Coming Up Roses
The Shipping News, Factor's Famous Deli, Everly Brothers, Blake Corum, Wizard’s Wheels
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This week’s issue includes five key plays from the Rose Bowl Game, yet another Pulitzer Prize winning novel, a deli in LA serving outstanding pastrami, harmonious brothers, a running back who ran a 4.4 40-yard dash and earned a 4.0 grade point average as a freshman, and a Muggle motor vehicle. I hope you like the picks and pics.
Barb really wanted to go the Rose Bowl Game, so for her Christmas present, I bought two tickets. Getting to and from the game presented numerous delays, backups, and bottlenecks. But it was a beautiful day and we saw one the best College Football Playoff games ever, as our Michigan Wolverines defeated the Alabama Crimson Tide, 27-20, in overtime. Given the challenges we faced in arriving, parking, entering the stadium, reaching our seats, and departing, I would have preferred to travel by stealth bomber.
Fave Five 66: Coming Up Roses. Newfoundland Novel (The Shipping News), Pastrami Perfection (Factor's Famous Deli), Sibling Singers (Everly Brothers), Wolverine Winner (Blake Corum), and a Wizard’s Wheels.
Fave Five List: Key Plays from the Rose Bowl Game
(4:23 - 1st) 2nd & 4 at Alabama 8 - Blake Corum (Michigan) 8-Yard TD pass from J.J. McCarthy - Michigan’s first TD was an immediate response to Alabama’s first TD. Blake is not normally a receiving target, but his two catches were both huge.
(3:19 - 4th) 4th & 2 at Alabama 40 - J.J. McCarthy (Michigan) pass complete to Blake Corum for 27 yards to the Alabama 40 for a first down - Blake’s second reception, resulting in a first down, was the most important moment of the game. Failure to convert on fourth down would likely have sealed the win for Alabama.
(1:34 - 4th) 2nd & Goal at Alabama 4 - Roman Wilson (Michigan) 4-Yard TD pass from J.J. McCarthy - The game-tying TD came late in regulation.
(OT) 2nd & 2 at Alabama 17 - Blake Corum (Michigan) 17-Yard TD Run - A classic run by Blake, scoring the TD that ultimately won the game.
(OT) 4th & Goal at Michigan 3 - Jalen Milroe (Alabama) 1-Yard run - Alabama’s QB was stopped by Michigan’s defensive line at the Michigan 2 to end the game.
Book Best Bet
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Years ago, my late mom lent me her copy to read, and I loved it. So many great characters, scenes, and plot developments make it a deserving multi-award winner.
From Amazon: Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News is a vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary North American family.
Quoyle, a third-rate newspaper hack, with a “head shaped like a crenshaw, no neck, reddish hair...features as bunched as kissed fingertips,” is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife meets her just desserts. An aunt convinces Quoyle and his two emotionally disturbed daughters to return with her to the starkly beautiful coastal landscape of their ancestral home in Newfoundland. Here, on desolate Quoyle’s Point, in a house empty except for a few mementos of the family’s unsavory past, the battered members of three generations try to cobble up new lives.
Newfoundland is a country of coast and cove where the mercury rarely rises above seventy degrees, the local culinary delicacy is cod cheeks, and it’s easier to travel by boat and snowmobile than on anything with wheels. In this harsh place of cruel storms, a collapsing fishery, and chronic unemployment, the aunt sets up as a yacht upholsterer in nearby Killick-Claw, and Quoyle finds a job reporting the shipping news for the local weekly, the Gammy Bird (a paper that specializes in sexual-abuse stories and grisly photos of car accidents).
As the long winter closes its jaws of ice, each of the Quoyles confronts private demons, reels from catastrophe to minor triumph—in the company of the obsequious Mavis Bangs; Diddy Shovel the strongman; drowned Herald Prowse; cane-twirling Beety; Nutbeem, who steals foreign news from the radio; a demented cousin the aunt refuses to recognize; the much-zippered Alvin Yark; silent Wavey; and old Billy Pretty, with his bag of secrets. By the time of the spring storms Quoyle has learned how to gut cod, to escape from a pickle jar, and to tie a true lover’s knot.
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 1994
National Book Award, Fiction, 1994
At 36, Quoyle retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. He faces the unpredictable forces of nature and society and begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery. The Shipping News demonstrates why Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
Annie Proulx
From Wikipedia: Edna Ann Proulx (born August 22, 1935 in Norwich, Connecticut) is an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. She has written most frequently as Annie Proulx but has also used the names E. Annie Proulx and E.A. Proulx.
She won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her first novel, Postcards. Her second novel, The Shipping News (1993), won both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and was adapted as a 2001 film of the same name. Her short story "Brokeback Mountain" was adapted as an Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe Award-winning motion picture released in 2005.
