Field Theory: Mother Dog!
110 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 Newer→ Last
-
I want to know what that looks like as well actually.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3010/2641895854_b1a6124abe.jpg?v=0
-
In Britain we had something called the Foundation for Sport and the Arts, which channeled money from the Football Pools to worthy causes. Its name always made me think of Dances with Wolves.
-
Good post Hadyn.
I've been on both sides without ever really understanding the disconnect myself, the gap between sport people and not-sport people – until recently. I've always played sports: football since age 5, with just a few years off in my teens, when I tired of the team aspect and concentrated on BMX racing instead, before heading back to football via a social league at Uni. I now play as often as I can, up to four times a week, both indoor and outdoor. I’ve played basketball, netball and touch rugby as well. I’m 1.94m and 100 kilos: basically an athletic build I suppose and sport is just a great way to feel alive on the planet really.
Yet I never watched rugby (just once as a youth, though I did vaguely watch cricket) until it went pro in the ’90s and improved immensely as a spectacle (now regressing again, sadly - the Super 14 is looking very average).
And that metamorphosis into something watchable, even beautiful, kind of shortcircuited a mental blindspot I'd developed towards rugby up to that point. Until then I could just about write someone off if they were into the code… instead of the brute forward power and kicking game it had become, the sport maximised its potential and became, as the great D.F. Wallace wrote in his piece on the Fed, "a prime venue for the expression of human beauty". Well, at times anyway. (Wallace's Infinite Jest is my favourite sports novel, hilarious and a massively addictive, inventive page-turner: read it).
Heck, I'd go so far as to say rugby's coming of age as a more open, crowd-pleasing game helped bring the country together and heal those rifts from the '81 Springbok Tour. Certainly it gave me something to talk to taxi drivers about (cricket for the majority of them of course)!
Sport, and especially the beautiful game, has served me well as a way of seeing the world too: I’ve played football with teenagers in London and with Latinos, Africans, Eastern Europeans and just about everyone else here in NZ. It’s a language. Who was it said if it wasn’t for sport we’d have more wars?
I’m now a part time sports reporter in my working life and follow all sorts of different sports, an eye-opener for me personally that I can only thank rugby for. And I love Mex, he’s bloody funny. Aussie league commentators are the best though.
Sport is sport, it’s like music: there’s no good or bad sporting code (genre), just good and bad games (songs). I also work in music and I’ve been constantly amazed at the number of top musicians and industry folk who are as into their sports as they are their music: for instance I play indoor and the odd sevens game with a top muso who’s a football rather than music buddy of mine and is well into his NBA basketball too, while the editor of the best music rag in NZ runs a darned cool sports blog (deadball.co.nz) too.
Then again there’s always the blank stare and polite conversation-changing when you mention sport with other folk, which is fine of course: I just reckon there’s no point ruling out such an amazing part of our modern world - the incredible physicality that top level sport brings to the viewer, Wallace’s “kinetic beauty” - without considering its potential as a hat-tip to what humans are capable of.
RIP David Foster Wallace. -
Thanks to y'all for enjoying my post.
As someone who not only likes sport but loves the details of uniforms I get a lot of instant "boxing" just by wearing the name and number of my favourite players. I feel the young gentlemen who enjoy driving up and down mainstreet on a Friday have something to do with this.
If I am wearing clothing with a large number on the back and a vertically arched (though usually straight) NOB* this does not mean I like Jagermeister.
If I am sneering at the jersey you are wearing it's because your jersey is either a) a fake or b) a player who is useless imho.
*Somewhere Emma is giggling -
*Somewhere Emma is giggling
That's not fair, I was already giggling before I opened this tab!
-
So close.
"I like rugby"
Speights Summit, currently wishing for a Typhoon Ute, understand feminism to endorse getting BJ whilst seated behind an oval desk, bought some new jeans last year and have watched every Top Gear program ever.
-
illegally exporting butchered puppy meat and guns to Sudanese militia
I've been trying to do that for years, but I can't source guns in NZ at the right price point. Also, halal puppy meat is a bastard to get hold of.
-
At my work there is a certain individual who I can't for the life of me understand. He lives quite an alternative lifestyle, but it seems he cannot understand anything which doesn't fit his scope - usually politics and sport. There was another one, but he has left. Here is an email conversation. You've gotta read it bottom to top. :)
From: Lewis
Sent: Wednesday, 20 August 2008 4:39 PM
Subject: RE: Scrabble is an official sport in Mali and Senegal.
