Greetings, gentle readers.
Sometime in the hopefully not too-distant future, I'll invent a gravitational field generator which will allow me to penetrate the fabric of space-time and allow me to return to the past. Why? If for no other reason, money. Scads and scads of wonga. Filthy lucre. This year saw some of the most incredible underdog, unlikely long-shot, and unbelievable cinderella stories in sports history. Anyone who laid money on the most unheralded possibilities would have made an absolute mint. Anywhere in the world.
In South America, Once Caldas, a relatively unknown team from Colombia, won the Copa Libertadores, wresting it from all the superpower teams in Chilé, Brazil, and Argentina. In North America, the Boston Red Sox broke an 86 year jinx to win the curiously named World Series against the most expensive team in North American professional sports, the New York Yankees. Earlier in the same baseball season, 40 year-old Randy Johnson pitched a perfect game. The Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup in ice hockey. Let me repeat that. A Florida expansion team won the most prestigious club cometition in ice hockey history against fellow underdog Calgary Flames, who have one of the lowest payrolls in the NHL. The Toronto Argonauts, rank outsiders at best, won North America's oldest club competition in the CFL Grey Cup. In Europe, FC Porto met fellow long-shots AS Monaco in the Champions' League Final game and won, astounding and baffling huge-spending teams like Arsenal, Chelsea, Réal Madrid, Internazionale, AC Milan, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus. Argentina won their first-ever Olympic football gold medal. And Greece - the least favoured of all the teams in the entire competition with the possible exception of Latvia - captured the European Championship crown.
A year of upsets, reversals, and statistical anomalies, to be sure. It made for some stomach-churning emotional roller-coasters, but when the Davids toppled the Goliaths over and over again, it brought back some of the romance of the entire concept of sport. That any group of people playing as a team, on any given day, could emerge triumphant against the forces of determinism. Sport is about passion and commitment. It's about the human spirit striving for excellence. And you can't put a price-tag or a probability factor on that. 11 well-trained and organized Greeks, marshalled by an iron-willed German triumphed over the highly touted, and extravagantly paid superstars of the host team of Portugal. Twice. In the same tournament. A group of colleagues whose primary ambition was to make their country proud, and with a blazing desire to play for their teammates overthrew an all-star team containing some of the greatest talent of their age. As with the Boston Red Sox, and with Once Caldas, it wasn't simply a case of grit over technique, it was a case of teams triumphing over individuals.
One might notice that when watching adverts for American professional team sports, television networks and advertisers tend to glorify the indivdual. It's not the Miami Heat vs. the Indiana Pacers, it's SHAQUILLE O'NEAL and his Miami Heat taking on REGGIE MILLER and his Indiana Pacers. The quest for the superstar not only simplifies things for the presumably simple-minded public so they don't have to worry about knowing all those names on the team, but also creates marketing icons that can be used to flog all sorts of overpriced athletic rubbish. That sort of philosophy can be best demonstrated in the contrasting philosophies of two companies - Nike and Adidas. Nike adverts revel in the accomplishment of the single athlete. Their basketball commercials are almost invariably one-one one competitions, including the Michael Jordan ad several years ago where retiring Michael plays himself, fifteen years younger. Purchasing Nike products, they suggest, gives one the power to excel and be the best. Alone. Unfettered by pesky teammates or an annoying supporting cast to steal one's limelight. Adidas adverts, on the other hand, celebrate team achievement. Is this a European vs. North American concept? Odd that a continent which has been so focused on divisiveness for the better part of a millenia should start to grasp the importance of the unifications of Germany and Italy almost 150 years ago now, while the Americans are still floundering around in the concept of nationalism. Relative maturity of civilizations, one might suspect.
In recent news, Liverpool thrashed poor West Bromwich Albion on Boxing Day. If I wasn't so exuberant about the 'Pool winning just their second away match of the season in the Premier Division, I would feel sorry for the poor Baggies who are staring relegation in the face, and looked like Liliputians facing Brobdingnagians against the Merseysiders. If their manager Bryan Robson hadn't spent most of his playing career in crutches, he would have lived up to his title as "Captain Marvel" for England. As it stands, he took control of a team in a downward spiral and has not won a game since. He's driving the team bus and it's going express. Down. Their promotion to the big league now looks to be a rather large fluke, and the communal hesitancy and lack of confidence against the established teams has now turned from speculation to fact.
Lamentably for Albion fans, their team had about as much bite as an earthworm, and their defensive shape collapsed immediately after Cosmin Contra decided that he'd rather play volleyball than football, and was consequently sent off with a red card.
Liverpool could already have been predicted winners because, despite having a number of starters missing, the cobbled-together team had Albion chasing shadows from the get go, with John-Arne Riise the most bloodthirsty of the lot, and Stevie G once more the father of invention from midfield. Once down to ten men, the Baggies were like a bleeding calf to a school of piranha. There are two important things to draw from this result from a Liverpool point of view. From an Albion point of view, the only conclusion to draw is that the opposition in the League Championship (formerly Division 1) should be scouted now, before relegation changes from possibility to fact. In terms of the Reds, two things are important: it's always great to run up the occasional cricket score to bolster the confidence of your forward players and it's always nice to keep a clean sheet while doing so; and two, the win was so comfortable that lads like Steve Finnan, Milan Baros and Stevie G were able to sub off the pitch early and thus not expend all of their energy ahead of the game against Southampton on Tuesday.
This leads nicely into the next segment: Predictions. Liverpool over So'ton. I say 4-1, because James Beattie always poaches one about every second game, and he's overdue. Stevie G has got to be chomping at the proverbial bit, having only scored once on four good attempts against WBA and the Riise is so over-full with confidence that he'll shoot on a clearance from his own end. Everyone wants to jump on the bus, and everyone wants to score. Enthusiasm is infectious.
