Today's Reading - 12/17/07

● MICHAEL ROSENBERG: U-M didn't make a good hire -- it made a great one

The University of Michigan's long football nightmare is over.  After missing out on at least two other candidates to take over as head football coach, Michigan finally got their guy - and Rich Rodriguez looks like the right one.  (I was hoping to get a call.  The opening line of my introductory press conference would've been "You can't spell 'Michigan' without 'Ian.'"  T-shirts and bumper stickers would've eventually followed.)

The people of West Virginia (such as Fried Rice Friend, Wabi-Sabi) are surely sick of seeing their coaches migrate to Ann Arbor (men's basketball coach John Beilein left WVU for U-M in April), but a program with the Mountaineers' kind of tradition will likely bring in a fine replacement.

I don't blog much about sports other than baseball anymore, but I love this hire.  I like that he's a young coach who could stick around for a while.  But most importantly, he represents a break from a coaching tree and mindset that was becoming increasingly fossilized, and brings some long overdue creativity to Michigan football.  Go Blue!

● Changing Courses at the Food Network

Fewer people are watching and the top-rated food show on TV belongs to Bravo.  So Food Network apparently has to freshen things up.  Neither Emeril Lagasse nor Mario Batali are part of that new direction, it seems.   Hell, the food shows I watch the most are on Travel Channel, so maybe Food Network knows what it's doing.

● Out of South Africa

A grateful memory from my two years at Iowa is the opportunity to have read virtually all the works of J.M. Coetzee.  If there's a better chronicle of the divisions existing in post-apartheid South Africa than Disgrace, I'd like to read it.  (Well, not right now.)  So when an author whose work seems so intertwined with a particular region moves to another country, it's bound to raise a few eyebrows in curiosity.  But his admiration for other writers who have re-invented their cultural identity may have tipped off his eventual intentions.

● An Actress Who's As Great as the Sum of Her Parts

I think Laura Linney has been in a decent amount of the movies I've enjoyed in recent years.  She's kind of the female equivalent to Philip Seymour Hoffman, so isn't it interesting that they're in a new film together?  The Savages opens next week in Ann Arbor.  I'm there, man.