Mostly right. But I mean it without those nasty Marxist connotations you've wedged in there.L
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Thomas
Sent: Wednesday, 20 August 2008 4:38 PM
Subject: RE: Scrabble is an official sport in Mali and Senegal.
It means that it's an essential weapon in the armory of bourgeois governments. It's important to give the proles 'something to believe in' lest they start to believe in their own power to change the course of history. I don't know if this is really the case with sport but I think that's essentially the content of what Lewis is saying.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Matt
Sent: Wednesday, 20 August 2008 4:35 PM
Subject: RE: Scrabble is an official sport in Mali and Senegal.
What does that even mean?--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Lewis
Sent: Wednesday, 20 August 2008 4:34 PM
Subject: RE: Scrabble is an official sport in Mali and Senegal.
Sport is ritualised proxy combat. That alone explains why it's necessary - to give people something to believe in.L
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Matt
Sent: Wednesday, 20 August 2008 4:27 PM
Subject: RE: Scrabble is an official sport in Mali and Senegal.
I've always thought about it in terms of the following quote. The more my younger brothers got into motocross and rugby, the more I found I agreed with it.The essence of sports is that while you're doing it, nothing else matters, but after you stop, there is a place, generally not very important, where you would put it. - Roger Bannister
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Thomas
Sent: Wednesday, 20 August 2008 4:17 PM
Subject: RE: Scrabble is an official sport in Mali and Senegal.
The fanaticism, I would argue, is not fostered by the athletes themselves, but rather by the media and politicians, who use sport to rouse nationalistic sentiments and to distract from pressing social issues.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Matt
Sent: Wednesday, 20 August 2008 4:16 PM
Subject: RE: Scrabble is an official sport in Mali and Senegal.
Cool, that makes perfect sense. I question the degree of fanaticism, but doing something because you like it is a pretty decent way to go.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dylan
Sent: Wednesday, 20 August 2008 4:14 PM
Subject: RE: Scrabble is an official sport in Mali and Senegal.
The driving factor for most sportspeople, be they elite, amateur or social is usually the same thing. They enjoy what they do.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Matt
Sent: Wednesday, 20 August 2008 4:13 PM
Subject: RE: Scrabble is an official sport in Mali and Senegal.
I... ...suppose. But that's just... ...confusing. What are people inspired to compete FOR? To beat their predecessors?It's all so lost on me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dylan
Sent: Wednesday, 20 August 2008 4:11 PM
Subject: RE: Scrabble is an official sport in Mali and Senegal.
If you're going to say an artists legacy is in their art, or a builders in their houses, then an athletes remaining legacy would be all those they inspire to compete.
I have to deal with this day in, day out. And my opinions are definitely not regarded as well as others in my team, I'm expected to be a sexist ingrate with no knowledge of world issues, history or science. -
I wonder if the nerd/jock thing only exists in bad American college films. I'm a big fat nerd myself, but have played rugby, cricket and other sports in NZ and England. Most of my rugby teammates in England were as nerdy, if not nerdier, than me.
As for nerd sports, test cricket is king - no contest. Plenty of statistics, and they stop when it rains. And the scarcity of big hits, mud or blood keeps the boofheads from taking over.
-
It's important to give the proles 'something to believe in' lest they start to believe in their own power to change the course of history.
I've written about this before, but I have never really understood people who don't 'get' sport. At it's heart, good sport is pure drama. Good guys, bad guys, motifs, history, underdogs, and in the end, one side (hopefully the good guys) triumphing over the other. It's storytelling.
Plus, there is lots of good looking people running around, an excuse to drink, and to, by being a fan, feel like you are a part of a community.
What's not to like?
-
What's not to like?
I think the panem et circenses argument cannot be totally discounted - see Putin's genius move to attack Georgia during the olympics, when people were suitably distracted. But the thing we can allow ourselves to be numbed by any old thing, if it wasn't sports it would be soap operas or stamp collections or watching traings go by. And following sports or collecting stamps doesn't necessarily mean foregoing one's political conscience.
-
From my experiences in the mid-1990s at an 'Ivy League' secondary college in ChCh, I had to put up with more than my fair share of anti-intellectual dicks who didn't always fit the jock stereotype. Yet at the same time the nerds wouldn't have been seen dead with them either.
During the 6th form several of these arsehats got busted for substance abuse at an out-of-school party, and the incident made it into The ChCh Press.
-
LOL @ chessboxing. Classic! Loved the intro of the first fighter: He smites with his right while he fights for your rights, it's Luis the Lawyer!
