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1) Atlanta Rollergirls compete at Yaarab Shrine Center.
2) Gipsy Kings perform at Chastain Park Amphitheater.
3) Comedian Christopher Titus performs at Funny Farm.
4) Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent for CNN, discusses and signs his new book, Chasing Life, at Decatur Library.
5) Ringling Brothers opens at Beep Beep Gallery.
(Photo by Frank Mullen/Matteblack)
We’ll never live down Whatizzit, a.k.a. Izzy, the lamest, stupidest aspect of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Slate has a piece today defending China’s Olympic mascots that includes a take-down of Izzy and takes some surprising swipes at Atlanta as a city:
Let’s not forget the 1996 Atlanta mascot, known variously as “Whatzit,” “Whatizhee,” or the shortened “Izzy.” To this day, I remain unsure what exactly Izzy was meant to embody. The Journal recalls that he was “derided as everything from a ‘blue slug’ to a ’sperm in sneakers.’ ” (Izzy also represented perhaps the worst Olympics since Munich. The Atlanta games featured both a terrorist attack and a wave of nauseating Nike/Coke/America triumphalism and were held in a backwater of a town smaller than, I’m not kidding, at least 25 Chinese cities you’ve never even heard of.)
Oh, snap! Livejournal blogger elemess rightly points out:
Since when is Atlanta a “backwater”? We have the world’s busiest airport. The world’s most recognizable news organization, the most successful delivery company in history, and the most consumed beverage other than water were all founded here… There are cities in China no one’s heard of larger than practically every Olympic city, including such backwaters as Berlin, Rome, and Athens, not to mention such cosmopolitan locales as Lillehammer and Nagano. Let me let you in on a not-a-secret: Shenyang is a backwater. So are Wuhan, Dongguan, and nearly every other Chinese city that isn’t Beijing, Shanghai, or Hong Kong.
Coincidentally enough, the new documentary Up the Yangtze, which I review this week, conveys the staggering scale of some of those Chinese cities that are obscure to us in the West.
I always hated Whatizzit because the choice felt like an admission (not necessarily correct) that Atlanta lacks its own identity. But I don’t recall Izzy ever being known as “Whatizhee” — is that incorrect, or have I just suppressed that unpleasant memory?
(Image from the official website of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games)
ELECTRIC BUGABOO: Fuel costs, new plant construction and repairing an aging power grid are driving electricity prices up as much as 29 percent in some parts of the country; Georgia Power’s rate hike takes place this month.
CLAYTON: Corrective superintendent John Thompson brings in a second member of his inner circle to help lead Clayton schools out of SACS ire.
BEACH EXCEEDING GRASP: Jekyll Island beach erosion is becoming a problem.
MEX APPEAL: Mexican musical acts are enjoying growing success in Atlanta, as are Clear Channel radio stations VIVA-FM (105.7) and El Patron WBZY-FM (105.3).
SMOLTZ: Despite having just undergone surgery that has ended many pitchers’ careers, and despite being 41, he says he’ll try to pitch again.
MASCOT CASE: Future Olympic cities such as London try to do as Atlanta didn’t when picking a mascot. Says the blue pariah’s creator, graphic designer John Ryan:
I hope that I can prove that I have something else that I will be known for before I die.
