11 Jul 2006 - 21:01

World Cup part 3

It seems that Zidane will tell us on Thursday what the other player said. I look forward to it.

Christian said, "I'd go with the N-word."

I said the N-word wouldn't work, and Martine, or maybe Christopher, again raised the question of whether the other guy had insulted Zidane's mother.^* "If somebody insulted my mother, I'd be head-butting them 'til the end of the game," Christian said.

"No you wouldn't," I said. "You wait 'til after the game is over, then you head-butt them."

Ed agreed. First win the game, then head-butt the other guy off school property.

Victory first, revenge second. A core family value.

Ed reported that one of the French newspapers, Le Figaro I think, had published a round-up of international commentary on Zidane and his head-butting. All of it was negative, except for the French press, which was sympathetic.

As if on cue, Bernard Henri-Levy popped up in the Wall Street Journal this morning:

PARIS--Here is one of the greatest players of all time, a legend, a myth for the entire planet, and universally acclaimed. Here is a champion who, in front of two billion people, was putting the final touches on one of the most extraordinary sagas in soccer's history.

Here is a man of providence, a savior, who was sought out, like Achilles in his tent of grudge and rage, because he was believed to be the only one who could avert his countrymen's fated decline. Better yet, he's a super-Achilles who--unlike Homer's--did not wait for an Agamemnon (in the guise of coach Raymond Domenech) to come begging him to re-enlist; rather, he decided himself, spontaneously, after having "heard" a voice calling him, to come back from his Spanish exile and--putting his luminous armor back on, and flanked by his faithful Myrmidons (Makelele, Vieira, Thuram)--reverse the new Achaeans' ill fortune and allow them to successfully pull together.

And then this valiant knight who is a hair's breadth from victory and just minutes from the end of a historic match (and of a career that will carry him into the Pantheon of stadium-gods after Pelé, Platini and Maradona); this giant who, like the Titans of the ancient world, has known Glory, then Exile, then Return and Redemption; this redeemer, this blue angel dressed in white, who had only the very last steps to scale to enter Olympus for good, commits a crazy incomprehensible act that amounts to disqualification from the soccer ritual--the final image of him that will go down in history and, in lieu of apotheosis, will cast him into hell.

and so on and so forth until —

The man's insurrection against the saint. A refusal of the halo that had been put on his head and that he then, quite logically, pulverized with a head-butt, as though saying: I am a living being not a fetish; a man of flesh and blood and passion, not this idiotic empty hologram, this guru, this universal psychoanalyst, natural child of Abbé Pierre and Sister Emanuelle, which soccer-mania was trying to turn me into.

It was as though he were repeating, in parody, the title of one of the very great books of the last century, before the triumph of this liturgy of the body, performance and commodity: Ecce Homo, This is a Man. Yes, a man, a true man, not one of these absurd monsters or synthetic stars who are made by the money of brand names in combination with the sighs of the globalized crowd.

Achilles had his heel. Zidane will have had his--this magnificent and rebellious head that brought him, suddenly, back into the ranks of his human brothers.

Henri-Levy does not let the Italians off scot-free (I wonder what the origin of 'scot-free' could be?) —

The only plausible explanation for so bizarrely scuttling everything--which, remember, let a lot of time go by (the 20 long seconds following the Italian Machiavelli's undoubtedly calculated outrage)

This is the difference between Bernard Henri-Levy and me.

If Bernard Henri-Levy wants to say the Italians cheated, he brings up Machiavelli.

In my household nobody's talking about Machiavelli. No. In my household it's "the Italians cheated," "Italy is the country of the Mafia," and "the ref is from Brazil."

I'm sure The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy will fix that.






Je Suis un Superstar: Bernard Henri Levy
BOMB Bernard Henri-Levy with Frederic Tuten
International Woman of Mystery: Arielle Dombasle
Arielle Dombasle website

a Canadian moment
World Cup win
World Cup win part 2
BHL weighs in
coupdeboule
read my lips

html authoring in French

^* or Materazzi could have just called him a son of Harkis. It's going to be a long war.


-- CatherineJohnson - 11 Jul 2006

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What Zidane did was entirely indefensible. It was egregious thuggery of the worst sort (well, perhaps not as bad as the time he tried to cripple an opponent by stomping on his knee, but in the same ballpark) and it was tactically stupid, to boot.

