Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger writes in Newsweek/Beast of the Junior Seau suicide:
If you asked reporters why they were there, they would give some mumbo-jumbo reason that as hard as it may be, it was important to get reaction from the family in a case as sad and stunning as this one. Seau had been an absolute force during the prime of his playing days with the San Diego Chargers, ferocious, relentless, maniacal, beyond intense. Now that he was dead, it would be easy to say he was a joy to watch. But he wasn’t a joy to watch. He was scary to watch, just like the National Football League is scary to watch, which is one of the primary reasons we love to watch it, a human car crash on every play.
I have to disagree with this. I don’t like football because it’s violent, and I imagine the vast majority of football fans feel the same way. Sure, it’s nice to see a really solid, well-executed hit from time to time, but it’s not why I watch the game, and it probably wouldn’t even make a list of the top ten reasons why I like football.
Continue reading this post…
1.
In a land not much unlike our own there is an ether that comes from a rare fruit. Those who consume this ether are consumed by it, as its effect is total regurgitation of one’s mental faculties, and, by this I mean mental faculties one doesn’t know one has, like memories long forgotten but embedded in the neurofabric, or epiphanies waiting to happen or not happen that get suddenly thrown outwards into the world. Depending on the brain, the consumption of this ether can either work in favor of the user or against, but all must pay the price of consumption, which is that they have to walk around like mindless vegetables for the rest of their lives. Or perhaps they are just indifferent to the world’s struggles.
Suffering occurs all around us. Think about the people you went to high school with, that is, provided you didn’t go to Phillips Exeter or somewhere like that with only rich kids or poor kids who are smart enough to know they should be pretending to be rich. All of these people are doing something now. How many have you kept up with? Chances are, the people you’ve kept up with are the people who are doing the best, since they have time to keep up with you, even though you weren’t particularly close bosom buddies with them and neither of you derives much utility from these efforts to let each other know what’s been going on in your lives. So, why do you do it? Because you’re bored, and you don’t particularly need anything.
Continue reading this post…
Something David Ryan wrote about dark art and wanna-be-sophistos has had me thinking for a while – first about whether valuing civility and the desire not to offend keep us all trapped in a glass fortress (they do, but there’s a trade-off, of course) – then about why we like the things we do. In terms of the latter, after considerable thought and up until recently, I had embraced some species of nihilism; the idea that aesthetic preferences are merely expressions of political power seemed a bit too Marxist for my sensibilities but still close to my then default position. I remain fascinated yet skeptical of neurophysiological attempts to explain aesthetic preferences.
For some time I continued to believe that building a coherent, simple aesthetic was impossible. I knew I had no good reason to like the things I did and that the various things I liked seemed to be connected in no objectively-meaningful way; but something I saw a few days ago on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations provided the ah-ha moment I’ve been needing.
Bourdain was set to dine at a small shop in Tokyo that served only old-style unagi (eel). The restaurant had made no changes to its one-item menu for sixty-some-odd years: the eels are sliced-up nose-to-tail, folded on themselves, skewered, covered in sauce, and grilled yakitori-style. Before he had even tasted the unagi, master chef and seasoned world traveler Bourdain commented that he greatly appreciated that that establishment did exactly that one thing – based on the experiences of thousands of years times many more thousands of diners – so exceptionally well that it could remain open continuously without any significant changes for so long. That is to say, Bourdain recognized that restaurant’s craftsmanship and took the weight of all of that into account before sensuously experiencing the food, judging, and being satisfied.
Continue reading this post…
Perhaps it’s best to think of our historical opposition to war not as war protest but as draft protest.
I’ve been reading Jerome Marmorstein’s “War As a Disease Epidemic” lately with a student I teach over Skype. The article likens efforts at international peace to international public health initiatives and contains this passage:
One of the greatest human rights violations occurs when healthy young men are forced to “lill or be killed” by means of a military draft or conscription. Even during our Revolutionary and Civil Wars the military was primarily composed of volunteers as it has been in the last few decades. Military training during war and peace is a dehumanizing experience. Individual freedom and choice is replaced by being told when and what to eat; when to sleep and when to wake up; what clothes must be worn; where one must live and travel often causing long separations from spouse, family and children. Absolute unquestioning obedience to one’s superior officer results in the ultimate loss of individuality. It the military method would occur in civilian life, it would be immediately labeled as a human rights violation…
Continue reading this post…
Maribou 
James K 
Rose 
Naima Van Swol 
Matthew 
Kyle Cupp 
Tina Wade 
Mike Schilling 
Jaybird 