Next: remember when I said that Barcelona would win La Liga? Who doubted me? Hang your heads. When I said they'd get turfed from the Copa Del Rey, who thought I was mad? Rue your poor judgement, little ones. And as for transfers, it looks as though Madrid will want to hang on to St. Michael, seeing as how he's spared them blushes in at least five games already this season, so I'd plump for Morientes from Madrid if I were on the board at LFC. Morientes and Mellor would be evil, Morientes and Baros might be lethal for any opponents. And with those three to play with until the return of the Djib, the striking positions are safe as houses, particularly with the Pongo doing as well as he's done without Tony the T backing him up in midfield. Those two have a strange psychic connection that I think Pongo is just now starting to extend to others. His last two goals against Olympiakos and West Brom were as the result of split-second timing and inch-perfect passes from Harry Kewell and Riise, respectively. The level of intuition and understanding necessary for such passes indicates that perhaps Flo-Sin-Po is finally learning to play with others besides his childhood friends. He's also turning into a good target man like Mellor, rather than a holder or attacker, like Morientes and Baros. Having two of each would lend Liverpool a nicely balanced strike force in the box. The big problem with Morientes, and I've said it before on this very page, is that he's cup-tied in Europe, and thus cannot play for Liverpool in any Champions' League games. That's getting very important as we head into the elimination round.
So sports in 2004 was a wacky adventure in speculation and bewilderment. Somehow, the realms of political science and entertainment just seem drab and uninteresting by comparison. How many American soldiers died unnecessarily in Afghanistan? Too many. End of story. Who won the elections in Ukraine? Was there a hard-line Communist or a Fascist totalitarian in the race? No. Then who cares? Aside from taking bets on which HIV-AIDS-ravaged and impoverished African country will experience the next round of genocidal civil war, the only thing to do internationally is marvel at the inept blunderings of the American political apparatus as it lumbers around like a drunken schoolyard bully.
Entertainment is even worse. Which fatuous, self-involved celebrity has gotten married/divorced, delivered a payload of life or been sent to rehab this year? The same cast of arrogant morons that made similarly ill-advised and catastrophic life-commitments last year. The only real drama or surprise would come from those multimillionaire miscreants that DIDN'T get hitched, ditched, preggers or busted. And the vast collection of talentless nobodies that oozes forth from that effluent of mediocrity that constitutes reality television are too contemptible for words. So let's all chant the American entertainment industry mantra together: "Lowest Common Denominator."
So happy holidays, a wonderful festive season and a merry non-denominational, politically correct, and culturally/ethnically neutral euphemism to you all. Let's all cross our extremities and hope for a very prosperous new year. Back soon to conclude my 2004 broadcasting year.
Cheers,
-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^
26 December 2004
09 December 2004
Frustration and Vindication.
Greetings, gentle readers.
Hoo-boy. Before I get onto my next exciting installment of the trials and tribulations of human gender interaction, I've got to put down my thoughts on the past couple of day's action in the World of Footy. The Champions' League has finally wrapped up the last round of league play, and we've now entered... THE ELIMINATION PHASE. Of course, the whole damn tournament used to be an elimination phase, but that was in the good old days, before the big money teams like Manchester United could lose 3-0 to Fener-kebab-shoppos and still prance merrily through to the next round.
So, going into the sixth round of the group stage, there were areas of drama and suspense, but a terrific number of instances of scenarios with all the dynamism of a damp squib and all the tension of a runny bowel movement. Juve, for example, clinched qualification for the next round back in the fourth game. After winning all first four games, they were not to be toppled. When they won the fifth game, they clinched first place. That made the sixth game against Bayern Münich a bit of a doddle. So they played out the string and drew one another, since neither Ajax or Maccabi Tel Aviv had a mathematical chance of catching either of them. That group was done after the fifth round. One is reminded of the 1978 World Cup where the Germans and the Austrians had a final game where only a draw would see them both through to the next round. So they passed the ball around for 90 minutes and walked off, each feeling fantastic. Their group opponents, however, were understandably peeved.
Man U and Lyon were also guaranteed shoo-ins for the next round, so they just didn't care, with the previously hapless Turks ripping Manchester apart, despite the fact that not even a cricket score could get them into the next round.
The interesting matches were three-fold. First, already failed challengers Roma faced Réal Madrid. Roma had the potential to play spoilers, since if they won, they would eliminate Réal from contention and dump them into the UEFA Cup. unfortunately, they picked an afternoon when Ronaldo and Luis Figo decided to show up to play, and were promptly kicked to the kerb 3-0. Ronaldo scored the first, then earned a penalty which Figo calmly dispatched, and then Figo gunned in a long range bullet to send the dismal Italians to the bottom of the group and out of European competition for the season in front of an empty stadium, due to the stupidity of Roman fans.
The real group that had everyone reaching for their slide rules, calculators, PDA's, Excel spreadsheets, and Cray supercomputers was Group A. With one match remaining, Olympiakos of Athens had 10 points, Monaco had 9, Liverpool had 7, and Deportivo La Coruña was on 2. So Depor was a non-starter, but could play the role of spoiler. If the Spaniards beat Monaco, Liverpool could leapfrog them and they and the Greeks would both qualify. If Depor and Monaco drew one another, then a Liverpool win would set up a huge computation of goal-differential and then matches for/against one another. It would take several paragraphs to outline the different scenarios, and it would baffle the majority of people not thoroughly immersed in Lobachevskian mathematical treatises.
Bottom line - for Liverpool to have a chance to go through, they would need a win. The actual scoreline would depend on what the French team did. Should Monaco win, Liverpool (having lost 1-0 away to Olympiakos) would either need a clean sheet (no away goals for the Greeks) and at least a 1-0 win, or else they would have to win the game by two clear goals. It was always going to be a tense match-up.
