Thursday, August 30, 2012

United 2, Metros 2, or: Yesterday, the Teacher Didn't Believe the Excuse Her Student Offered for Missing His Appointment— a Tire Gone Flat on the Thruway—but Today His Story Seems Almost Convincing



Didn't see it. Obstacles won. I wish I felt guiltier, once I would have been distraught. I could have made it, once I would have obstacle-coursed my way to the game without second thought of the shit I'd have to eat the next day. An early gag on this shitty blog was a trope, haven't used it in years, something like no one asks me how I distinguish between my politics and my soccer. There's a new professor here at Illtophay teaching a course on sports and nationalism, I've seen the syllabus, I'm going to read some of her assignments, there's a guy over in Because Left who blogs/writes/tweets about soccer and politics, check him out. I'm fascinated by this shit, see metaphors abounding, especially, essentially, about my rubity's influence in my negotiations with my complicity. The waxing and waning of complaint and resistance, compliance and submission, damn and undamn. This is why no one ever asked me how I distinguish between my soccer and politics, everyone no doubt aware that I'd tell them more than I do already.










CHANGE

Carl Dennis

Just yesterday my poem lamenting the power
Of time to sweep away all trace of the beautiful
Seemed done at last, but the light this morning
Shows it to be a sketch, evidence that my vision
Cleared as I slumbered, that my sense of beauty
Grows in the night like corn or bamboo.

Maybe a poem in praise of time
Ought to be next on my agenda,
The time required for seeds to open,
For leaves to push out on tender stems.

Yesterday, the teacher didn't believe the excuse
Her student offered for missing his appointment—
A tire gone flat on the Thruway—but today
His story seems almost convincing,
Suggesting how quickly the bruise to her ego
Has begun to heal, the first small step
From the tiresome realm of insult and umbrage.

Yesterday the lover couldn't commit himself.
Today he wants to write his beloved
A check for a million dollars,
Though the time hasn't come, he admits,
For her to cash it.
Meanwhile, though he has nothing,
Whatever he has is hers.


6 comments:

  1. There's something quaint about that million dollars in the poem; like Dr. Evil's (Austin Powers) extortion demand.

    The Recognitions (the copy you sent me) was my plane book yesterday, kept me calm when I was patted down blue gloves and all because my brassiere set off the alarm (apparently the wand was not obnoxious enough, now it's hands on), and now that I've arrived I'm having a hard time putting the book down.

    "...like a constellation whose configured stars only hazard to describe the figure imposed upon them by the tyranny of ancient imagination, where Argo in the southern sky is seen only with an inner eye of memory not one's own, so the ship against the horizonless sea of night left the lines which articulated its perfection to that same eye, where the most decayed and misused hulk assumed clean lines of grace beyond the disposition of its lights."

    I imagine Gaddis invokes the Argo because of Jason and the Golden Fleece (I'll find out as I read on). But Orpheus too was on the Argo, and though Homer doesn't mention it, he sang down the Sirens and saved the ship.

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  2. Two DPs and two foreign roster slots can't get minutes with 6 games in 24 days. Even if they aren't the best (and i don't accept that Long Tan is better) then shouldn't they at least get minutes to rest others.

    If the Montreal game was a throwaway as Benny indicated, then shouldn't under the logic he's not the best, Salihi have played the full 90.

    Either they're not the players Kasper Payne thought they were, in which case the new owners should fire Kasper Payne. Or they are those players and Benny won't play them, in which case the new owners should fire Benny.

    In any event, Kasper Payne and Benny are successfully lowering my damn level about United and soccer. United feels like it is going the way of DC's helmetball team among the things I care about.

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  3. Actually, it was completely in jest. I'm mad at him and I think that there's a powerful organizational drag on him that I can't understand and I think, most pollyannish of all (of me), that he's got to be making some of these choices against his better judgment. But no, I don't for a moment think he should be fired before he totally fails this season AND next.

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  4. Yes, Benny has at least another year. Yes, I worry about what I knew I would worry about with Benny, that, while not as innately an asshole as his mentor Piotr, his mentor is still Piotr re: carrots and sticks and doghouse.

    I've ragged on Kasper Payne for years. Just last Sunday ni fact. He ain't going away.

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  5. Erif Neslo (err... SeatSix)August 30, 2012 at 1:40 PM

    You all are too lenient.

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  6. No. See, when we screamed Fire Soehn and Fire Adolfo:

    1) Whoever replaced them would be better, although obviously we completely fucked that up in Soehn's case.

    2) Our out-of-our-asses answer to the begged question was, "Benny Olsen."

    I'm not convinced that whoever they'd hire would be better than Olsen, and there's surely not an obvious name to put in play right now.

    Furthermore, while I think Benny's complicit in Kasper/Payne shenanigans this season, the whole thing reeks so desperately of organizational panic that I'm not yet willing to blame him.

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