[lit-ideas] Re: "I'm Not A Foot-Ball Hero, But ..."
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:18:09 -0800
I recently read, perhaps in Cartledge, that the "games" that the Greeks
liked to play were considered to be training for war. You competed in
running, wrestling, javelin throwing, etc. knowing full well that those
skills were useful in combat. I have wondered about modern men who are
disconnected from that goal. They play but they have no intention of
fighting, many of them. Perhaps there is a risk of alienation or a vague,
unexamined, sense of worthlessness in such people. Since our ancestors
were hunter-gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years, we may have many
such risks.
In my case, for reasons I don't recall, I "played" with the idea of using
sport-type skills, eventually, for war. I lifted weights and was on the
gymnastic team. I ran and swam long distances - on my own. If I had any
thoughts of heroism or glory I can't recall them. Which isn't to say I
didn't have them, but if I did they were probably related to the WWII
Hollywood movies we watched every Saturday at the Grenada or Avalon Theaters
down on Avalon Blvd - such as Wake Island and Sands of Iwo Jima.
But if you reach the top in any sports field, you are probably no longer
interested in glory, if you ever were. Out here in Southern California I
read that the Dodgers signed Andruw Jones to a two-year contract for 36
Million dollars - after a bad year playing for someone else. Is heroism
involved? I don't think so. Something has become twisted in this process
of training for war.
As to football, the grenade they throw has air in it.
On the Military Channel and History channels you will sometimes see, after
they show films of some great battle of World War Two for example, old
timers, some of whom received medals for heroism, talking about their feats,
which they invariably make light of. Some of that may have to do with
embarrassment and modesty, but they describe the events and often think
someone who didn't survive was more deserving than they were. Chance played
a role also: someone needed to see what they did, and they know that on a
cosmic scale, that isn't fair. I have never seen one of these old guys
boast.
Whereas I have seen few boxers, for example, who don't boast. Perhaps that
is because they never intend to use their skills in a war and that is all
they have. Young people watch them and long to develop similar skills so
they can grow up and boast as well - as well as make a lot of money; which
is something else they can boast of.
There is no record of Leonidas boasting. He knew he was going off to the
Hot Gates to die. He told Gorgo to marry a good man and raise good
children. There is no record that ever she did. The implication I thought
I got from Cartledge is that she probably thought no one else measured up.
I watched an old movie last night, Jigsaw. One of the characters was named
Barbara Whitfield. She didn't look at all barbarous. The part was played
by Jean Wallace, someone I had never heard of (that I can recall). She was
stunningly beautiful. I looked her up: The still photo on IMdb doesn't do
her beauty justice: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0908695/ It always seems
strange that someone so young and beautiful could in actuality have grown
old and died.
JL and I discussed whether one could feel proud of beauty; whether there was
glory involved in beauty. This particular beauty tried twice to kill
herself, once in 1946 (when she was 23) and once in 1949 (when she was 26).
She married two of the most popular leading men in Hollywood: Franchot Tone
and Cornel Wilde. The later tried to make a serious actress out of her. I
don't know if it worked. Her acting wasn't very good in the 1949 movie,
Jigsaw. And I don't know if she tried to kill herself before or after that
movie - probably after.
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 11:44 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] "I'm Not A Foot-Ball Hero, But ..."
"I wanted glory too. I wanted to be as special as God. So I
pursued it. Let's hear it for the glory of Atlas! Two, four, six,
eight -- who do we appreciate -- yay At, yay Las, yay, yay Atlas!! They
didn't know my real name. I was a 6th, 7th and 8th grade Memphis Parochial
League football hero, I'm sure you've heard of me. I was covered in glory.
Me and God. He because He is like some kind of Super Hero, me because I was
stupid enough to risk injury just to hear 8th grade girls shout: Yay, yay
Atlas. Couldn't get enough of that Atlas stuff. Well, yes, I could. I
went out for high school football, tackled a guy who weighed over a hundred
pounds more than me. When I woke up, I was finished with glory. What is
glory?"
J. M. Geary, "My Life as Lived"
----
Anyway, Grice thought that negative statements are _odd_. Never mind true or
false. They are odd.
His example,
"He's not lighting a cigarette with a five-dollar bill"
Certainly true, but why would someone like to say anything like that? (WOW,
p. 5).
Ditto for the title of this post,
"I'm not a football hero"
The phrase sounded and resounded in me -- and the reason was I could not
understand
as I do now the line following that in the Cliff Edwards song available at
http://mfile3.akamai.com/14123/wm2/muze.download.akamai.com/2890/us/uswm2/_!
/100/120100_1_10.asx?auth=daEahcLb.cbardwdecYazbzcdcOdYbDafdn-bhyTEB-Ci-hfhc
e
<http://mfile3.akamai.com/14123/wm2/muze.download.akamai.com/2890/us/uswm2/_
!/100/120100_1_10.asx?auth=daEahcLb.cbardwdecYazbzcdcOdYbDafdn-bhyTEB-Ci-hfh
ce&aifp=1234&obj=v70126> &aifp=1234&obj=v70126
"I'm not a football hero
-- but I'M A BEAR IN A LADY'S BOUDOIR
-- and that's the title of the song. He keeps repeating that he is not a
football hero, and apparently the verse of the song also mentions in some
detail how a football game
develops.
In any case
(i) I wonder if L. K. Helm believes that 'hero' as in 'football hero' is a
misuse of
the word? I think it is -- but most people don't speak Greek, so I'm
tolerant.
(ii) L. K. Helm once posted a three question, as I remember, questionnaire
on glory. Perhaps Helm can provide, if he has the time, his own answers to
keep
the dialogue going.
So far, I think 4 people have intervened:
--- Geary, thinks Glory as applied to God, is a transubstantial
There's also the conceptual philosophical problem,
where 'glory' relates to 'pleasure'.
For Epicurus and Aristippus indeed, you cannot have
MORE PLEASURE. Either you enjoy something or you
don't. There's no scale or quantity of pleasure. It's not
a 'degree' word. Ditto, I would think, for 'glory'.
If the Greeks were right that 'kleos' was 'report'
how can you get more of a report than another?
-- R. Paul thinks it's timE,
timE. But then I purposively quoted from the Liddell/Scott
quoting Homer with the expresson,
timE kai kleos
If Paul were right, this would mean, "glory and (more) glory".
A redundancy if ever there was one.
-- I think, with Humpty Dumpty, it's a NICE knockdown
argument.
And there _is_ hope for glory.
I once wrote an essay on this in Italian. A subsection
went, "Is there hope for glory?"
spes per un bello argumento contundente
The meaning of 'argue' has to be understood _physically_
as in
Tom had been 'arguing' with Jerry.
Surely if Tom presents Jerry with a nice knockdown
argument, there's glory for Tom
-- and then there's L. K. Helm who may elaborate
on glory. Is this a Western-Civilisation thing?
I wonder what's Hittite for 'glory'
Odd that Gloria is a common name in Spanish America, but not in the
masculine, "Glorio".
On the other hand, nice Anglo-Saxon girls are called "Barbara" but I
never met
a "Barbarus" so far -- Other than Conan, maybe
Cheers,
JL
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