I was home by early afternoon from work, and spent the evening waiting for the game by tidying up the domicile and playing FIFA 2005. Fervently. By the time 2200h rolled around, I was pumped. I had my LFC sweatshirt and scarf on. I was getting chills up and down my spine, though admittedly those might have been from the icy draughts ghosting through the place from the bitter winter wind outside.
So I found myself in front of the telly, eyes grainy from lack of sleep, but brain and blood seething with anticipation. The line-up looked promising, but I picked out a couple of problems right from the get-go. Didi Hamann was out through two-yellow-card suspension, and Luis Garcia was out through injury. Milan Baros was back to spearhead the attack, though this was his first game back after recovering from injury, so his match fitness might not be exactly what it was when he led the scoring during Euro '04 in Portugal. Stevie G was again at the heart of midfield; Kewell, the waltzing midfielder was pushed forward into an inside left channel, while John-Arne Riise took his spot on the left of midfield. Nuñes and Dr. X were operating on the right of midfield while the defence was led by the Hÿypie and the eternally impressive Jamie Carragher in the centre, with Finnan on the right and (shudder) Djimi Traoré on the left. Hey, I like Jimmy, but I've never seen a solid performance out of him anywhere other than on the reserve team.
So my first hesitation was Jimmy. At left back. One of the most critical spots on the pitch. The theory goes like this: if you're out wide and you want to kick a ball and hit a teammate in the 18-yard box, you'll use the foot nearest the touch line, and swing it toward the net. Since most people are right-footed, that means that the most dangerous crosses should come from the offensive right side. Precisely where one finds the defending left-back. Not a place to put a jittery virtual rookie against the likes of Rivaldo and Giovanni, both members of the '98 World Cup-winning team.
Second hesitation: who was going to cover defensive midfield duties? Who was going to shield the back four against balls over the top of midfield? Didi could do it well, Diao could do a half-assed job, but neither of them was in the team. That meant that the team had to push up hard and not leave much room between midfield and the back four. And that means that it would be very difficult to play the offside trap. The only tactic that would work would be "Attack! Attack! Attack, attack, attack!" and press forward so hard with possession that the Greek defense would have to clear the ball far enough that Chris Kirkland could sprint out of net to cover the space left behind the back four.
Third cause of apprehension: Nuñez may have dragged his fragile Iberian butt off the injury roster, but he hasn't proven anything to anyone yet. He's certainly not my first choice ahead of the unavailable Garcia and Hamann. But the squad is a bit thin on the ground, so that's a risk I suppose the gaffer felt he had to take. Personally, I would have played either Mellor or Florent Sinama-Pongolle up front to have a proper striking tandem and pulled Kewell back into central-left midfield, instead of forward.
So, trembling with anticipation and quivering with worry, the match kicked off. One word describes Liverpool's start - electric. With Kewell exchanging passes with Jar-Jar on the left, Liverpool surged forward and began showering the increasingly distressed Nikopolidis in the Olympiakos net. They had three corner kicks in the first 75 seconds. The shelling was symptomatic of the possession and power Liverpool exerted. The coils of the Red Serpent were tightening, and squeezing... squeezing... Shot after shot.
Baros has a goal disallowed for a fictitious foul. The ball crosses the line through the air and is cleared after the fact by a defender, only for the referee to blow his whistle and point to a spot which had been completely devoid of any Liverpool players. A call for a Greek handball is ignored by the ref. A brilliant play involving Stevie G backheeling the ball from the TOP OF THE 18-YARD BOX flashes though the crowds there only to crash against the post with Nikopolidis beaten.
The Greeks had no answers for the questions Liverpool were directing at them. But the nagging doubts remained. Traoré was slipping and stumbling and losing possession on a regular basis, but the Riise-Krispy was covering for his teammate's gaffes. Nuñez was looking a bit lost when Liverpool didn't have the ball, but seemed alright moving forward. And so far, the defence was holding its shape, with Jamie Carragher at his do-or-die, lionhearted best. In fact, it was Carra who spared Jimmy blushes when he darted in out of nowhere to deny Olympiakos the ball on a ball drifted in from that wing.
Suddenly, all of my fears coalesced into one luminescent spheroid. A ball chipped over Nuñez' head hit Rivaldo in the no-man's land where a defensive midfielder would have been. He then drifted past a distraught Jimmy, and lunged for the space between Carragher and Hÿypia. The big Finn tried to nonchalantly hip check the nippy forward, who threw himself to the ground enthusiastically. A dangerous free-kick for the Greeks, and the Brazilian bounced to his feet to take it.
If you've ever had a sibling, you'll know that the best way to get someone off balance is to resist very hard at first when they try and push you, and then suddenly give way. Bend like a reed in the wind, like Kyle McLachlan in "Dune". When a directed force unexpectedly loses the resistance facing it, that force quickly loses its focus. And so it was with the Liverpool defensive wall facing Rivaldo's free-kick. With Carra and Sami forming an imposing duo at the centre of the wall, the far right end of the wall (facing the ball), near the centre "D" of the top of the 18-yard box, was held by Nuñez. Of course, being at the edge of the wall, he had an Olympiakos player shoving him, and he was shoving back to hold his position. Just as Rivaldo was making his run up, Nuñez's marker suddenly dropped off, and Antonio was suddenly shoving empty space. He peeled off the wall, and Rivaldo motored a shot into the gap. Kirkland was frozen and the ball sailed into the back of the net. 1-0 to the group leaders. Completely against the run of play, and a cruel setback.
By this point, news was trickling in from La Coruña. Monaco was opening the hapless Spaniards up like crawdads at a Louisiana all-you-can-eat party. One-nil. Then two. As Monaco was roaring up the table, it became obvious that the only place left for Liverpool to fight for was second. Not only did they need to win the game, but they had to edge Olympiakos in goal differential. That meant that they needed to win the game by two goals, and that meant that Liverpool suddenly had sixty minutes to conjure up at least three goals against a team that had given up only one solitary goal in their last FIFTEEN games. No man in red let his head drop, but there were some bleak looks as Finnan and Nuñez passed each other.
