The full CBS intro to the Michigan - Illinois game.

Spectacular. Well done CBS. pic.twitter.com/U59nGoTiJq

— Illinois Football Focus (@IlliniFB) October 19, 2024

CBS honored the day on Saturday with an incredible open to the broadcast.

Friday marked exactly 100 years since ‘The Galloping Ghost’ ran for five touchdowns and threw for another against the Wolverines. The game was Memorial Stadium’s “Dedication Game,” which honored those who served the nation in World War I. The game today was the "Rededication Game" and just like the past, saw Illinois beat Michigan.

These look incredible.

Such a cool video, showing a beautiful sunrise, ⁦@StateFarmCenter⁩ and an incredible turnout for the Game Day Run Club! Grateful to all who came! Let’s get a win! 🔶🔷👊 pic.twitter.com/sABeLr6AFT

— Josh Whitman (@IlliniAD) October 19, 2024

Actor Andrew Garfield shared his feelings with Elmo on Sesame Street about grief and how it can be a good thing because it makes you remember the good things about someone you love, his mother, whom Garfield sadly lost to pancreatic cancer in 2021.

This is a fantastic clip. Sesame Street is so good at this kind of thing.

Here’s one of the oddest sentences I think I’ve ever put together:

A new concept album by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Eisa Davis is a musical based on the 1979 movie The Warriors and sung by a cast that Lauryn Hill, Nas, Ghostface Killah and Billy Porter to Broadway stars Phillipa Soo, Jasmine Cephas Jones and Amber Gray.

It’s interesting to say the least. I kinda dig it.

Robert Rosenthal, writing at his site IlliniBoard, has a wonderful look at what happened 100 years ago.

Red Grange had become a superstar. He was a First Team All American the previous season as a sophomore. People came from far and wide (most importantly, sportswriters like Grantland Rice) to see the Wheaton Iceman. So not only was this brand new stadium going up which fascinated the entire state of Illinois (remember, the Bears had only moved from Decatur to Chicago in 1922 and played at Cubs Park to small crowds so NFL football wasn’t really a thing yet), here was this superstar that everyone wanted to see, guaranteeing that the dedication game would sell out.

There’s a famous photo of that day where you can see a packed Memorial Stadium.

Just the thought of all of those cars making their way to Champaign to see this new stadium + this famous athlete + this “let’s see who the real national champion was last year” game is just incredible to me. Every star aligning around one single game.

And then, in that game, Red Grange scores four times in the first 12 minutes. I’ve been through this on Twitter several times over the last year but one more time won’t hurt:

Touchdowns allowed by Michigan in the entire 1921 season: 3 Touchdowns allowed by Michigan in the entire 1922 season: 1 Touchdowns allowed by Michigan in the entire 1923 season: 0 Touchdowns allowed by Michigan in the first 12 minutes of the 1924 game: 4

This is why I believe Red Grange to be the single greatest player in college football history. ESPN just did this list in 2020 and ranked him 6th overall (and Dick Butkus 8th, meaning Illinois was the only program with two of the top-10 players in college football history). When ESPN did a similar list in 2007 (with a different panel of experts), Red Grange was #1 on the list. He’s not just some famous player from 100 years ago. He’s the greatest of all time.

I think I’ve made my point now. I think you understand the significance. Red Grange, in an era where points weren’t scored and teams often punted as a way to advance the ball closer to the opponent’s goal, literally changed the game of football with what I believe to be the single greatest individual performance in college football history. It happened 100 years ago tomorrow. And we will now celebrated it 100 years + 1 day later on October 19th, 2024. Against Michigan, the defending national champions (like 1924) with a new coach (like 1924).

Time for history to repeat itself.

Wouldn’t that be something? I’ll be there.

Nicholas Bate –

Never discard any of your writing. You may decide to abandon it. You may decide it’s simply not working. But file it away: sometime in the future that scene may be just what you need and with space, time and a different context it might be a winner.

To the writer, there are no wasted words.

Dave Bautista mocked Donald Trump’s masculinity, calling him a “weak, tubby toddler,” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in a clip that’s gone viral.

