'Sculpting out' a narrative

Through baseball, TV, 80s movies, and the Western Canon

One of the best and worst things about growing up with cable television in the 1980s was that many of us became (overly-perhaps) familiar with several movies and TV shows.

By virtue of the "superstations" WGN out of Chicago and WTBS out of Atlanta was that I had a great grasp on National League baseball. The Cubs played their home games during the day which meant a late morning start, while the Braves started their coverage most of the time at 7:05 or 7:35 Eastern.

This was great in the summer time. One game bled into another. During the school year, you might catch the tail end of a game at Wrigley, but would usually be able to catch all the action from Fulton County Stadium any given night. Of course, when those teams played on the road, we were able to see what all the other National League stadiums had to offer.

It was wonderful.

Those stations also had a lot of re-run TV shows. In 1997, Providence basketball coach Pete Gillen reminded us how ubiquitous Leave it to Beaver was in the era.

What else? Good Times, The Beverly Hillbillies, Sanford and Son, The Flintstones, Gilligan's Island, The Andy Griffith Show, and Dukes of Hazzard.

Green Acres was one of those TBS staples that I watched a lot, but never much cared for. But I know all the shows—most of them that aired prior to my own birth.

But if you had a premium movie channel like HBO, there were tons of movies that appeared over and over. For instance, the entire Police Academy canon was unavoidable.

Why do I say this?

One, I like nostalgia. But, two, and perhaps more importantly, this exercise reminded me of a 1987 Andrew McCarthy vehicle—nay, turkey—that I was helpless to watch.

If you were thinking Weekend at Bernie's, shame on you. That was from 1989 and it is an eminently re-watchable flick.

I am talking Mannequin. IMDb describes it: "A young artist, searching for his vocation, makes a mannequin so perfect he falls in love with it. Finding the mannequin in a store window, he gets a job there and his creation comes to life."

What was the exercise that brought me to this train of thought, however? Seems odd to pull that one out of the hat...

I've been reading various books on business management and personal development lately and one thing that came up yesterday in two different books was the so-called "Pygmalion effect." Also known as the Rosenthal effect, Wikipedia describes it as "a psychological phenomenon in which high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area and low expectations lead to worse."

Both attitudes or "mindsets" become self-fulfilling prophecies, in essence.

Being vaguely familiar with the Greek myth of Pygmalion, it reminded me a bit of the new-ish show in the Star Trek franchise, Picard. We've since stopped watching, but the fascination with the Data character was very Pygmalion in nature. Probably in The Next Generation, too, but I never paid close enough attention back then.

Then it hit me—and Wikipedia confirms—that Mannequin borrowed heavily from the myth of Pygmalion. Essentially, Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with his creation who, with Aphrodite's blessing, became a woman. The two married, had children, and the legend remains.

I had to dive into Wikipedia to read more—a worm hole that is equally as fascinating as my dives into our World Book Encyclopedia set as I multi-tasked my cable television watching in the 1980s. Problem is, a click of the mouse gets you deeper and deeper into that worm hole where you may never reappear.

Thankfully, I pulled myself out of it, but not before drawing another parallel. On my podcast a while back, we interviewed Andronikos, a gentleman who I have gotten to know much better since our original podcast, and whose project is "a journey through the great books of the Western Canon."

On a recent blog post, Andronikos writes of Hesiod, an ancient Greek poet from about the time of Homer. Hesiod wrote of Pandora, the first woman made of clay (turned human by virtue of the interposition of Zeus).

With this in mind, I thought it was a good time to promote one of my friends and his amazing project...that will be going on for years. He's reading through the texts and provides his own interpretation on the Western Canon. It is remarkable, really.

Check out our podcast here:

Check out the Substack, "Wends of Change," where you can read most of what Andronikos writes, here:

As always,

Brian

P.S. — It wasn't all baseball all the time for me. I do recall one point in my young life where I would be more than a little upset if a Cubs game pre-empted my watching of a SuperFriends cartoon episode. I got over that rather quickly when the Cubs went on their 1984 NL East pennant run.