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Short track speed skating is easily the greatest of all the sports the winter Olympics have to offer.
However, the first thing that we have to address are the catsuits worn by the athletes. It’s the elephant in the room, the resonant fact that simply cannot be ignored. Whenever we’re talking about speed skating—the strategy, the danger, the speed, the sheer ridiculousness of it– we’re also talking about how goddamn sexy the competitors are in those outfits. And yes, it is true, I’m not at all against sexually objectifying beautiful athletes I’ll never encounter. In fact, it’s pretty much the main reason I watch the Olympics these days. The human form– full of potential and ambition– performing stunning feats in it’s most perfect earthly manifestation? Yes, I’ll take two helpings please!
Make no mistake, this is the subtext to every speed skating viewing experience you have.
Beyond that there is the fact that the speed skaters, with their helmets and visors, armed with a razor sharp foot knife that’s about as long as a forearm, look like superheroes come to skate for truth and justice.
These people are weaponized, and the fact that it’s short track speed skating ( to say nothing of the positively insane short track speed skating relay) means that they’re CONSTANTLY wiping out.
It’s so unpredictable that luck is almost as important as skill. It’s a last-person-standing kind of sport, one that’s so cruelly constructed you’d think it was invented by a sadistic gym teacher.
No matter, the fact that a wipeout is almost a certainty, and that a wipeout is usually a tangle of kicking razor blades, a crash could have very dire consequence. And so when you see one of the athletes cross the finish line, know that they have just skated through death, and when they take off their helmet and throw back their head, elated and forever, know, too, that they are one of us, and that for a moment at least, we are all beautiful and immortal.
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Well Michael Murray you may enjoy watching sexy athletes court death (because?!) but give me a performance I can watch later via Robyn Doolittle’s tweeted emojis any day.
Or night.
Because we don’t have cable and I don’t want to watch sexy athletes court death, but I don’t want to watch English villagers disappearing one by one on TVO either.
We get it, TVO. English villages are full of old people and old people are murderers so do not move to an English village unless you’re old and want to murder people. The end.
But speed skating? Seriously? Speed skating?? What’s that – one emoji? Done. Well I’m sorry, Michael Murray, but that’s not a story. So not sorry. Figure skating, though, figure skating is a sportstory (yes, that is so a word!) that a reporter can emoji (yes, that’s a verb – I emoji therefore I amji) for people who can’t watch the Olympics BECAUSE OF THE COURTING DEATH THING, MICHAEL MURRAY!
And it’s just like being there on your couch watching Patrick Chan do his short or long or whatever – but faster. My emotions totally ran the gamut, but like in one second.
Don’t believe me? Here it is.
Ms. Doolittle called it, “Watching Patrick Chan: An Emoji Journey” – so right away a heads up that it might be a bumpy ride. Fortunately, I had a cup of mint tea right here beside my computer, just like I do now. Then there was a Canadian flag, which, you know, I’m actually a down-with-borders type but okay. Then a pair of ice skates (well duh, Robyn). But then, oh my Gord – a laughing emoji! Yay! Wait… what? A grimacing emoji!? Nooooooo! Not again! Too soon! Too soon! Oh sweet Jes – a crying emoji? Already? What the – SWEATING?! Oh now come the eff on – screaming? Really? We’re screaming now? In agony? Or maybe… Ah, never mind. Looks like we’re weeping buckets.
Okay. Well. Glad that’s over. <schhhlurp> Ah, mint tea. So refreshing. And just one more week…
]]>Donald Trump is the living embodiment of a cliffhanger.
I swear, everything the man does compels us to astonishment. And once this happens he has us trapped– as the complicit media knows all too well. Almost obediently, we’ll sit there in anxious anticipation, eagerly awaiting his next act as if it were an episode of Breaking Bad. Trump, always the catalytic agent, exists to propel narratives forward. Where that story came from or where it might be headed is entirely immaterial, all that matters is that in that moment you cared, and the more passionately you cared, the better for him.
Since his election my media streams have been rivers of fire. All day long people have been screaming at one another and making the boldest declarations. It reminds me of the Olympics, actually. Some sport I will have never heard of might pop up, and after a brief, mechanical explanation of what it is and a few minutes of watching, I’ll feel like an expert.
And so it goes with politics. We may not speak the language, we may not have visited the country, we may not have any friends who are native to the place, but in very short order, we still have really, really strong opinions about what should happen to it.
Whenever I find myself assuming this role and asserting some far too sure political view, I remind myself that I have trouble keeping my own house in order. What’s my economic plan for the USA? Hell, what’s my economic plan for my family!
The world is infinitely complex, and our ability to understand it is miniscule. Our chances of being wrong about something are far greater than our chances of being right, and it’s important we keep this in mind, particularly when judging those we disagree with. I mean, if you’re awake enough to understand that not all Muslims are terrorists, then you should be awake enough to understand that not all of your political opponents are racist morons.
One’s politics are a very poorly articulated version of the sort of person one might be in the world. Typically it says more about how we’d like to be seen, than how we actually conduct ourselves. And it is just so hard to live a pure life in this society, we must always keep in mind that it is upon monstrous deeds that most of us have happily, blindly, built our lives.
The furious, pre-apocalyptic tensions defining the USA right now are typically lumped into two categories. There are the coastal city-states that house the progressives and elites, and then there is the rest of America, a kind of seething, primitive horde—think Orcs.
I try to look at it more like the future pitted agains the past.
Every year our world changes more than it has in all the generations stacked before it. A lot of people are disoriented and terrified by the velocity at which their lives are now moving, while others are grateful that time has finally caught up with them. And when one traditional way of life is subsumed by another, there is usually a violent reaction, and I think that’s what we’re seeing– the past trying to claw the future back in place, and a resentful and protective future stomping back.
So be kind if you can, for everybody is feeling like they’re hanging off the edge of a cliff.
]]>We’re going to make millions and millions and millions of dollars, and then we’ll probably each buy a sports franchise. This is an excerpt from that book:
The Burger King:
If you are to dream of this deformed, hybrid monster, then it is certain that dark days loom before you and that murder may soon be in your future. Take care when dealing with weapons and seek the counsel of a priest. If the Burger King of your dreams was flying and you were able to fell the creature with a crossbow, then it is foretold that a sickness will fall upon the land.
Nadia Comaneci:
If you are to dream of this darling of the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and if she is doing her adorable floor routine, you will be blessed with a new mistress. If you dream of a young Nadia and she is holding a doll of herself, it is a clear sign that one of your mistresses is sure to become pregnant.
However, if you dream of the adult Nadia Comaneci, it is a warning that your wife may soon discover one of your mistresses and you must take precautions in your romantic liaisons and limit your alcohol consumption. Best to drink only clear liquors.
God, Our Heavenly Father:
This is a most auspicious dream, full of glad tidings! It is a certainty that your enemies will be struck dead and that rapid advancement in employment will be yours to enjoy. If you and God are best friends and gossiping, then it means that useful information that you can use to your advantage will soon be coming your way. However, if you dreamed of our Lord and he was tired, just sitting by himself in his bedroom with his cat, and you got the sense that he was lonely and disappointed, it is a warning that you have been taking the pleasures of your life for granted and that homosexuality, in spite of the desires you might feel, is a sin!