Yeah, I’d love to see a shortened version played as a political ad during the World Series, NFL games, college football games, NBA games… all the ongoing televised sports. It’s a perfect political ad.

Kamala Harris: Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally. I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street pic.twitter.com/tjhbDB9m3R

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 17, 2024

Kevin Wammer, on his site Cliophate, made a good list.

Always carry a book.
Don’t shy away from “hard”.
Get your reps in.
Prioritize sleep.
Listen more than you speak.
Write to think.
Be useful.
Never half-ass anything.
Create room to think.
Look at the sky more.
Look at screens less.
Move in space.

AP –

Jimmy Carter cast his ballot in the 2024 election Wednesday.

The former president voted by mail, the Carter Center confirmed in a statement. It happened barely two weeks after Carter celebrated his 100th birthday on Oct. 1 at his home in Plains, Georgia, where he’s been living in hospice care.

His son Chip Carter said before the family gathering that his father had this election very much in mind.

“He’s plugged in,” Chip Carter told The Associated Press. “I asked him two months ago if he was trying to live to be 100, and he said, ‘No, I’m trying to live to vote for Kamala Harris.’”

Amazing.

I stumbled upon Lisa Buscomb and I find her short writing delightful. She has a couple of books full of these short pieces that are just long enough to make a point and short enough to read in a spare moment.

Here are a few she’s shared from her website.

PURPOSE

There is a little voice inside your head or a feeling in that space in your gut that tells you this is the right dream for you. There is a little something there, a little knowing that keeps tapping on your shoulder. But it also doesn’t make sense. Those around you tell you you’re crazy, it will never work. But what if you are right and they are wrong. But it’s not even about being right or wrong, it’s all about living life in full. It’s about following the crazy dreams, the big ideas, the excitement, the nudge, even when they are little. Life is about following what lights you up. And really, what if you are right, what if this little thought is going to bring you everything you ever dreamed of. Trust in you.

BE KINDER TO YOURSELF

Don’t be so hard on yourself. Some days, you wake and all the things you want to do just don’t happen. You scroll social media when you really hoped to journal. You lay in bed instead of getting outside. You planned a healthy breakfast but reached for coffee first. Your sheets need a wash, and so does your hair. You remember you didn’t return your mum’s call and the library books are due back. Some days things just don’t go to plan, you feel behind and a little lost. But it’s okay. Everyone has these days. Take a breath, write yourself a love note, sit and enjoy that coffee, and the slow morning. You probably need the rest. And then remember that every moment is a new moment. And every day is a new day. And then make a change, get back on track, reset. This morning may not have been what you hoped for, but it was exactly what you needed.

SAY YES

Don’t wait until everything is perfect to say yes, to make that change and take the leap. Sometimes you have to move forward even when you don’t feel ready. When you’re a mix of nervousness and excitement. That’s a good time to take that step. You feel like you need to be a certain someone to say yes and follow your heart, but who you are today is exactly who you need to be.

Heather Cox Richardson, writing on her Substack newsletter Letters from an American, describes Trump at his most recent campaign stop.

In Oaks, Pennsylvania, tonight, Trump was supposed to take questions from preselected attendees at a town hall with South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. He did, at first, although his answers were all over the place and he urged people to vote on January 5. But then, in the hot and crowded space, two people needed medical attention. Slurring, Trump then said: “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” And then he stood on stage and swayed for 39 minutes of songs from his personal playlist before seeming to recall that he was supposed to be talking about the election, which he suddenly told the confused crowd was “the most important election in the history of our country” before turning back to the music.

Rob Crilly of the U.K.’s The Daily Mail wrote: “I was at Trump’s golden escalator launch, flew out of Washington with him in 2020 and have probably been to 100 rallies, give or take. Have never seen anything like tonight.” The headline over Marianne LeVine’s Washington Post story about the event read: “Trump sways and bops to music for 39 minutes in bizarre town-hall episode.

“The scene comes as Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump, 78, unstable and called into question his mental acuity.”

Here’s the Washington Post’s clip:

The Washington Post story is damning, and the video will be made into a thousand memes.

The first Silo Season 2 trailer promises to build on that jaw-dropping first season cliffhanger with even more surprises, including Steve Zahn as a survivor from another silo.

