Double the Pleasure

I am now officially hooked on Find! the PBS show that follows antiques experts Leigh and Leslie Keno as they travel across America, searching for treasures in people's attics, living rooms, and basements.

Find! debuted in the fall of 2003 and looked like yet another reality show about experts coming to your house and going through your things to critique them--and you. While Find! may at first blush appear to be a public television version of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or Extreme Makeover, it would more aptly be described as the Antiques Roadshow in reverse: the appraisers come to the collector, and quickly assess the value of various furnishings and collectibles.

The Kenos are articulate, handsome, intelligent, nattily dressed, and wildly enthusiastic about antique wood furniture. They were by far the most telegenic of the appraisers on the Roadshow. Add to that the extra kick that they are twins who dress alike and talk alike--it was only a matter of time before they got their own series on which to shine. In fact, one has to wonder why it took so long for Find! or some version of it to be made.

Find! joins together what Roadshow unwisely put asunder. The Kenos' tag team appraisals garnered them attention in the early episodes of the Roadshow, but later the brothers were relegated to solo appearances. (Whose idea was that?) On Find! they are together again, bringing their engaging dual presence to what could be snoozeville TV in other hands. Each episode is high-energy from the snazzy, quick-cut opening sequence to the brotherly ribbing at the end.

But it is what is in between that makes Find! so very entertaining. Looking at dove-tailed drawers and turning over vases hardly sounds like riveting stuff, but the Kenos are so exuberant and genuinely pumped up, you'd think they were going to a boxing match. After a brief introduction, we see them racing up the steps or the walkway into someone's home. Upon entering, the twins almost immediately take out their flashlights and get to the task at hand. Grabbing, snatching, and almost constantly chattering--my television's captioning picks up only about half of what they say--the Kenos are dizzying to watch. Dana Stevens of Slate calls them a "virtual blond tornado." The brothers have no qualms about putting their hands all over valuable objects. On Episode 113, Leigh and Leslie actually play around with two old firemen's stove pipe parade hats. After they take jabs at each other about looking like Abraham Lincoln, a fire house memorabilia expert announces that the pair of hats is worth $25,000! Two episodes later, Leigh dives under a chest of drawers while Leslie talks about its origins. Leigh emerges none the worse for wear, but I keep waiting for one of them to break something or bump his head.

Stevens takes the brothers to task for not living up to one of the most tired expectations of reality shows--that the hosts/experts be catty toward the people they are supposed to be helping. I think the Kenos' appeal lies precisely in their oodles of charm. They kid each other constantly, but know better than to make fun of the people who invite them into their homes. Had the Kenos been cutting people down to size and gleefully deflating expectations on Antiques Roadshow, they would hardly have qualified for their own series--at least not on PBS. Stevens speculates that the Kenos must kiss up to people because that is what keeps furniture flying in and out of showrooms. It is more likely that the twins are simply nice guys whose parents taught them to mind their manners. And, unlike the unknown hosts of other reality shows, the Kenos do not have to enhance their celebrity by being snarky.

Find! has a few flaws. For one, it is only a half-hour show. Time flies when you're watching the Kenos upend furniture. Maybe the producers were afraid that an hour with the twins would exhaust viewers. Sometimes the show sends only one of the brothers to look at decorator show houses and restored older homes. While each one is engaging on his own, the show is much more fun when the two are together. My biggest complaint is that the captioning service does a lousy job of keeping straight who is talking. Much of the time, viewers can see only the brothers' legs or hands. Leslie's and Leigh's voices sound so much alike that it is often impossible to tell who said what when the camera does not show which one is speaking. Interestingly, the twins are fairly easy to tell apart on sight. Leigh's hair is wavier than Leslie's and parts just to the right of center. Leslie's hair is parted on the left side. Leigh is also broad in the shoulders; Leslie is visibly slimmer. The observant viewer will also note that Leslie wears a wedding band, while Leigh's left hand is bare.

If you haven't seen Find!, it is worth catching up with the reruns over the summer. The series does not have a permanent time slot on the PBS schedule. From what I have seen on the website, most PBS stations do carry the show. To find Find! in your area, go to the show's website. Stevens' article for Slate can be found here.

Experimental Post

Well, I see that Blogger now has more editing and formatting capabilities.  I am just trying things out with this post.  My opinion thus far:
 

1. I like some of the changes at Blogger.
2. "They" still need to make it easier to add links to the sidebar
3. If Blogger continues with the upgrades, I will continue to post here, at least occasionally.