The Kop wouldn't let their team lie down, though. The songs rang out, drowning the exuberant cheers of the sizable away support. As the first half began to wind down, Liverpool had won seven corners to Olympiakos' one. The chants of "Attack! Attack! Attack-Attack-Attack!" echoed in the evening air. Incisive passing, dominating possession, and viciously powerful shooting had come to naught, and suddenly, there was only 45 minutes left to score three goals.
As the lads made it down the tunnel to the dressing room, a quick glance into the corner scoreboard revealed that Monaco were putting on an exhibition. Three-nil over the Spaniards.
Fifteen minutes later, a very grim Jamie Carragher and the rest of the lads jogged back out of the tunnel to rapturous applause, and a thunderous chorus of "You'll Never Walk Alone". Stevie G paused and looked at the upraised scarves and replica jerseys all around him and gritted his teeth.
The gaffer had made a change. The hesitant and unimpressive Djimi Traore was out. In was the Pongo. Florent Sinama-Pongolle had come on as a second striker, and, rather than do as I would have done and shuffle Riise into left-back and move Kewell out to the wing, the boss decided to go with only three at the back, five in midfield, and two men forward. A dangerous risk, considering that mobility is not Hÿypia's strong point, and suddenly, there is a lot of space behind the midfield front line. The wide midfielders - Riise and Nuñez - dropped a little, ready to rush back and help out if the Greeks ever tried a route-one ball over the top. They needn't have bothered. Stevie G had come to play. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. And he had arrived.
From the kick-off, the ball was his. He stroked it about masterfully, distributing it with class and holding it up stolidly against many fierce and reckless challenges. Within two minutes of the kick-off, one of his inch-perfect balls found Kewell streaking outside wide left. The Australian, having been such a disappointment so often this season, suddenly flashed a moment of genius and eluded his marker, deftly nipping toward goal along the line. He spiked a ball laterally, right across Nikopolidis and hit... Florent Sinama-Pongolle. The deftest of arial taps, and the ball nestled in the back of the net. Practically the young French talent's first touch, and Liverpool were back in the game. The Liverpool fans went ecstatic. The Olympiakos end suddenly began to fret and frown a little. One nil was a perfect score for them. It meant qualification at the top of the group, and Liverpool's elimination. One-all meant qualification, but behind Monaco who were now thrashing Deportivo four-nil. And Liverpool had finally made all of their dashing and adventurous forays culminate into a goal. That meant more confidence, and more attacking panache, and that meant a wilting Olympiakos defence.
Stevie G wasn't done, though. Dashing and darting everywhere, he led a snarling charge through the heart of the entire Olympiakos team, beating several players before being called back for a foul and yellow card. As he leapt and capered, one of his boots had hit the thigh of a stunned Olympiakos midfielder. That meant that he would be ineligible for the next game, but if he wasn't going to throw all that he had into the game, there wouldn't be a next game in the Champions' League.
Meanwhile, Milan Baros up front had begun to show signs that his lack of form had caught up to him. He began to get caught offside, and was visibly shaken after runs. The gaffer took him off for the youthful and inexperienced, yet Arsenal-slaying Neil Mellor to make his European debut. Within seconds, a Gerrard cross hit Nuñez, whose stinging header was miraculously palmed away by the split-second reflexes of Nikopolidis. Palmed away... straight to the streaking Mellor who emphatically powered a volley into the net with his first touch of the game. Two to one and now Liverpool were brimming with confidence, and Olympiakos were reeling.
Stevie G was everywhere - running back to collect the ball from defence, stroking passes from midfield, and thundering forward in innumerable assaults on the increasingly panicked Greek defence. The rest of the Red Machine took their cue from the captain, and the pressure on Nikolpolidis and his defenders began to take its toll as yellow cards became increasingly common. Their goalscorer Rivaldo now looked a broken man, his every touch on the ball seeming to drift over the sidelines for a Riise or Carragher throw-in.
It was from a throw-in on the far side of the pitch, with Stevie G (no exaggeration) jumping up and down and waving his arms like some sort of demented jumping jack, that Neil Mellor nodded the ball toward the top of the 18-yard box where it was met by a charging, snorting Stevie G, who volleyed it on the one-touch from more than twenty yards away with such venom and power that Nikopolidis had barely moved a half-meter when the back of the net bulged... and kept bulging as the ball strained to reach the screaming and jubilant kop beyond the mesh.
The away-end gasped and gaped as they struggled to comprehend what they'd just seen. With five minutes left in the game and Monaco now cruising at five to nil, they had gone from triumph to a tragedy worthy of Sophocles and Euripedes. When the referee's assistant signalled that there was four minutes of time to be added on, fingernails were chewed, scarves were clutched and clenched, tears welled in eyesockets and hands were wrung by the Olympiakos faithful. The Kop cheered, waiting for the magical moment when they could again burst into song, singing the anthem of Anfield and signal one of the truly great victories of an already storied and gilded club.
The game won, the qualification for the final sixteen now secured, Liverpool moved the ball around comfortably in a confident and assured manner until the final whistle went, barely audible over the lusty sound of 40,000 voices belting out as one: "When you walk through a storm... hold your head up high... and don't be afraid of the dark. At the end of a storm... there's a golden sky... and the sweet, silver song of a lark. Walk on. Walk on. With hope in your heart... and you'll never walk alone! You'll ne-ver walk a-a-alone!"
