“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.” Eliot’s well-known conclusion to “The Hollow Men” (read the poem here) came to mind after watching the Butler Bulldogs lose to the Connecticut Huskies 53-41.The game was so bad that it takes a masterpiece of modernist despair to do it justice.
Tag Archives: Sports
Take Me Out to the Orgasmic Experience
In his poem, Scott Bates fastens on the fact that the baseball diamond and the outfield, in their intersection, resemble a mandorla. An almond-shaped figure of mythic significance, the mandorla has been seen to symbolize “the interactions and interdependence of opposing worlds and forces,” such as spirit and matter or heaven and earth.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "B Is for the Baseball Mandorla", Baseball, Scott Bates Comments closed
March Madness, A Return to Innocence
Sports Saturday March Madness begins this weekend. Actually, to be exact, it begins for the big schools. Division III colleges are in the final week of their tournament. I know because my college was one step away from making the final four. For the first time ever, St. Mary’s College of Maryland sent a team […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "King John's Christmas", "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College", A. A. Milne, Basketball, Childhood, Thomas Gray Comments closed
Novelists, Poker Players Must Be Relentless
Sports Saturday I’m written out this week so do yourself a favor and hie thee to some of the best writing about poker that I know. You don’t have to play the game to enjoy the writing of my novelist friend Rachel Kranz, who I’ve mentioned numerous times Her website is called Adventures in Poker, […]
Judge Doty in the Role of Deus ex Machina
Sports Saturday Negotiations between the National Football League owners and the Players Association were at an impasse. The owners locking out the players seemed all but inevitable, along with suspension of the 2011 season. Then the goddess Athena stepped in. Taking the form of U.S. District Judge David Doty, she ordered the two sides to […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Beowulf, blood feuds, Football, Homer, labor negotiation, Odyssey Comments closed
Why Does Everyone Hate Duke?
Sports Saturday Once again, one of the most hated teams in the country resides atop the NCAA basketball rankings: Duke University. In today’s post I find literary equivalents for the general animus against the Blue Devils. For the life of me I can’t understand why Duke is so disliked. Granted, I myself dislike Duke, but […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Basketball, Booth Tarkington, Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, Mark Twain, Oliver Goldsmith, Penrod, Tom Sawyer Comments closed
Post Football Season Blues
Sports Saturday For American football fans, February is the cruelest month. Suddenly there are no Sundays to look forward to anymore. Suddenly there are no players or coaches or owners to excoriate. Suddenly there is, well, emptiness. It may be pushing it, but for me, the feeling is captured by a 1960’s Flannery O’Connor story. […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Everything that Rises Must Converge, Flannery O'Connor, Football Comments closed
Rogers No Longer in Odysseus’ Shadow
Sports Saturday Something memorable occurred last Sunday in Dallas in addition to the Green Bay Packers bringing “Vince Lombardi home” in their Super Bowl victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Quarterback Aaron Rogers stepped out of the shadow of a legend. The literary equivalent that comes to mind is Homer’s Telemachus, but Rogers is Telemachus with […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aaron Rogers, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Brett Favre, Football Green Bay Packers, Homer, Odyssey, Ulysses Comments closed
A Champ on the Field, a Thug Elsewhere
Sports Saturday Although it is a downer on the eve of Super Bowl Sunday, I can’t help but think of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger through the lens of Joyce Carol Oates’ terrifying short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” This is one reason I will be not be rooting for the […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Ben Roethlisberger, Football, Joyce Carol Oates, Philadelphia Story, violence, Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Comments closed
