PITCHER’S MOUND LOCATED 60’6” FROM HOME PLATE?

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  The answer comes from Bill Deane, senior research associate of the National Baseball Hall of Fame:

  The pitcher’s box was originally positioned 45 feet from home plate. It was moved back to 50 feet in 1881. After overhand pit
ching was legalized, it was moved back to 60’6” in 1893.

  Why was the mound moved back? For the same reason that fences are moved in—teams were not generating enough offense. Morris Eckhouse, executive director of the Society for American Baseball Research, told Imponderables that around the turn of the century, batters were having a hard time making contact with the ball.

  But what cosmic inspiration led to the choice of 60’6” as the proper distance? Deane says there is evidence indicating that “the unusual distance resulted from a misread architectural drawing that specified 60’0”.”

  Submitted by Kathy Cripe of South Bend, Indiana.

  WHY DO THEY NEED TWENTY MIKES AT PRESS CONFERENCES?

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  If you look carefully at a presidential press conference, you’ll see two microphones. But at other press conferences, you may find many more. Why the difference?

  Obviously, all the networks have access to the president’s statements. How can they each obtain a tape when there are only a couple of microphones? They use a device called a “mult box” (short for “multiple outlet device”). The mult box contains one input jack but numerous output jacks (usually at least eight outputs, but sixteen- and thirty-two–output mult boxes are common). Each station or network simply plugs its recording equipment into an available output jack and makes its own copy. The second microphone is used only as a backup, in case the other malfunctions. The Signal Corps, which runs presidential news conferences, provides the mult boxes at the White House.

  It’s more likely though, that a press conference will be arranged hastily or conducted at a site without sophisticated electronics equipment. It is at such occasions that you’ll see multiple microphones, with each news team forced to install its own equipment if it wants its own tape.

  All networks and most local television stations own mult boxes. Of course, the whole purpose of the mult box is to promote pooling of resources, so the networks, on the national level, and the local stations, in a particular market, alternate providing mult boxes. There usually isn’t a formal arrangement for who will bring the mult box; in practice, there are few hassles.

  Some media consultants like the look of scores of microphones, believing it makes the press conference seem important. A more savvy expert will usually ask for a mult box, so that the viewing audience won’t be distracted by the blaring call letters on the microphones from a single pearl of wisdom uttered by the politician he works for.

  WHAT IS GOOFY?

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  Goofy can’t be a dog, claims our correspondent, or else he would look like Pluto, wouldn’t he? Goofy is indeed a dog. Chihuahuas don’t look like Doberman pinschers, so why should Goofy look like Pluto? Although we must admit that we don’t know too many dogs who speak English and walk on two feet.

  Pluto appeared several years before Goofy, in a tiny role in a Mickey Mouse short called “Chain Gang.” Pluto’s original name was Rover, and he was Minnie’s dog, not Mickey’s. But Mickey soon gained ownership, and Rover was renamed Pluto the Pup. Animator John Canemaker observes that Pluto’s lack of speech and doglike walk were used to emphasize that Pluto was Mickey’s pet and not his equal.

  Goofy, on the other hand, was nobody’s pet. His dogginess is indisputable, since his original name was Dippy Dawg. But Dippy had to pay his dues before he reached the summit of Goofyness. Dippy first played small roles in Mickey Mouse shorts in the early 1930s, and it wasn’t until he was featured in the syndicated Mickey Mouse newspaper cartoons that he gained prominence in animated shorts.

  Although Goofy was as loyal and loving as Pluto, he was not subservient. As his popularity grew, Goofy became a part of “The Gang,” with costars Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in a series of twelve cartoons in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Few remember that Goofy was married (to Mrs. Goofy) and that he was a proud parent (of Goofy, Jr.).

  This Imponderable has been thrust at us many times since the release of the movie Stand By Me, in which a character muses about this question. How people can accept that a duck can survive being squashed by a refrigerator and then not believe that Goofy can be a dog, we’ll never understand.

  Submitted by Ashley Hoffar of Cincinnati, Ohio.

  IS GOOFY MARRIED? IF NOT, WHERE DID TELEVISION’S GOOFY, JR., COME FROM?