 

 

The Great Blogger Relaunch

Actually, that is Blogger's title. I'm too lazy to come up with anything else to call this post. My feelings about nuBlogger have been summed up pretty well at this blog

The new look of the site and the new templates are just what the doctor ordered. Also, making permalinks, now called Page Posts, appears fairly easy. But I must say that making people have to mess with typing code just to put links in the gutter (sidebar) is not very user friendly. It is one of the main reasons my primary blog is elsewhere. In a related diss, losing any changes to the sidebar whenever you change the template hardly makes sense if the whole aim of the new, improved site is to get casual bloggers--such as myself-- to use Blogger as their host. Maybe it is impossible to change templates without losing additions to the sidebar, I'm not tech savvy at all, so that could be the case. But I somehow doubt it.

How can I really complain? Blogger has been nice enough (or perhaps inattentive enough) to allow me to diss them without kicking me off the site. Maybe they know that no one reads Pila Posts. I'd like to think that they are just so fair-minded and obsessed with free speech that they refuse to dump complainers.

The Future Is Now

Isn't that something legendary football coach Vince Lombardi said?
The phrase is apt now. I'm back with a new post, so that comment about maybe coming back in the future has come true. Whether I'm back to stay is another matter.

Props to Blogger for providing some new features and better looking templates that don't take lots of knowledge of HTML, web design, etc. to apply. I did lose the links in my sidebar, but since this will be at best a secondary blog, that doesn't really matter. I do love the look of the polka dot template. It is clean, cute and easy to read.

I was sorto surprised by Blogger's changes, given they came with no warning. I was a bit afraid that maybe I'd typed in the wrong URL or something. The home page is easier on the eyes, but does kinda look like "Blogging for Dummies." That is not necessarily a bad thing, especially for bloggers such as myself.

It appears that adding stuff to the sidebar is still not particularly easy. But I could be wrong about that.

Anyway, if you happen by, please check out my primary blog . Feel free to stop by here. Who knows when I may decide to change the template just for the heck of it.

Ghost Draft

I just typed a not-very-nice good-bye to Blogger but did not save it. Without going into details, I am leaving Pila Posts behind. I've a new blog that can be found here. If you happen by here, please check out the new blog, it needs friends and readers. It is probably not good blogging etiquette to use one blog hosting service to invite readers to check out another. But that's what I'm doing, anyway.

Pila Posts has been a fun creative outlet. But mostly it has been maddening. With another blog plus an on-line journal, I have to give it up. I was going to let this blog die a slow death--a post here, a new link there. Then I realized that it is probably better to make a clean, final break.

To the folks at Blogger: So long. Maybe I'll stop by here in the future--if you'll have me. Take care and Peace.

Wow!

Happy New Year, six weeks late!! Haven't done any blogging here this year. I didn't realize it had been so long. Bad weather always limits my computer time. However, new machine should be here soon.

I did watch a good chunk of the Grammys this year, which is unusual. (I had sort of sworn off of them years ago when "Ten Summoner's Tales" lost Album of the Year to "The Bodyguard" soundtrack. Then I started watching snippets of the show a few years three or four years ago. This year, I saw most of the show.

A few gripes: There were way too many commercials, as always with these events. There was not enough variety in the musical numbers. I liked the show the way it was when I was growing up. There were always segments devoted to music that was outside the popular tastes of the time, in keeping with the Grammy's celebration of all genres of recording. Now there is no gospel, no classical, no opera. Everything is pop, rock, hip-hop, country. Much as I love Earth, Wind, and Fire, the funk segment went on for too long, with too much time given to Parliament/Funkadelic.

How did Cold Play's "Clocks" win Record of the Year? Nothing against them, but I thought the award was supposed to go to the record that was inescapable, of the times, etc. How could "Hey Ya" not have been chosen? But Outkast made up for the slight by getting album of the year, so maybe it didn't matter.

Touching Moments: Luther Vandross singing a line from "The Power of Love;" Richard Marks' (Marx?) kind and gracious acceptance speech after winning (with Luther V) Song of the Year; Yoko Ono accepting the President's Award on behalf of John Lennon.

Surprisingly Good: Well, surprising to me. I thought that both Beyonce' and Justin Timberlake showed their stuff. Although I'm not quite sure why some people were allowed to perform twice (Outkast, Beyonce', Sting and Justin Timberlake), JT and Beyonce displayed real showmanship. Beyonce caught a dove at the end of her performance, while Justin played piano--who knew he could do that?

I suppose there must have been a theme of mixing newbies with veterans. Sting performed "Roxanne" with Sean Paul. Beyonce and Prince opened the televised portion of the show. Earth, Wind and Fire sang back up for Outkast. JT performed "Senorita" with the help of Arturo Sandovol (hope that is somewhere close to his name) and then lent his "veteran" chops to the Black-Eyed Peas.

Outkast closed the show with a rockin' version of "Hey Ya," but I could have done without the marching band.