Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 3/22-23/2010

3/22/1952:
Avenging an 81-40 drubbing in Lexington earlier this season, St. John's stuns top-ranked and defending national champion Kentucky, 64-57, in the finals of the Eastern Regional of the NCAA tournament and advances to the Final Four. Center Bob Zawoluk leads the Redmen with 32 points and 12 rebounds. His team is able to control the tempo with a deliberate pace that frustrates the favored Wildcats, who thrive on getting fast-break opportunities. When their leading scorer, Cliff Hagan, fouls out with six minutes left, the Wildcats' comeback aspirations evaporate.

Birthdays:
Billy Vessels b. 1931
Flash Elorde b. 1935
Glenallen Hill b. 1965
Shawn Bradley b. 1972
Marcus Camby b. 1974

Packers Fact:
After coaching the Packers from their first season in the NFL in 1921 through 1949, Curly Lambeau resigned to become the vice president and head coach of the Chicago Cardinals in 1950.

3/23/2008:
Trailing 46-29 with 15 minutes left in a second-round game of the NCAA Basketball tournament, the underdog Davidson Wildcats finish the game on a 45-24 run to upset Georgetown, 74-70. The Wildcats are led by sophomore sharpshooter Stephen Curry, who scores 25 of his 30 points in the second half. Son of former NBA standout Dell Curry, the Davidson star casually decimates the nation's stingiest defensive unit (Georgetown had allowed only 57.6 ppg this season on 37% field goal shooting by the opposition).

Birthdays:
Roger Bannister b. 1929
Geno Auriemma b. 1954
Moses Malone b. 1954
Jason Kidd b. 1973
Mark Buehrle b. 1979

Packers Fact:
The Packers led the NFL when their pass receivers gained 2,294 yards after the catch in 2007. That total represented more than half of their 4,334 passing yards.


http://www.lizhickok.com/

Jiggly City
Explore artist Liz Hickok's scale model of San Francisco, in which all the buildings have been cast in colored Jell-O. Like the substance it's made from, the work is light, sweet, and easy to digest.

http://www.nerve.com/dispatches/nerveeditors/50GreatestComedySketches/01/

50 Greatest Comedy Sketches
Here's a treat you can enjoy for many a break, brought to you by the Independent Film Channel - fifty of the greatest comedy sketches including the Spanish Inquisition skit from Monty Python's Flying Circus, the Coneheads and samurai cook from Saturday Night Live, and the classic "Who's on First?" from Abbott and Costello.

MUMBAI MORALITY TALES

If we are to believe E. M. Forster in A Passage to India and Paul Theroux in this collection of three tales, India is and will long remain an uneasy, uncomfortable, exotic, and slightly scary place for Anglos and Americans. Theroux, who is equally adept at writing fiction and travel nonfiction, unwinds his stories (which are unrelated, except that characters from each spend time in the opulent Elephanta Suite of a Mumbai hotel) with a stately, half-lidded knowingness, never flinching from the grotesque or lapsing into sentimentality.

THE ELEPHANTA SUITE: THREE NOVELLAS, by Paul Theroux (Houghton Mifflin, 2007)

THE ROAD TO HAPPINESS

Eric Weiner searched the world over for happiness. He consulted social scientists to learn where it probably did and probably did not reside. And then he traveled to those places. He found that the Dutch were happy and the Romanians weren’t. In Qatar, people are wealthy but seem somewhat depressed, whereas in the long winters of Iceland they are happy if not always sober. And on he roamed, sharing with us, in a very engaging style, his findings along the way. In the satisfying comfort of our living room, we found the quest to be a happy one indeed.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF BLISS: ONE GRUMP’S SEARCH FOR THE HAPPIEST PLACES IN THE WORLD, by Eric Weiner (Twelve, 2008)

FIRE ROCK PALE ALE

Kona Brewing Co., Kona, Hawaii

Kona’s coffee porter is the quintessential commercial example of its genre. That was a limited-release beer, but Fire Rock is one of Kona’s mainstays. While not as unusual, it is rewarding. It pours much darker than most pale ales, with a reddish, almost amber hue—leaning toward the English definition of pale ale, with its profound emphasis on clean, hearty malt and caramel flavors, and just enough hop. Falls squarely into the “I could drink this all day” category, but at 6%/vol., you just might fall off your surfboard.

ORKNEY DARK ISLAND BROWN

Orkney Brewery, Stromness, Orkney, Scotland

The bottle, the pour, the head, the aroma, the flavor, the aftertaste all bespeak of wealth. Dark chestnut brown, with a creamy brown head. Nutty, fruity, toffee and malty aroma and flavor. Not particularly hoppy, but that’s no surprise in this great session beer. At 4.6%/vol., you could enjoy a few without embarrassing yourself. Try it with some sheep’s milk feta, or aged Parmesan and thin sliced sausage.

FROM THE BREWERY:

“The tranquil Orkney Islands, with their fertile farming lands and fishing grounds, have been inhabited for over 5,000 years. The Orkney Brewery is housed in the former schoolhouse in Quoyloo, one mile from Skara Brae in the heart of neolithic Orkney.”