[lit-ideas] Re: For Geary
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 15:42:52 +0900
On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 3:12 PM, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> Very funny. If you knew the gnashing of teeth going on in this city right
> now, you would be recriminating yourself for such a taunt. Although I do
> find it interesting that I who follow no sports at all whatsoever, who, in
> fact, find it all so excessively boring to the point of praying "shoot me,
> dear Jesus," if I have to ever watch another man run this way then that -- I
> find it curious, to say the least, that I too fall in line when the
> University of Memphis gets into the Sweet 16 of the NCAA, find myself
> actually watching the mindless games, actually wanting U of M to win, not
> just wanting but abusively shouting at the TV, cursing the refs and the
> stupid ass players who can't make a goddamn foul shot -- Jesus Christ in
> Heaven, they're on $30,000 scholarships and they can't even make a fucking
> foul shot? Someone shoot them, please. Don't make me do it. Oh, my. My,
> my, my. Little moi. I become like that? I, who believe that college
> athletics is a sacrilege against education, who cannot make myself watch a
> sports program for more than 30 seconds, that same me finds myself when the
> University of Memphis makes it the the Sweet 16 suddenly investing some part
> of myself in --- in what?
>
Reminds me of one of my most vivid memories of my senior year at Michigan
State, which was coincidentally, a year in which MSU won the national
football championship. Here I was, a major in philosophy, a department whose
bulletin board was decorated with a cartoon of a couple sitting on a bench
in front of Spartan tower; the man is staring soulfully at the woman. The
caption reads, "I never felt such complete absence of pain." As the year
began, the philosophers were all properly stoic and indifferent. By the end
of the season, neither logic nor Hume nor Kant nor Nietzsche could interfere
with earnest debate about the team and the murderous prowess of our
All-American tackle Bubba Smith. I remember in particular one Saturday, when
for some reason I was walking across the campus between the library and
Spartan Stadium (introverted young pig that I was). From a distance of half
a mile I heard 70,000 voices raised as one, chanting, "Kill, Bubba, kill!"
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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