The French lost; they deserved to lose.

Though the score should have been 1-0 Italy at the end of regulation.

(And I don't even like the tedious brand of soccer the Italians play. Oh well, only another six weeks or so until the start of the sports season.)

-- DougSundseth - 11 Jul 2006

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Is it me, or was about 94% of Henri-Levy's essay pretentious filler?

At least the whole Zidane incident spawned some pretty funny video game spoofs

-- IndependentGeorge - 12 Jul 2006

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Since there are some "a"s, "the"s, "and"s, and "of"s, it would be hard to say that it is 100% pretentious filler, so I'd say 94% is about right.

There seems to be something about the World Cup* that encourages horrific writing. From the Guardian's blog, and written before the final match (sorry, no link):

"France began this tournament saddled with worries about the ageing legs at the heart of their team, but they have changed their tune." -- Amy Lawrence

* It's not just the World Cup, of course, hyperbolic writing is endemic to sports journalism, see "the sweet science", or "the sport of kings", or nearly anything George Will has written about baseball, or the narration script for every NFL Films product. Still, this article is notable even in such a competitive field.

-- DougSundseth - 12 Jul 2006

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Independent George

Ed says BHL's writing sounds even worse in French.

-- CatherineJohnson - 13 Jul 2006

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wow!

Thanks for posting the video link.

I missed the head-butting because I was picking up Jimmy & Andrew.

He really hit him.

-- CatherineJohnson - 13 Jul 2006

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the ageing legs at the heart of their team

yeah, well, I'd be worried about ageing legs at the heart, too, if I had legs at the heart

-- CatherineJohnson - 13 Jul 2006

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"yeah, well, I'd be worried about ageing legs at the heart, too, if I had legs at the heart"

I'm not quite clear where the saddle goes, but I bet the tune has a really good beat. (Ba-dump, ba-dump)

I think this is what happens when you set your metaphor mixer to "Puree".

-- DougSundseth - 13 Jul 2006

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HEY!

I was right with you there, Doug, until you dragged George Will into it. You leave his baseball writing alone!

Baseball is the sport of kings. Baseball is the sweet science.

Whose heart doesn’t stir at the thought of bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, two outs and down by three?

Every time a bat hits a ball, and angel gets its wings.

I love baseball writing. =)

I do notice, however, that if you google +baseball +"florid prose" there are 537 results.

-- LesleyStevens - 17 Sep 2006

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Ed had this revelation one Sunday, watching a Mets game, that baseball is, in America, our civic religion.

(I think that's the term.)

A couple of Sundays later I went to a game on a Sunday and I had exactly the same peception.

-- CatherineJohnson - 19 Sep 2006

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This is why we've got folks talking about angel wings!

-- CatherineJohnson - 19 Sep 2006

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Maybe baseball is king in the state of NY.

In most of Texas, baseball is ho-hum and most of the state roots for the Dallas Cowboys football team.

In Houston, although we have professional teams in several sports, we are not by any means a sports town. Nowhere near Chicago or New York, where fights break out if you speak up for the "wrong" team.

• football (well, sort of, if you count a team that won 2 of 12 games as pro) - amazingly averaging 100% capacity attendance of over 70,000 despite their abysmal records
• baseball (from league champs to duking it out near the bottom)
• basketball (NBA)
• women's basketball (WNBA)
• soccer (MLS - Major League Soccer)
• hockey (minor league affiliate of the NHL Minnesota Wild)

However, if you want to see rabid fans in Houston, bring on the international soccer. 70,550 fans for Barcelona vs. Club America. The previous record for a soccer game in Texas was a friendly match between the United States and Mexico in 2003, also in Houston, which drew 69,582 fans.

People with painted faces, waving capes and towels, screaming, cheering, and crying. I haven't seen anything like it at any other sport.

-- GoogleMaster - 20 Sep 2006

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oh my god

you guys ARE another country!

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Sep 2006

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that's wild, about the soccer!

I didn't know there was any place in the U.S. where soccer had taken hold

cool

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Sep 2006

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Title:	World Cup part 3
TopicType:	WebLog
SubjectArea:	FromTheKitchenTable
LogDate:	200607111609