The nerd/jock thing has always been a cliche, right from the start. It's never struck a chord with me, on account of having loved sports and computers from young age, and associating with people of similar mind. I was good at sports, and good at school, and still not cool :-).
-
I think the panem et circenses argument cannot be totally discounted - see Putin's genius move to attack Georgia during the olympics, when people were suitably distracted.
True. On the other hand, one of the things a sporting event can do is draw attention to injustices or human rights abuses. Witness China's desperate attempts last year to silence dissent over Tibet before the Olympics. Would the world have noticed China's actions if China hadn't been due to hold the Olympics?
-
Boy, that's a tricky one though. Much of the debate about China staging the olympics in the first place was the extent in which it might have amounted to the international community saying "we don't really care about human rights abuses".
-
That's also true, Giovanni. Damn, this is all so complimicated...
The only certainty I have left is the knowledge that we (i.e. the NZ test team) suck at cricket. Maybe if we had more nerds in the team and fewer of those tattood chappies like McCullum?
-
The question is not "Is sport the opium of the masses?", but rather "Is it good opium?".
-
At six wicket downs before lunch I'd have to say it's pretty average stuff.
-
On the other hand, one of the things a sporting event can do is draw attention to injustices or human rights abuses.
On the other other hand, witness all the crap that China did to people because the Olympics were coming - knocking down their houses etc.
At six wicket downs before lunch I'd have to say it's pretty average stuff.
Oh FFS.
-
I don't smoke that cricket shit. It'll lay ya out for 5 days at a time.
-
It'll lay ya out for 5 days at a time.
Usually 2-3 days if NZ is involved.
-
Karl Marx had views - community does not exist within capitalist society, but popular sport engenders community spirit within capitalist society.
Karl Marx is a 100 years dead and his ideas have been thoroughly discredited by events, but there are still be a few people who follow his school of thought.
-
Maybe if we had more nerds in the team and fewer of those tattood chappies like McCullum?
ahem (from a tattooed chap)
Also from the first comment:
Bruce Sterling's actual description:
Web 2.0 guys: they've got their laptops with whimsical stickers, the tattoos, the startup T-shirts, the brainy-glasses -- you can tell them from the general population at a glance. They're a true creative subculture, not a counterculture exactly -- but in their number, their relationship to the population, quite like the Arts and Crafts people from a hundred years ago.
-
I think the jock/nerd thing is just standard stereotyping.
I'm involved in clubsport motorsport, which involves driving my car as fast as I can around a laid-out course without knocking over any cones. When I say this to people, they tend to think that I am :
(a) a petrolhead who likes working on cars; and/or
(b) a hoon who likes driving irresponsibly on public roads; and/or
(c) a "boy racer" who likes adding bits to my car to make it look like it should be fast; and/or
(d) a motorsport enthusiast who likes V8 supercars, and Formula 1.In fact, none of these are true - I do like watching rallys, and I do like driving fast. People have a tendency to categorise things into "boxes" of stuff which are sort-of-the-same-ish-like. When applied to people, and specifics, it tends to fail close to 100% of the time.
Moral of the story - constantly question your own sterotyping, and always update your impression/knowledge/treatment of someone with what they actually say - not with what you expect that they would have or should have said. That is to say, don't manipulate or disregard what they say because it doesn't fit your mould of who you think they are.
Cheers,
Brent. -
You're watching the wrong game Gio, if you'd be following the White Ferns, you'd be delirious!
Even if you have known someone for a long time, telling them you like rugby can be akin to telling them you've been illegally exporting butchered puppy meat and guns to Sudanese militia. "I like rugby" apparently also means that you only drink lager, like V8s, have no idea about feminism, don't like shopping, and possibly own a book by Jeremy Clarkson.
No peace, no chance. I agree. A colleague of mine, a very very earnest and experience policy analyst confided in me that not only did he like rugby league, but he was a season ticket holder and a member of the St George club. I pledged me to secrecy!
As an aside, years ago I worked for Heather Simpson. She of the so-called PC, lesbian cabal that ruled NZ and, amongst other things, sought to destroy sport, jock-by-jock ... is a mad keen rugby fan (though tragically of the Highlanders).
At it's heart, good sport is pure drama. Good guys, bad guys, motifs, history, underdogs, and in the end, one side (hopefully the good guys) triumphing over the other. It's storytelling.
Exactly. Well said.
Which is why <hobby-horse>you should all be following the White Ferns stick to the Poms on Sunday</hobby-horse>
Post your response…
This topic is closed.