I had tears of relief in my eyes and sang to the television in my darkened living room. Stevie G, hands clapping over his head, strode the field like a colossus amidst the confused and disoriented Olympiakos players who were still trying to piece together the magnitude of what had just over-whelmed them. From champs to chumps. From masters to disasters. From front-runners to also-rans. An historic match and one that will leave an indelible impression on the rest of the competition - try and force Steven Gerrard into a situation where he will disappoint his thronging Red supporters at your peril. Doubts as to whether he is one of, if not the best midfielder in the game today were thoroughly discredited, and Chelsea and Réal Madrid must be shaking their heads at their failures to lure Gerrard away from the city and the fans he loves, because he'll turn his predatory eye toward their goals next.
And so, on to the round of sixteen, where the teams have yet to be drawn against one another. But on this form, Liverpool need fear no-one. Let the other teams quail and draught contigency plans. The Red Machine is back in Europe, and they're not leaving without a trail of broken opposition supporters and dispirited and devalued opponents.
Next stop: Goodison Park for the cross-town derby on Saturday. The tremendously fortuitous run that the Toffees have had is not only in jeopardy, it's looking like a watermelon being targeted by grapeshot cannon. We'll see on the day how rested the lads are from this emotional rollercoaster of a match, and then we'll see how the likes of Unsworth and Ferguson deal with the imperious Captain Courageous and his brave team of footy shock-troopers.
As an aside, Liverpool are still in all competitions, and look as though they might be able to better their five-trophy year in 2001. Getting a fifth Champions' Cup would be sweet enough, but who wants to limit their ambition? We want it all. And we have the team to take it.
Forza Liverpool!
Cheers,
-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^
Hoo-boy. Before I get onto my next exciting installment of the trials and tribulations of human gender interaction, I've got to put down my thoughts on the past couple of day's action in the World of Footy. The Champions' League has finally wrapped up the last round of league play, and we've now entered... THE ELIMINATION PHASE. Of course, the whole damn tournament used to be an elimination phase, but that was in the good old days, before the big money teams like Manchester United could lose 3-0 to Fener-kebab-shoppos and still prance merrily through to the next round.
So, going into the sixth round of the group stage, there were areas of drama and suspense, but a terrific number of instances of scenarios with all the dynamism of a damp squib and all the tension of a runny bowel movement. Juve, for example, clinched qualification for the next round back in the fourth game. After winning all first four games, they were not to be toppled. When they won the fifth game, they clinched first place. That made the sixth game against Bayern Münich a bit of a doddle. So they played out the string and drew one another, since neither Ajax or Maccabi Tel Aviv had a mathematical chance of catching either of them. That group was done after the fifth round. One is reminded of the 1978 World Cup where the Germans and the Austrians had a final game where only a draw would see them both through to the next round. So they passed the ball around for 90 minutes and walked off, each feeling fantastic. Their group opponents, however, were understandably peeved.
Man U and Lyon were also guaranteed shoo-ins for the next round, so they just didn't care, with the previously hapless Turks ripping Manchester apart, despite the fact that not even a cricket score could get them into the next round.
The interesting matches were three-fold. First, already failed challengers Roma faced Réal Madrid. Roma had the potential to play spoilers, since if they won, they would eliminate Réal from contention and dump them into the UEFA Cup. unfortunately, they picked an afternoon when Ronaldo and Luis Figo decided to show up to play, and were promptly kicked to the kerb 3-0. Ronaldo scored the first, then earned a penalty which Figo calmly dispatched, and then Figo gunned in a long range bullet to send the dismal Italians to the bottom of the group and out of European competition for the season in front of an empty stadium, due to the stupidity of Roman fans.
The real group that had everyone reaching for their slide rules, calculators, PDA's, Excel spreadsheets, and Cray supercomputers was Group A. With one match remaining, Olympiakos of Athens had 10 points, Monaco had 9, Liverpool had 7, and Deportivo La Coruña was on 2. So Depor was a non-starter, but could play the role of spoiler. If the Spaniards beat Monaco, Liverpool could leapfrog them and they and the Greeks would both qualify. If Depor and Monaco drew one another, then a Liverpool win would set up a huge computation of goal-differential and then matches for/against one another. It would take several paragraphs to outline the different scenarios, and it would baffle the majority of people not thoroughly immersed in Lobachevskian mathematical treatises.
Bottom line - for Liverpool to have a chance to go through, they would need a win. The actual scoreline would depend on what the French team did. Should Monaco win, Liverpool (having lost 1-0 away to Olympiakos) would either need a clean sheet (no away goals for the Greeks) and at least a 1-0 win, or else they would have to win the game by two clear goals. It was always going to be a tense match-up.
I was home by early afternoon from work, and spent the evening waiting for the game by tidying up the domicile and playing FIFA 2005. Fervently. By the time 2200h rolled around, I was pumped. I had my LFC sweatshirt and scarf on. I was getting chills up and down my spine, though admittedly those might have been from the icy draughts ghosting through the place from the bitter winter wind outside.
So I found myself in front of the telly, eyes grainy from lack of sleep, but brain and blood seething with anticipation. The line-up looked promising, but I picked out a couple of problems right from the get-go. Didi Hamann was out through two-yellow-card suspension, and Luis Garcia was out through injury. Milan Baros was back to spearhead the attack, though this was his first game back after recovering from injury, so his match fitness might not be exactly what it was when he led the scoring during Euro '04 in Portugal. Stevie G was again at the heart of midfield; Kewell, the waltzing midfielder was pushed forward into an inside left channel, while John-Arne Riise took his spot on the left of midfield. Nuñes and Dr. X were operating on the right of midfield while the defence was led by the Hÿypie and the eternally impressive Jamie Carragher in the centre, with Finnan on the right and (shudder) Djimi Traoré on the left. Hey, I like Jimmy, but I've never seen a solid performance out of him anywhere other than on the reserve team.
