Basketball for keeps.

That’s the essence of streetball, an extreme form of playground basketball that's thrown down by some of America's most charismatic young athletes.

If these hoopsters pulled any of their flashier trademark moves - think 720-degree dunk – during an ordinary game they'd probably be benched for selfish play. In streetball that's just the way it's done - 100 percent highlight reel and no apologies.

This week the And1 Mixtape Tour wraps up in New York - the city where this subculture sport was born - after a 25-city swing featuring exhibition games.

Crowds averaged 5,000 to 6,000 per venue, says Bill Lessard, publicist for streetball superstar Waliyy "Main Event" Dixon.

Streetball's not a feeder for future NBA stars, but neither is it simply a home for pro-game castoffs. "This thing is its own form of success," says Mr. Lessard. "Main Event," he points out, has built a huge following, scored product endorsements, and even landed a job as co-host - with Public Enemy rapper Chuck D - of "Sports Skool: Streetball," an instruction show broadcast on On Demand.

Because streetballers tend to exude the kind of high-performance joy that characterized the old Harlem Globetrotters, they can also inspire youths to add real creativity to their athleticism - and to see basketball in a whole new light.

Now that's a slam dunk.

by Clayton Collins

Oliver Stone’s "World Trade Center" is just the beginning of programming marking the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Between "United 93" and Stone's film, it appears that enough time has passed for artists to begin addressing events surrounding the attacks, although not surprisingly, the tone remains deeply reverential.

TV has also dialed up its 9/11 coverage.

The most ambitious dramatization appears on ABC in a two-part, six-hour miniseries called “The Path to 9/11,” on the anniversary weekend. Starring Harvey Keitel and Donnie Wahlberg, the show is based on the 9/11 Commission reports as well as other published material and original interviews. It compresses time and presents composite characters, techniques which offer cleaner storytelling but will certainly rankle some who feel the events shouldn't be tinkered with by filmmakers.

Not to worry – documentaries abound. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour hosts a two-hour look at the Al Qaeda leader titled, “In the Footsteps of bin Laden,” on Wednesday, Aug. 23. The show, which will continue to air through the end of the month, burrows in to Osama bin Laden’s early years, interviewing friends, relatives, and associates on in 10 nations on four continents.

"We spoke to his teacher, an English teacher," CNN vice president Mark Nelson told TV reporters last month. “We spoke to fighters who were with him in Afghanistan. We spoke to Saudi royalty, US government offcials, and the CIA. All of them helped paint a portrait of who Osama bin Laden is and how he evolved from a child to where he is today.”

The National Geographic Channel will follow up its own “Inside 9/11” with “The Final Report: Osama’s Escape,” scheduled as the Aug. 29 episode of its ongoing “Final Report” series. “Countdown to Ground Zero” kicks off an entire week of 9/11 programming on The History Channel. The show follows a range of story threads, from FBI agent John O’Neill, who warned of a possible attack back in 1993, as well as firefighters and relatives of those who died in the events of that day. The next night, the channel focuses in on a single tale, retelling the now-familiar but still enormously moving story of the 12 men trapped beneath tons of rubble in “The Miracle of Stairway B.”

Court TV, the ambitious basic-cable channel, offers an engrossingly sober film, what it calls a documentary of the 9/11 Commission reports, titled "On Native Soil,” narrated by Kevin Costner and Hillary Swank, airing Monday, Aug. 21.

PBS will continue its compelling series, “America Rebuilds II: Return to Ground Zero,” during the anniversary weekend. This is the second part of a planned trilogy focusing on the challenges of rebuilding the World Trade Center site. Part One, "America Rebuilds," which followed the first year at the site, is available from the Great Projects Film Company on DVD.

by Gloria Goodale

People send me the weirdest things. As editor of the Weekend section, I’m accustomed to my mailbox being stuffed with press releases and media kits. But a “Dharma & Greg” yoga mat?

That particular item was sent from a PR firm trying to drum up interest in the DVD release of Jenna Elfman’s TV comedy. (Opening the package containing the yoga mat, complete with the sitcom’s logo emblazoned on it, made me laugh more than the show ever did.)

Over the past year, Hollywood has sent me dozens of tchotchkes. So many, in fact, that I can now spell tchotchke, which is the kind of word that judges use only as tiebreaker in the finals of the National Spelling Bee contest.

Among the more notable items:

• A fake severed ear in a fast-food container to promote a horror movie. (I’ve yet to receive a chainsaw from the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” people – why didn’t anyone think of that?)
• An “Ice Age” snowglobe. (Rumored to be on Al Gore’s list of rejected promotional items for “An Inconvenient Truth.”)
• A Dennis Franz bobblehead doll to draw attention to “N.Y.P.D. Blue.” (Did they take the bobblehead of Dr. Phil and superimpose it on the body of Detective Andy Sipowicz? Because that’s what it looks like.)
• A trophy - with my name emblazoned on it - featuring a "differently abled" runner frozen awkwardly midstep, to coincide with the release of "The Ringer," a comedy about The Special Olympics. (Note to publicist: Try flattery next time.)