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  Do you really expect Disney to give old Goof a child out of wedlock? We are pleased to announce that Goofy is, or possibly only was, married to a lovable mate named Mrs. Goofy.

  Mrs. Goofy first appeared in a short, “Fathers Are People,” but was far from salient; in fact, she can be seen only fleetingly. Although she was a Donna Reedlike suburban housewife, she had her husband well trained: Goofy’s response to just about everything she ever said was, “Yes, dear.”

  Junior, with a red nose at the end of his snout and a mop of red hair on his head, was featured more often and prominently than his mother, but as Disney’s Rose Motzko told Imponderables, “Goofy, Jr.’s main function was to allow his father to burst with pride while allowing his father not to live up to [minimal] expectations.” Junior understood that his father was not a brain surgeon but tried hard not to let his father know.

  On the current cartoon series Goof Troop, Junior is called “Max.” Goofy is a single father, and Goofy’s mother is never discussed. But come to think of it, most of the “family” TV sitcoms with live actors feature single parents, too: Max has plenty of company.

  Submitted by Tai Palmgren of Davis, California.

  WHY DO THE OAKLAND ATHLETICS’ UNIFORMS HAVE ELEPHANT PATCHES ON THEIR SLEEVES?

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  The elephant may be the symbol of the Republican party, but partisan politics was the last thing on Connie Mack’s mind when the legendary owner of the Philadelphia Athletics decided to adopt the white elephant as his team’s insignia. Rival New York Giants manager John McGraw boasted that the Athletics, and the fledgling American League, to which they belonged, were unworthy competitors, and indicated that Mack had spent a fortune on a team of “white elephants.”

  Mack got the last laugh. The A’s won the American League pennant in 1902. A few years later, the elephant’s image appeared on the team sweater. In 1918, Mack first emblazoned the elephant on the left sleeve of game uniforms.

  The elephant image became so popular that in 1920, Mack eliminated the “A” on the front of the jersey and replaced it with a blue elephant logo. Four years later, he changed it to a white elephant. After a few years of playing more like a bunch of thundering elephants than a pennant contender, Mack depachydermed his players’ uniforms.

  No A’s uniform sported an elephant again until 1955, when the Kansas City A’s added an elephant patch to their sleeves. But when the irascible Charlie Finley bought the A’s in the early 1960s, he replaced the elephant with the image of an animal more befitting his own personality—the mule.

  But you can’t keep a good animal down. According to Sally Lorette, of the Oakland A’s front office, the current owners of the A’s resurrected the same elephant used by the Kansas City Athletics in time for the 1988 season. The mascot did the job for the Oakland A’s just as it had for Connie almost a century ago. Since 1988, the A’s have won three American League pennants and one championship.

  Submitted by Anthony Bialy of Kenmore, New York.

  Thanks also to a caller on the Jim Eason Show, KGO-AM,

  San Francisco, California.

  HOW ARE THE SUBSCRIPTION INSERT CARDS PLACED IN MAGAZINES?

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  Fewer things are more annoying to us than receiving a magazine we put our soft-earned bucks down to subscribe to, and being rewarded for our loyalty by being showered with cards entreating us to subscribe to the very magazine we’ve just shelled out for.

  Why is it necessary to have to clean a magazine of foreign matter before you read the darn thing? Because the cards work. Publishers know that readers hate them; but the response rate to a card, particularly one that allows a free-postage response, attracts mo
re subscribers than a discreet ad in the body of the magazine.

  Those pesky little inserts that fall out are called “blow-in cards” in the magazine biz. We thought “blow-out” cards might be a more descriptive moniker until we learned the derivation of the term from Bob Nichter, of the Fulfillment Management Association.

  Originally, blow-in cards were literally blown into the magazine by a fan on the printer assembly line. Now, blow-ins are placed mechanically by an insertion machine after the magazine is bound. Nothing special is needed to keep the cards inside the magazine; they are placed close enough to the binding so that they won’t fall out unless the pages are riffled.

  Why do many periodicals place two or more blow-in cards in one magazine? It’s not an accident. Most magazines find that two blow-in cards attract a greater subscription rate than one. Any more, and reader ire starts to overshadow the slight financial gains.