Restaurant Recommendation
Factor's Famous Deli 9420 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90035
I met my Clayton High School classmates Tom Marcus and Arnold Kling for lunch last week. We all worked on the school newspaper, Clamo, as seniors in 1970-71. Tom won the inaugural (and final) Clayton Invitational Table Tennis Tournament held in my basement. Arnold taught me how to play bridge and kept basketball stats for me so I could be both the head statistician and the play-by-play announcer for the Clayton Greyhounds basketball team.
Tom lives in West Pasadena and Arnold was visiting relatives nearby. With traffic, it took me over two hours to get to the deli from Santa Barbara, but it was worth it to spend time with good friends and to enjoy a great lunch.
Factor’s is known for their pastrami, and the hand cut half-sandwich I ordered was exquisite. I asked for Thousand Island dressing in addition to the standard mustard, and alternated bites of pastrami using either condiment.
Cup of Matzo Ball Soup: with carrots & chicken. Add noodles, rice or kasha on request.
Hot Pastrami Half-Sandwich: Hand cut (thicker than machine sliced) with coleslaw
From the restaurant: Factor's Famous Deli has been at the same Los Angeles location on Pico Blvd since 1948. The Markowitz Family has owned and operated Factor's since 1969 and from the very beginning Herman and Lili Markowitz strived to provide quality food, generous portions, and friendly service in a warm family atmosphere.
Over the years we have expanded Factor's, adding a large take-out counter, garden patio, and alfresco dining, preserving our commitment to the original quality and friendly service established by our parents.
Marvelous Musicians
Phil died on this date ten years ago. I was introduced to Don and Phil through covers of their hits (“Let It Be Me,” “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” “Devoted To You,” “When Will I Be Loved,” and “Crying In The Rain”) and then discovered their original versions. Their harmonies were great, which is often the case with sibling acts, but theirs were sublime.
From Wikipedia: The Everly Brothers were an American country-influenced rock and roll duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everly (born February 1, 1937 in Brownie, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky; died August 21, 2021 in Nashville) and Phillip "Phil" Jason Everly (born January 19, 1939 in Chicago; died January 3, 2014 in Burbank, California), the duo was raised in a musical family, first appearing on radio singing along with their father Ike Everly and mother Margaret Everly as "The Everly Family" in the 1940s. When the brothers were still in high school, they gained the attention of prominent Nashville musicians like Chet Atkins, who began to groom them for national attention.
They began writing and recording their own music in 1956, and their first hit song came in 1957, with "Bye Bye Love", written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. The song hit No. 1 in the spring of 1957, and additional hits would follow through 1958, many of them written by the Bryants, including "Wake Up Little Susie", "All I Have to Do Is Dream", and "Problems". In 1960, they signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records and recorded "Cathy's Clown", written by the brothers themselves, which was their biggest selling single. The brothers enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1961, and their output dropped off, though additional hit singles continued through 1962, with "That's Old Fashioned (That's the Way Love Should Be)" being their last top-10 hit.
Long-simmering disputes with Wesley Rose, the CEO of Acuff-Rose Music, which managed the group, and a growing drug usage in the 1960s, as well as changing tastes in popular music, led to the group's decline in popularity in its native U.S., though the brothers continued to release hit singles in the U.K. and Canada and had many highly successful tours throughout the 1960s. In the early 1970s, the brothers began releasing solo recordings, and in 1973 they officially broke up. Starting in 1983, the brothers got back together and continued to perform periodically until Phil's death in 2014. Don died seven years later.
The group was highly influential with the music of the generation that followed it. Many of the top acts of the 1960s were heavily influenced by the close-harmony singing and acoustic guitar playing of the Everly Brothers, including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, and Simon & Garfunkel. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked the Everly Brothers No. 1 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural class of 1986, and into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001. Don was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2019, earning the organization's first Iconic Riff Award for his distinctive rhythm guitar intro to the Everlys' massive 1957 hit "Wake Up Little Susie".
All I Have To Do Is Dream/Cathy's Clown
Devoted to You
My Playlist
Sports Star
I featured three other Michigan players just over a year ago. Unfortunately, Blake was injured late last season. He was unable to play in the Fiesta Bowl against TCU, a game Michigan lost, making them 0-2 in the College Football Playoffs. That losing streak ended on Monday in Pasadena.
This season, Blake rushed for over 1,000 yards for the second consecutive time. He was a key contributor to Michigan’s Rose Bowl win over Alabama:
Rushing: 19 carries for 83 yards (4.4 average), 1 TD, and a long of 21
Receiving: 2 receptions for 35 yards (17.5 average), 1 TD, and a long of 27
Blake’s game-winning rushing TD in overtime, the 56th of his career, set the Michigan career rushing touchdown record, breaking Anthony Thomas's (1997-2000) record of 55. He is almost always automatic on short yardage 3rd or 4th down conversions and goal-to-go attempts. I admire his toughness, competitiveness, and character.