Mysterious.

Apple TV is killing it. Too bad not enough people know this show exists.

Nicholas Bate —

Move from your chair, your desk, your screen.

Move in all three dimensions.

Move on your own two feet.

Move in the outside for as long as your lock-down ‘freedom pass’ allows.

Move on rough terrain, through wilderness and where there is no wi-fi if you can, when you can and as often as you can.

Move faster, longer, harder.

Move as you are designed to do for health, longevity and peace of mind.

Warren Ellis on Megalopolis –

My first thought on leaving the cinema was: this was the cinema that made Coppola. The bones of the film come from the 1930s-1950s, to my untrained eye. But there are parts of Sixties filmmaking in there, Fellini, flashes of Seventies experimental filmmaking, some Eighties excess and a touch of No Wave, Nineties sleaze and 2000s lighting. I saw a few moments of underwater Guy Maddin, some Saul Bass, bursts of early Hollywood, a screwball comedy meet-cute, flashes of various experimental directors. Theatre. Shakespeare. Performance styles from various different eras rubbing up against each other. Dustin Hoffman doing a noir heavy next to Shia LaBeouf doing his neo-Nicolas Cage shamanic thing as Clodius. There’s newspapers and old-timey press packs with old cameras, and Nathalie Emmanuel whispering into a digital recording ring.

It’s most of a century of film mixed together and named a fable.

That does not sound like a film I want to see. It sounds like a complete and utter mess. I love the idea of combining various filmmaking techniques into a new and glorious thing, but this description is bonkers.

It is full of ideas. Over-full, sure, but who cares. The politics are sloppy, the symbolism is all over the place, the actors are performing in five different movies, everything stops dead early on while Adam Driver does five minutes of Hamlet, and who cares. It reaches for something. Something monumental. Its abiding message is not in the film, it’s about the film: it says “this is what I have learned about my artform, this is its history and this is where it could go. This is all I know and all I dream.”

I want to watch it two or three more times, at least. I will have to wait for a Blu-Ray.

I’m not going to tell you it’s a great film. On some simple shallow levels it may not even be a good film. But it’s all I’ve been able to think about all week and I want to watch it many more times. That, for me, makes it a compelling and valuable and, yes, entertaining film.

If you don’t like your art awash with human ambition and a deep pool of excessive madness, then there’ll be a new Captain America film along soon. MEGALOPOLIS, flawed though it may be, is the shit I live for.

I’m not super interested in that Captain America film either…

Evan Osnos, writing in The New Yorker, on what has been, win or lose, one of the more remarkable rises in American politics.

By gaining the nomination so late, Harris spared herself the obligation of courting the orthodox wing of her party in primaries. But a short run has risks; it left her little time to explain what she believes and what she would do in office. Temperamentally, she preferred to disgorge policy points than to explore her thinking with reporters. Early focus groups showed that voters had only vague impressions of her, and Republicans were racing to shape them, calling her a “D.E.I. hire” and “Comrade Kamala.”

In fact, Harris has never been a favorite of the left, and progressives in Congress, such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had fought to keep Biden in the race, assuming that a Harris Administration would not give their priorities as much attention. For as long as Harris has been in politics, she has been motivated less by ideology than by a practical ambition to widen the perimeter of power, to make insiders out of outsiders—including, not incidentally, herself. Rather than try to upend the system, she has vied to run it.

As the campaign enters its final weeks, neither Harris nor Trump has a decisive advantage. She is ahead by roughly 2.5 per cent nationally, but it’s not clear that the margin is wide enough to win the Electoral College. (Democrats have secured the popular vote in seven of the past eight Presidential elections, but lost the electoral vote, and the White House, in two of them.) Harris is desperately trying to hold together an anti-Trump movement that sprawls from “Cheney to Chomsky,” as Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, told me. “Her challenge is to make sure that none of the factions flee,” he said, “and, at the same time, to win over new people.”

The race has been steady for weeks on end. It will either be a nail biter or a blowout.

YouTuber Emeric has compiled a marvelous montage encompassing 629 films from all over the world, reflecting the constant evolution of cinema over the course of 147 years.

Here’s a complete list of the films used in the montage.