Thursday, April 3, 2008

American Idol and Orange Crate Art

Though I have watched no more than a few chance minutes of American Idol (and a couple of Sanjaya Malakar clips on YouTube), I find it strangely exciting to learn that an American Idol contestant has read Orange Crate Art. He is Michael Johns, who went in search of the meaning of "in your wheelhouse," as used by American Idol judge Randy Jackson. On his Idol blog, Johns writes

I found another blogger who says that Wheelhouse is a metaphor for a "hitter's power zone, among other things."
I am that blogger, in a post on James Carville's metaphors:
As I just learned, wheelhouse is (among other things) a metaphor for "a hitter's power zone."
I'm impressed that Michael Johns is looking up idioms in his free time. Would I also be impressed by his singing?

American Idol viewers, please add your observations.

comments: 4

SaoirseDaily2 said...

He is a wonderful singer. Kind of rock, blues and soul all rolled in to one. Nice looking. He is one of my choices who might make it all the way this season. Being a liberal democrat I LOVE James Carville. I like you blog.

Anonymous said...

Small world :)

Michael Leddy said...

Thanks for reading and commenting, S. and S. I'm going to watch American Idol this week out of curiosity.

Jessica said...

It's interesting to me that it was the Australian contestant who made the effort to find out the meaning of a metaphor he didn't understand (Johns is from Perth apparently - I don't watch American Idol as I'm in Melbourne, Australia). I'm proud of my fellow Australian's openness to learning new things! Even though we all speak English there are some phrases that won't translate easily... I assume a 'hitter' refers to baseball? In Australia we might have referred to 'being in the goal square' (Australian Rules Football) to describe his advantageous position. Or 'hitting it for 6' which is the largest score a batsman can achieve in one hit in cricket. Any other Aussies have suggestions?