From ESPN:
In biggest moments of Rose Bowl, Blake Corum shines by Charlie Pappalardo of The Michigan Daily
Prior to the season, it was Corum that had said the year was ‘Natty or Bust.’ And, tied for the most rushing touchdowns in Michigan history with 55, Corum stood on the precipice of reaching both his individual and team aspirations.
Four hours later, his two desires would coalesce in one decisive moment.
On a second-and-2 with the game tied in overtime, Corum took the ball on an inside handoff, shimmied right, cut in the midfield, escaped one tackle and barreled through another. As he fell into the end zone, Corum, in one moment, set the Wolverines up to win the game and fell into the record books.
“Everything that I see out of Blake on a day-to-day basis and everything that Blake is, when everyone is tired, when it’s overtime, he’s going to be the guy that shows up just like he does in sprints when we run them in the off-season,” Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy said of Corum. “It was nothing new for me. It was just amazing the world got to see it.”
From Wikipedia: Blake Nolan Corum (born November 25, 2000) is an American football running back for the Michigan Wolverines. He won the Chicago Tribune Silver Football and was named a unanimous All-American in 2022 after rushing for over 1,400 yards with 18 touchdowns.
Corum was born on November 25, 2000, in Marshall, Virginia. He later attended Saint Frances Academy in Baltimore, Maryland. As a senior, he rushed for 1,438 yards and 22 touchdowns and led his team to a No. 4 national ranking. He was also selected as the Gatorade Player of the Year in Maryland during the 2019–20 academic year and as The Baltimore Sun's Offensive Player of the Year. He was rated as the No. 12 running back in the 2020 recruiting class.
Corum enrolled at the University of Michigan in January 2020. In his first semester at Michigan, Corum drew praise for both running a 4.4 40-yard dash and earning a 4.0 grade point average.
Prior to the 2021 season, Sports Illustrated wrote that Corum was poised for a breakout year. Through the first two games of the 2021 season, Corum rushed for 282 yards on 35 carries. He averaged 141 rushing yards per game and also caught five passes for 33 yards. Against Washington, he tallied a career high 171 rushing yards and three touchdowns, including a 67-yard touchdown run. He also had 128 yards on kickoff returns and led the nation in all-purpose yards with an average of 221.5 yards per game.
On September 18, Corum recorded his third straight 100-yard rushing game, becoming the first Michigan player to accomplish this feat since Denard Robinson in 2011, and the first player to record 100-plus yards rushing in three consecutive games to start the season since Mike Hart in 2007.
On September 17, 2022, Corum tied Michigan's modern-era record with five rushing touchdowns in a game against UConn. He became the first Michigan player to score four first-half touchdowns since Ed Shuttlesworth in 1972.
On September 24, Corum rushed for a career-high 243 yards and two touchdowns on 30 carries in a 34–27 win over Maryland. His 243 rushing yards was the most for a Michigan player since Denard Robinson rushed for 258 yards in 2010. He continued with 133 yards against Iowa on October 1, 124 yards against Indiana on October 8, 166 yards against Penn State on October 15, and 177 yards against Michigan State on October 29. Corum was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week for his performances against Maryland and Michigan State.
Corum suffered a knee injury in the first half of Michigan's 11th game against Illinois and played sparingly the rest of that game and the following week against Ohio State. On December 1, 2022, it was announced that Corum would undergo knee surgery, ending his season before Michigan's appearances in the Big Ten Championship and the College Football Playoff semifinal Fiesta Bowl.
Corum finished seventh in voting for the Heisman Trophy, won the Chicago Tribune Silver Football as best player in the Big Ten, and was named a unanimous All-American.
On October 14, 2023, Corum had 13 carries for 52 yards, and became the tenth player in Michigan history to reach 3,000 career rushing yards. On November 18, 2023, Corum rushed for 94 yards and two touchdowns, moving to eighth on Michigan's all-time rushing list with 3,380 yards. On November 25, 2023, Corum rushed for 88 yards and two touchdowns, setting a new single-season rushing touchdown record of 22. He is the only player in the FBS to score in each game in 2023. On December 2, 2023, during the 2023 Big Ten Football Championship Game, Corum rushed for 52 yards, passing 1,000 yards on the season to become the first player with consecutive 1,000-yard rushing seasons since Denard Robinson.
JJ McCarthy 8-Yard Touchdown Pass to Blake Corum
4th and 2 Conversion Late in the 4th Quarter
Blake Corum 17-Yard Touchdown Run in OT
Picture Pun
Witch wizard owns this?