Thanks to the constant indundation of promotional items, my desk now resembles a shelf at a Hasbro factory. Most of the items are made in China, which is ironic considering that Hollywood, which has had dozens of movies banned by Beijing this summer, probably imports more from China than it actually exports.

Colleagues stop by my cubicle to check the time on my clock – which features a picture of Harold Lloyd, the bespectacled silent-movie comedian, dangling from a clock tower in 1923’s “Safety Last.” Or they pick up the talking Napoleon Dynamite figurine that was delivered upon the movie’s DVD release. Among its catchphrases: “This is pretty much the worst video ever made.” (I guess there is something to be said for truth in advertising, after all.)

Do these marketing-campaign blitzes work? Yes and no. On the one hand, a package containing a plastic soldier’s helmet and dog-tags with my name on it can’t help but draw my attention to the military drama “Over There.” But it doesn’t mean that we’ll necessarily give it coverage or a good review.

Heck, we wouldn’t be swayed even if Hollywood hired Jack Abramoff to lobby us with a suitcase full of cash. The Monitor has a strict ethics policy that says, among other things, that “employees may not solicit or accept anything of value in exchange for the inclusion of any matter in, or the exclusion of any matter from, any article.” The policy goes on to state that all gifts or favors must be rejected except where they are of trinket value.

I’ve been saving up all this swag just for such an article so that Monitor readers can get a glimpse at the excesses of the Hollywood machine. And now, dear reader, please excuse me: I think it’s time to purge all of it. Except for that trophy – that goes on the mantelpiece.  

by Stephen Humphries

It’s Year 1 A.T.

That’s “After TiVo” – 365 days since I plunged into the world of digital video recording, or DVR for us hipsters.

That little box has changed my life.

Now before you reach for your mouse, fed up with another rabid “tivotee," just hear me out.

First off, I’m not being paid by TiVo, though my friends probably think I am. TiVo, like linoleum or Kleenex, is practically a generic term (much to the dismay of the company.) So when I say “TiVo,” it means simply the ability to record TV digitally and watch shows, commercial free, whenever you want. Most cable companies offer their own DVRs.

What I mean by “changed my life” is that it’s made such a profound shift in the way I interact with the medium of television that it’s hard to recall what tubegazing was like before. Most of the change is better, some is worse. (I’ll get to that in a minute).

I equate the impact of TiVo to that of e-mail or the Internet. Can you remember what life was like before you could communicate across the globe at the speed of light? Or find Ichiro Suzuki’s career statistics in an eighth of a second? That world doesn’t exist any more. This became abundantly clear during my recent high school reunion. When I last knew those people, Amazon was simply a rainforest and music contained pops and scratches. It was strange e-mailing people that I used to dial on a rotary phone.

TiVo feels the same way. I can’t imagine having to race home for “Must See” Thursdays. I now have must-see Friday nights, or Saturday afternoons, or whenever I get around to watching recorded programs. I can’t imagine not being able to pause live TV to chat with my wife or take a phone call. I now have trouble abiding commercials. (Sorry, advertisers.) And the idea of remembering to program a VCR every week to tape a favorite show – as opposed to setting up a Season Pass, where all episodes of that show automatically record – feels Mesozoic.

TiVo no longer seems like a luxury item. Just as DVDs have replaced videos, and iPods have vaporized Walkmen, DVRs are on the verge of that rarefied territory of “necessary” household gadget.

In the weeks after TiVo first arrived, I watched television like it was my job. (Well, it sort of is – the Weekend Zone likes to be up on the latest pop-culture offerings to let you know what’s out there.) But it soon became clear that TiVo wasn’t blessing me with its promised “found” time, gained from eliminating commercials. Since hour-long dramas took just 40 or so minutes to watch, I realized I could cram three in where I would normally only fit two. And the “gee whiz” factor had me recording shows that I might not normally watch. My “Now Playing” list looked like the New York City phonebook, and I felt an obligation to watch it all.

But after the initial euphoria – about six months into the TiVo-lennium – things began to settle into a more modest routine. I dropped some marginal programs from my Season Pass Manager. And I began to reclaim some of that found time: I would spend an extra hour in my garden or at the gym or reading, start the baseball game half-way through, and still finish at it’s normal end time. I actually began watching less TV than I would have if I didn’t have the DVR.

And I’m not alone. A new survey indicates that people with DVRs actually watch less TV than those without.

So it’s all bliss, right? Mostly, but not entirely. I’ve found my attention span shrinking. When you can pause and rewind live TV, it’s easy to get distracted browsing the Web or the newspaper, knowing you can always go back if you missed something. I find my mind wandering at movies and then realize that that missed dialogue is gone forever. Even listening to the radio, I’ll occasionally reach for some imaginary rewind button.

So that’s my year of TiVo. What’s yours been like? Good? Bad? Ugly? Are you holding out for the return of Beta? Let us know.

by David S. Hauck