Hooray for stock images! But damn woodball P*ts. Could’ve had ourselves some potential high-quality schadenfreudes if things worked out nicely. Plural. Instead of potentially one. Well, for me at least.

Ah well. To the news.

NFL News
Gasp, no Dreamboat at P*ts OTAs, whatever shall happen? Also Julio Jones and Aaron Donald for the Falcons and RAM IT! respectively but that isn’t as newsworthy. Almost as “news”worthy is Odell Beckham, Jr. attending.

Other Sports News
Stephen Curry mentioned that Oracle was his “fucking house” during the Warriors’ Game 3 win. His momma then scolded him for his language.

The Tampa Bay Rays had Sergio Romo start Saturday so their “starter,” Ryan Yarborough, would be less likely to face the top of the lineup the third time through, instead pitching to the bottom of the order. The strategy worked as the Rays won 5–3. And then Romo started Sunday on their “bullpen day” because they don’t have a fifth starter, becoming the first pitcher to start games on consecutive days after pitching at least one inning the first day since Steve McCatty of the A’s in 1980. Because there is a stat for everything. The Rays lost that game 5–2.

I don’t have a “This Date in WWI History” for you, but I do have this. This past Saturday night I went to my alma mater (where I did my Master’s) to see a performance of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem.  Though written in 1962, many years after World War I, and commissioned for the consecration of a church that had been destroyed in World War II, the work is linked with The Great War because it contains the poetry of Wilfred Owen interspersed between the parts of the Requiem Mass. Owen, a lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment of the British Army, was one of the leading poets of the war, speaking of the horrors and the brutality of the trenches, of the gas, of the death. He was awarded the Military Cross, a third-level distinction, for his actions near the village of Joncourt on October 1st, 1918, but barely a month later—November 4th, a week before the Armistice—he was killed in action during the crossing of the Sambre-Oise Canal. And on Armistice Day, his mother received the news of his death, church bells ringing and all.

Unlike other requiems, due to Owen’s poetry the War Requiem is more cerebral—it doesn’t have the sheer fire and brimstone of Verdi’s Requiem, for instance, probably the standard for the genre. And no movement of the War Requiem demonstrates that, in my opinion, as much as the Libera me, the liturgical text asking to be saved when the world is judged. The poem Britten chooses for this movement is Owen’s “Strange Meeting,” written in 1918 but published posthumously. This poem is narrated by a soldier escaping the battlefield through some strange tunnel, and ending up in Hell, where he meets an enemy soldier he had killed the previous day.

The War Requiem is scored for solo soprano, tenor, and baritone; for children’s chorus and full chorus; and for orchestra and chamber orchestra.

On a lighter note…

What’s on tonight?

NHL
Eastern Conference Finals Game 6: Lightning vs. Capitals (TBL leads 3–2) 8:00 PM, NBCSN

Can the Caps prevent Caps-ing, even after exorcising the Ice Stillers demons, and take the series to a Game 7? Or will this be like the bad ending of Chrono Trigger?

NBA
Eastern Conference Finals Game 4: Celtics vs. Cavaliers (BOS leads 2–1) 8:30 PM, ESPN

Can the Cavs tie up the series? Sorry, I wrote that wrong. Can LeBron tie up the series? Maybe even get severals of points from The Pips as a bonus?

I’m sorry, that was mean. I apologize to The Pips, who have been a staple of American music.

MLB
Doesn’t look like anything’s national, but you can see Marlins vs. Mets at 7:10 on whatever the hell ESPN+ is.

BourbonBrotherBilly should be returning tomorrow to take you back to your regularly scheduled programming. In the meantime, have at it and I’ll see you back up here Thursday for the BattleBots Beat.