So my first hesitation was Jimmy. At left back. One of the most critical spots on the pitch. The theory goes like this: if you're out wide and you want to kick a ball and hit a teammate in the 18-yard box, you'll use the foot nearest the touch line, and swing it toward the net. Since most people are right-footed, that means that the most dangerous crosses should come from the offensive right side. Precisely where one finds the defending left-back. Not a place to put a jittery virtual rookie against the likes of Rivaldo and Giovanni, both members of the '98 World Cup-winning team.
Second hesitation: who was going to cover defensive midfield duties? Who was going to shield the back four against balls over the top of midfield? Didi could do it well, Diao could do a half-assed job, but neither of them was in the team. That meant that the team had to push up hard and not leave much room between midfield and the back four. And that means that it would be very difficult to play the offside trap. The only tactic that would work would be "Attack! Attack! Attack, attack, attack!" and press forward so hard with possession that the Greek defense would have to clear the ball far enough that Chris Kirkland could sprint out of net to cover the space left behind the back four.
Third cause of apprehension: Nuñez may have dragged his fragile Iberian butt off the injury roster, but he hasn't proven anything to anyone yet. He's certainly not my first choice ahead of the unavailable Garcia and Hamann. But the squad is a bit thin on the ground, so that's a risk I suppose the gaffer felt he had to take. Personally, I would have played either Mellor or Florent Sinama-Pongolle up front to have a proper striking tandem and pulled Kewell back into central-left midfield, instead of forward.
So, trembling with anticipation and quivering with worry, the match kicked off. One word describes Liverpool's start - electric. With Kewell exchanging passes with Jar-Jar on the left, Liverpool surged forward and began showering the increasingly distressed Nikopolidis in the Olympiakos net. They had three corner kicks in the first 75 seconds. The shelling was symptomatic of the possession and power Liverpool exerted. The coils of the Red Serpent were tightening, and squeezing... squeezing... Shot after shot.
Baros has a goal disallowed for a fictitious foul. The ball crosses the line through the air and is cleared after the fact by a defender, only for the referee to blow his whistle and point to a spot which had been completely devoid of any Liverpool players. A call for a Greek handball is ignored by the ref. A brilliant play involving Stevie G backheeling the ball from the TOP OF THE 18-YARD BOX flashes though the crowds there only to crash against the post with Nikopolidis beaten.
The Greeks had no answers for the questions Liverpool were directing at them. But the nagging doubts remained. Traoré was slipping and stumbling and losing possession on a regular basis, but the Riise-Krispy was covering for his teammate's gaffes. Nuñez was looking a bit lost when Liverpool didn't have the ball, but seemed alright moving forward. And so far, the defence was holding its shape, with Jamie Carragher at his do-or-die, lionhearted best. In fact, it was Carra who spared Jimmy blushes when he darted in out of nowhere to deny Olympiakos the ball on a ball drifted in from that wing.
Suddenly, all of my fears coalesced into one luminescent spheroid. A ball chipped over Nuñez' head hit Rivaldo in the no-man's land where a defensive midfielder would have been. He then drifted past a distraught Jimmy, and lunged for the space between Carragher and Hÿypia. The big Finn tried to nonchalantly hip check the nippy forward, who threw himself to the ground enthusiastically. A dangerous free-kick for the Greeks, and the Brazilian bounced to his feet to take it.
If you've ever had a sibling, you'll know that the best way to get someone off balance is to resist very hard at first when they try and push you, and then suddenly give way. Bend like a reed in the wind, like Kyle McLachlan in "Dune". When a directed force unexpectedly loses the resistance facing it, that force quickly loses its focus. And so it was with the Liverpool defensive wall facing Rivaldo's free-kick. With Carra and Sami forming an imposing duo at the centre of the wall, the far right end of the wall (facing the ball), near the centre "D" of the top of the 18-yard box, was held by Nuñez. Of course, being at the edge of the wall, he had an Olympiakos player shoving him, and he was shoving back to hold his position. Just as Rivaldo was making his run up, Nuñez's marker suddenly dropped off, and Antonio was suddenly shoving empty space. He peeled off the wall, and Rivaldo motored a shot into the gap. Kirkland was frozen and the ball sailed into the back of the net. 1-0 to the group leaders. Completely against the run of play, and a cruel setback.
By this point, news was trickling in from La Coruña. Monaco was opening the hapless Spaniards up like crawdads at a Louisiana all-you-can-eat party. One-nil. Then two. As Monaco was roaring up the table, it became obvious that the only place left for Liverpool to fight for was second. Not only did they need to win the game, but they had to edge Olympiakos in goal differential. That meant that they needed to win the game by two goals, and that meant that Liverpool suddenly had sixty minutes to conjure up at least three goals against a team that had given up only one solitary goal in their last FIFTEEN games. No man in red let his head drop, but there were some bleak looks as Finnan and Nuñez passed each other.
The Kop wouldn't let their team lie down, though. The songs rang out, drowning the exuberant cheers of the sizable away support. As the first half began to wind down, Liverpool had won seven corners to Olympiakos' one. The chants of "Attack! Attack! Attack-Attack-Attack!" echoed in the evening air. Incisive passing, dominating possession, and viciously powerful shooting had come to naught, and suddenly, there was only 45 minutes left to score three goals.
As the lads made it down the tunnel to the dressing room, a quick glance into the corner scoreboard revealed that Monaco were putting on an exhibition. Three-nil over the Spaniards.
Fifteen minutes later, a very grim Jamie Carragher and the rest of the lads jogged back out of the tunnel to rapturous applause, and a thunderous chorus of "You'll Never Walk Alone". Stevie G paused and looked at the upraised scarves and replica jerseys all around him and gritted his teeth.
