streets-and-blocks

Bloody New York Times…

…is always stealing my story ideas. Just yesterday, my friend forwarded me that image. My response was:

Remember when Boston fans (of all sports) were self-hating die-hards who put up with astoundingly horrible teams for decades and decades? But every year the lovable losers would buoy themselves on the eternal optimism that next season it would be different? Well, this kid shows the terrible effect that winning numerous baseball and football championships will have on a society. An entire generation of Bostonians has been lost to the arrogance of championship-entitlement.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: My kids are going to cheer for horrible teams—losing is far more character-building than winning.

Today, the New York Times tells us that your kids will turn out better if they lose at sports.

Falling Through Your Clothes

Following up on earlier discovery, I finally got through the pay-wall of Psychology Today to see what Hara Estroff Marano has to say about fashion-versus-style. From the September/October issue:

Style goes a long way beyond fashion; it is an individually distinctive way of putting ourselves together. It is a unique blend of spirit and substance—personal identity imposed on, and created through, the world of things. It is a way of capturing something vibrant, making a statement about ourselves in clothes.

People want to be themselves and to be seen as themselves. In order to work, style must reflect the real self, the character and personality of the individual; anything less appears to be a costume.

Style presumes that you are a person of interest, that the world is a place of interest, that life is worth making the effort for.

In the end, style is fundamentally democratic. It assumes every person has the potential to create a unique identity and express it through grooming and a few well-chosen clothes. Yet style is also aristocratic. It set s apart those who have it from those whose dress is merely utilitarian. It announces to the world that the wearer has assumed command of herself.

The Sound of Life Experience

I’m loving Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, the new album from David Byrne and Brian Eno. A big Talking Heads fan, I’ve liked Byrne’s solo stuff, but could never shake the nagging feeling that it was too artsy and disconnected from contemporary life. The new album, however, makes him relevant again. The title track is a sublime piece of positivity, without the coy naivety of the Talking Heads. In less capable hands, the lyrics might sound like the faux-depth of a high schooler’s tortuous poetry.The album as a whole—lyrically and musically—is an elder statesmen of intelligent pop/rock dispensing his wisdom on life, urban affairs, politics and everything else. It’s a grand, broad vision of life and our contemporary times captured with modesty. I’ve only heard the album all the way through a handful of times, so I’ll hold back full judgment on all its merits and shortfalls until it’s percolated a bit more.

Lack of History in Sports

Mark Bowden writes in The Atlantic about watching game film of the 1958 NFL Championship with Andy Reid:

It seemed odd at first for a pro coach to have never seen film of this historic game—a little like finding a doctor of English literature who had never read Macbeth. But success in pro football, as in any intensely competitive, constantly evolving arena, depends primarily on current intelligence: What did my opponent last do against me? What did he do last week? A pro coach is not inclined to search for what he needs in old black-and-white film. History is … well, history.

But no craftsman or professional can be completely uninterested in seeing how he measures up against past standards of excellence. How good was the game then? How capable were the players? How clever were the coaches and schemes?

A fascinating read of a modern genius at breaking down game-film sharing insight and discovering himself just how much the game has changed over the decades in really simple but fundamental ways:

I told Reid that I had listened to the NBC radio broadcast, and had been struck by how much more quickly the game moved then than it does today. Breaks between plays and possessions are longer and more frequent now, to allow for more commercials, and the use of video replay to reexamine contested calls by the referees causes still more delays. Modern coaches use these gaps in the action for analysis, for sideline conferences and hand signals, or, in the case of the quarterback, for giving instructions over a direct radio link to his helmet. In 1958, the game, once started, was primarily in the hands of the players. Unitas called his own plays. Defensive field captains like the Giants’ Sam Huff were on-field tacticians. The game was faster and simpler.

It also lacked many of the refined mechanical and tactical innovations that are commonplace in modern football. For instance, Reid was surprised to note that wide receivers assumed a three-point stance before the snap of the ball—today they stand upright, which allows them a broader view of the defensive backfield. The pass defenders, meanwhile, stood upright on the old film, with one foot forward, one back, and then just backpedaled to stay with the receivers. In the modern NFL, backfield defenders poise in a forward crouch with their weight evenly balanced on both legs, and retreat by taking short stutter-steps backward, ready to bolt in either direction and avoiding the crossover step, a potentially costly mistake that can offer a receiver the split-second advantage he needs to break away.

I`ve also read Bowden`s work in Sports Illustrated about the 1958 Championship and how the Colts` Raymond Berry crafted himself into perhaps the first modern receiver. He captures Reid`s shift from knowing football insider into plain old football fan as the game film heads into overtime:

At this point, Reid had become a rapt spectator.

“This is just simple football right now, man,” he said.

…

It ended five plays later, when Ameche plunged over the goal line for the winning touchdown—with Moore, still playing hurt, throwing a perfect block to clear the way. Reid said, simply, “Awesome.”

Unlike baseball and other sports, football can be clearly divided into historical eras defined by technological and equipment innovation, subtle rule changes causing huge changes in coaching tactics (and vice versa). It`s a game based on constant change and newness—even within a game. Which is why the all-time greatness of players cannot be measured purely in statistics, and why football fans lack historical knowledge. Instead of history, the sport earned a mythology through NFL Films filmstrips and newer shows like America`s Game.

Politics As Gang Turf War

Andrew Potter’s interesting if puzzling at times—Dief as a great PM? Not likely. Great opposition leader, but not a great PM—comparison of politics with struggles between gangs and hoodlums.

Are we past machine politics? In the contemporary realm of personality-focused, media-driven electioneering, Jean Chretien, Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau were the ultimate political bosses. Potter’s drawing connections that make me wonder whether we might still be stuck in Great McGinty-esque politics.

Highly Local Habits of Drivers

Abigail Tucker looks at Tom Vanderbilt’s new book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) in the Smithsonian Magazine. If driving habits are as localized as he says, I wonder what sets Torontonian drivers apart from the rest of the country?

Traffic itself, Vanderbilt points out, is a language of its own—a set of rules that unites a culture while allowing for individual flair. American drivers tend to stand up for their rights: when tailgated, we may well passive-aggressively brake instead of abandoning the left lane to speeding scofflaws. But “in some ways it’s hard to talk about the American driver,” Vanderbilt told me. “The culture shifts with the state, the population shifts, the laws shift. ” Drivers die in Montana in disproportionately high numbers, in large part because of the state’s rural roads, elevated drinking-and-driving rates and formidable speed limits. (The single deadliest road, on the other hand, is Florida’s U.S. 19.) Driving differences also span continents. Parts of northern Europe have an almost prim driving style, while in some Asian cities, it’s trial by fire, or at least, exhaust fumes. A Shanghai intersection that looks as pretty as a kaleidoscope pattern from a 13th floor hotel room proves to be, upon closer inspection, a fearful crush of cars, mopeds and pedestrians. In Delhi, India, Vanderbilt is warned that his “reflexes” are not up to local driving; indeed, posted signs say “Obey Traffic Rules, Avoid Blood Pool” and “Don’t Dream, Otherwise You’ll Scream.”