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Alison Skirtboston

Skirt! Boston editor

Skirt! is evidence that the universe is paying attention: I spent the last six years at mach speed, whether finishing college (Emerson) while writing full time for Boston Globe West (2001-2004) or editing the Boston Parents’ Paper during the day while holding down the steady gig writing for Globe ...

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I'm Addicted

Alison, editor

OK, I’m not afraid to share the dirty secret about how I’ve been spending my weeknights. Just know that I blame my daughter Grace, maven of the quirky and offbeat.

This is it: Unbeatable Banzuke

It’s a Japanese game show of sorts in which contestants do crazy things that remind me of the great American game show heyday of the 1970s (Beat the Clock, the Gong Show... oh, if I could have all of that TV time back I’d be practicing medicine now..). They traverse an obstacle course on stilts or upside-down, doing handstands, or take on big climbing- and rope swinging-tasks over pits of greenish water.

Along with gut wrenching replays of people falling off the course again and again are many scenes of losers smiling. We always remark on that – they actually fail on international television (hands slip off, feet aren’t steady, just can’t jump high enough) yet they’re always smiling and respond to a (shrill) television reporter politely. When did Americans forget how to lose so graciously? Why is it that our “heroes” throw their baseball gloves or slam other players or talk trash when they lose?

I guess I’ll have to study it some more to learn the answer.