The gaffer had made a change. The hesitant and unimpressive Djimi Traore was out. In was the Pongo. Florent Sinama-Pongolle had come on as a second striker, and, rather than do as I would have done and shuffle Riise into left-back and move Kewell out to the wing, the boss decided to go with only three at the back, five in midfield, and two men forward. A dangerous risk, considering that mobility is not Hÿypia's strong point, and suddenly, there is a lot of space behind the midfield front line. The wide midfielders - Riise and Nuñez - dropped a little, ready to rush back and help out if the Greeks ever tried a route-one ball over the top. They needn't have bothered. Stevie G had come to play. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. And he had arrived.
From the kick-off, the ball was his. He stroked it about masterfully, distributing it with class and holding it up stolidly against many fierce and reckless challenges. Within two minutes of the kick-off, one of his inch-perfect balls found Kewell streaking outside wide left. The Australian, having been such a disappointment so often this season, suddenly flashed a moment of genius and eluded his marker, deftly nipping toward goal along the line. He spiked a ball laterally, right across Nikopolidis and hit... Florent Sinama-Pongolle. The deftest of arial taps, and the ball nestled in the back of the net. Practically the young French talent's first touch, and Liverpool were back in the game. The Liverpool fans went ecstatic. The Olympiakos end suddenly began to fret and frown a little. One nil was a perfect score for them. It meant qualification at the top of the group, and Liverpool's elimination. One-all meant qualification, but behind Monaco who were now thrashing Deportivo four-nil. And Liverpool had finally made all of their dashing and adventurous forays culminate into a goal. That meant more confidence, and more attacking panache, and that meant a wilting Olympiakos defence.
Stevie G wasn't done, though. Dashing and darting everywhere, he led a snarling charge through the heart of the entire Olympiakos team, beating several players before being called back for a foul and yellow card. As he leapt and capered, one of his boots had hit the thigh of a stunned Olympiakos midfielder. That meant that he would be ineligible for the next game, but if he wasn't going to throw all that he had into the game, there wouldn't be a next game in the Champions' League.
Meanwhile, Milan Baros up front had begun to show signs that his lack of form had caught up to him. He began to get caught offside, and was visibly shaken after runs. The gaffer took him off for the youthful and inexperienced, yet Arsenal-slaying Neil Mellor to make his European debut. Within seconds, a Gerrard cross hit Nuñez, whose stinging header was miraculously palmed away by the split-second reflexes of Nikopolidis. Palmed away... straight to the streaking Mellor who emphatically powered a volley into the net with his first touch of the game. Two to one and now Liverpool were brimming with confidence, and Olympiakos were reeling.
Stevie G was everywhere - running back to collect the ball from defence, stroking passes from midfield, and thundering forward in innumerable assaults on the increasingly panicked Greek defence. The rest of the Red Machine took their cue from the captain, and the pressure on Nikolpolidis and his defenders began to take its toll as yellow cards became increasingly common. Their goalscorer Rivaldo now looked a broken man, his every touch on the ball seeming to drift over the sidelines for a Riise or Carragher throw-in.
It was from a throw-in on the far side of the pitch, with Stevie G (no exaggeration) jumping up and down and waving his arms like some sort of demented jumping jack, that Neil Mellor nodded the ball toward the top of the 18-yard box where it was met by a charging, snorting Stevie G, who volleyed it on the one-touch from more than twenty yards away with such venom and power that Nikopolidis had barely moved a half-meter when the back of the net bulged... and kept bulging as the ball strained to reach the screaming and jubilant kop beyond the mesh.
The away-end gasped and gaped as they struggled to comprehend what they'd just seen. With five minutes left in the game and Monaco now cruising at five to nil, they had gone from triumph to a tragedy worthy of Sophocles and Euripedes. When the referee's assistant signalled that there was four minutes of time to be added on, fingernails were chewed, scarves were clutched and clenched, tears welled in eyesockets and hands were wrung by the Olympiakos faithful. The Kop cheered, waiting for the magical moment when they could again burst into song, singing the anthem of Anfield and signal one of the truly great victories of an already storied and gilded club.
The game won, the qualification for the final sixteen now secured, Liverpool moved the ball around comfortably in a confident and assured manner until the final whistle went, barely audible over the lusty sound of 40,000 voices belting out as one: "When you walk through a storm... hold your head up high... and don't be afraid of the dark. At the end of a storm... there's a golden sky... and the sweet, silver song of a lark. Walk on. Walk on. With hope in your heart... and you'll never walk alone! You'll ne-ver walk a-a-alone!"
I had tears of relief in my eyes and sang to the television in my darkened living room. Stevie G, hands clapping over his head, strode the field like a colossus amidst the confused and disoriented Olympiakos players who were still trying to piece together the magnitude of what had just over-whelmed them. From champs to chumps. From masters to disasters. From front-runners to also-rans. An historic match and one that will leave an indelible impression on the rest of the competition - try and force Steven Gerrard into a situation where he will disappoint his thronging Red supporters at your peril. Doubts as to whether he is one of, if not the best midfielder in the game today were thoroughly discredited, and Chelsea and Réal Madrid must be shaking their heads at their failures to lure Gerrard away from the city and the fans he loves, because he'll turn his predatory eye toward their goals next.
And so, on to the round of sixteen, where the teams have yet to be drawn against one another. But on this form, Liverpool need fear no-one. Let the other teams quail and draught contigency plans. The Red Machine is back in Europe, and they're not leaving without a trail of broken opposition supporters and dispirited and devalued opponents.
Next stop: Goodison Park for the cross-town derby on Saturday. The tremendously fortuitous run that the Toffees have had is not only in jeopardy, it's looking like a watermelon being targeted by grapeshot cannon. We'll see on the day how rested the lads are from this emotional rollercoaster of a match, and then we'll see how the likes of Unsworth and Ferguson deal with the imperious Captain Courageous and his brave team of footy shock-troopers.
As an aside, Liverpool are still in all competitions, and look as though they might be able to better their five-trophy year in 2001. Getting a fifth Champions' Cup would be sweet enough, but who wants to limit their ambition? We want it all. And we have the team to take it.
