March 4, 2004
THANK YOU, MA'AM, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER...:
Mismatch of the Day (Paul Collins, Spring 2003, Cabinet)
There was the usual flurry of press coverage last summer when a 37-year old theater producer strode into a London gallery and smashed the head off a statue of Margaret Thatcher. "Should Lady Thatcher's head be replaced?" the Guardian asked its readers—a question they surely would have responded "yes" to even before the attack. But lost amid all the excitement was the real symbolism of the attack: not who was attacked, but how. The assailant, you see, had used a cricket bat. It was as if the very embodiment of Britishness had knocked Maggie's block off.Drawings of cricket games in Britain date back to the 13th century, though it took some time for the sport to overcome its unsavory association with gambling and ruffians. But by 1748 cricket was declared legal—it was "a very manly game" the Court of the King's Bench insisted. From then on, it was firmly entrenched, even after the fatal beaning in 1751 of the Prince of Wales by an errant ball.
But not all traumatic player injuries occurred on the field. Some actually preceded the game. "Yesterday a curious match was played at Montpelier Gardens," noted the Times on 10 August 1796, "between 11 of the Greenwich [sailor] pensioners, wanting an arm each, against the same number of their fellow-sufferers with each a wooden leg."
A one-armed team versus a one-legged team. It has the perverse genius of a plan hatched very late at night in a pub, which indeed it probably was.
We actually have a fair bit of sympathy for the theater producer, who had presumably just indulged that most common of fantasies--being paddled by Lady Thatcher--one too many times and out of frustration at it not becoming reality decided to indulge in a little symbolic role reversal. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 4, 2004 8:57 PM
What was it you once said to me? Oh, yes: We need to talk.
Posted by: David Cohen at March 5, 2004 7:56 AMYou dare defile the Iron Lady by comparing her to some anorexic twit?
Posted by: oj at March 5, 2004 8:12 AMOrrin:
I never would have tagged you for a closet Freudian. Want to talk about it?
Posted by: Peter B at March 5, 2004 9:01 AMPeter:
I'm absolutely a Freudian, but I think with Oedipal theory he was describing a pathology--one typical of Jewish men like himself--not the human condition.
The id, ego, superego metaphor is genius though.
Likewise, I'm a Darwinist. I think he explained brilliantly how species become modified. He just whiffed when he tried to use the same explanation for how they evolve into new species.
Marx was just wrong.
Posted by: oj at March 5, 2004 9:47 AMNow I've heard everything.
OJ says: "I'm a Darwinist".
Next week's exclusive....OJ: "I'm a big fan of soccer"....
Posted by: Brit at March 5, 2004 10:20 AMI went to every Cosmos game until they traded Shep Messing. Saw Pele score the last hat trick of his career.
Posted by: oj at March 5, 2004 10:38 AMGood for you, but 1970's MLS was not football.
It was a bunch of has-beens milking a last few quid before the arthritis really started to play up.
Posted by: Brit at March 5, 2004 10:48 AMYa run, ya kick. It requires no skill and limited athletic ability. Pele could probably play in the World Cup now.
Posted by: oj at March 5, 2004 10:54 AMClose. Ya run, ya kick...and then Brazil win.
They must just be a bit less athletically-limited than the rest of the world. Probably cheating...
Posted by: Brit at March 5, 2004 10:58 AMBrit:
So he admits to being a soccer-loving Darwinist. Big deal. Call me when he says: "You know, I really do kind of like Canada".
Posted by: Peter B at March 5, 2004 11:53 AMPeter
Yes, and when he declares that Ulysses is the finest novel of the 20th Century - though he prefers the French translation - then we'll know that Ygdrasil has finally gone to Nidhug in a handbasket.
Posted by: Brit at March 5, 2004 1:32 PM