Forza Liverpool!
Cheers,
-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^
07 December 2004
It's a coffee-table book...
Greetings everyone.
I recently had a conversation with a friend wherein she actually asked "It must be really tough for nice guys, huh?" before stating that "I know lots of girls who won't date a guy because he's too nice." Despite the inherently depressing nature of those comments, I tried to forge ahead in the exchange. Eventually, she asked what guys want in a girl. By way of response, I've got my top 20 list of women-folk that I find attractive. I may want to shuffle the order about a bit, since I've just sort of conceptualized it, and my rankings may be a tad off in terms of prioritizing or valuating. Anyway, my dream woman would be some sort of genetic mutant made up of the following individuals.
20. Hillary Rodham Clinton
I once wrote that elegance is sexy, but competence is sexier. Hillary may come off as a little cold at times, but she's a fine lawyer, a solid United States Senator, in addition to being a former first lady and mother of a successful college student. She hasn't put a foot wrong since she's come to the attention of the public eye, and her drive for health care reform in the United States should give her an amazing status - if Tommy Douglas has been voted The Greatest Canadian, and his major contribution was in the field of health care, it's possible that Hillary might just become one of the greatest American women of all time.
19. Jennifer Love Hewitt
Not the best actress in Hollywood by any stretch of the imagination, nor the best songwriter or singer. The point is: she does this stuff and is successful at it. I haven't gotten a role in any Jackie Chan films, haven't had any albums released, or even recorded. I haven't even had any music published. She's got diverse aestethic talents and interests, as well as an energetic optimism that's infectious. It doesn't hurt her case that she's pretty and has a body that looks like it was put together by a pubescent pervert with too many plush toys.
18. Kara Lang
Kara's a bit young. I confess. I was almost in junior high when she was born. But she's got several things going in her favour to get her included on the list. She's Canadian, and that's never a bad thing. That encapsulates a number of inherent characteristics, including modesty, a sense of fair play, kindness and generosity. Plus, she plays The Beautiful Game. And she's really, really good at it. She plays with a Steve McManaman-esque galloping, dribbling game down the flanks, occasionally drifting inside to lash a shot on goal. She's from British Columbia, but I don't really see that as too much of a negative characteristic.
17. Ali Landry
Okay, so this American model and actress is very physically beautiful. She's like a visual exclamation mark. But anyone who has seen "Repli-Kate" will know that she's also a very cool person. Her interviews and performances are congruent with a person who is approachable, fun-loving, humourous and cleverly flippant. First seen by mass audiences in a famous Doritos advert where she sets off the sprinkler system in a library, she doesn't take herself too seriously, and would be a fun person with whom to kick back with a beer and watch a football game.
16. (Tie) Jennifer Dale / Cynthia Dale
OK. I'm not going to choose one sister over the other. That just leads to much unhappiness. What makes these two desirable? Well, they're Canadian (see above), and they've been demonstrating fantastic acting ability for years and years, making daytime CBC movie specials tolerable, and promoting the Canadian Film Industry. They're also not Hollywood "names", which could mean that their talents have gone unrecognized south of the border, but it can also mean that they are women of integrity who haven't sold out.
15. Anna Faris
Star of the "Scary Movie" trilogy, and a deeply under-rated talent. To spend an entire film open-mouthed, wide-eyed, and breathless with simulated terror, and then to pull off some positively brilliant slapstick or deadpan delivery shows versatility and character. Full of enthusiasm, humour, and fun. And cute as a button.
14. Wendy Mesley
Another Canadian, and a woman I've been goggle-eyed over for decades. She has a kind of austere beauty, and her intelligence flashes through it like an electrical current. The smile that perpetually tugs at the corner of her mouth and the way her eyebrows bunch when she gets really intense made me want to watch the National on CBC every week. Blindingly intelligent, incisive, hard-working, committed, knowledgeable and eloquent... she's great. Oh, and for those who don't know, she's a news anchor/reporter.
13. Miranda Otto
J.R.R. Tolkien wasn't very good at writing female characters. Something about the Oxford academic atmosphere, I think, that precludes any delving into a lot of professors' feminine sides. When Peter Jackson did what seems to be the definitive film version of "The Lord of the Rings", he did a bit of shuffling to give the girls a bit more of a run out. One role that benefitted in particular was that of Eowyn, niece to Theodred. Miranda did amazingly well to bring the role to life. As I watched the scene where she is confronted by Gríma Wormtongue (played chillingly by Brad Dourif), I expereienced the same feeling that one gets when just starting to fall asleep - that light-headed, falling sensation. I have the suspicion that I could stare into her deep and expressive eyes for a thousand years. Mesmerizing.
12. Hazel Irvine
For those of you that don't know, Hazel is a television sports presenter in the U.K. She covers the Embassy World Snooker Championships, as well as some of the alpine events during Winter Olympics and other such competitions. Not only can she intelligently discuss sports, but she's erudite, quick-witted, and disarmingly charming. It's not easy trying to coax an entertaining interview from Stephen Hendry or Ronnie O'Sullivan when they're feeling glum and taciturn after losing a 19 rack match. And she makes a Scottish accent sound sexy. Hazel is to men as Sean Connery is to women. And lovely teeth, to match.
11. Natalie Portman
A precocious acting talent that first tugged heart-strings as a waif in "Léon", released in North America as "The Professional", she has also completed her Harvard degree. Intelligent, thoughtful, focused, and diligent, she has a force of character which is hard to avoid noticing. She has her own personality - independent and forceful, and it gives her an undeniable presence.
10. Linda Bresonik
Another decidedly young entry whom I first noticed at the Under-19 Women's World Cup in 2002. She was the standout performer for the champion German team, scoring goals, and playing in every position on the park except goalkeeper - she played sweeper, back, midfield and striker as the Germans strode confidently to an eventual Final win over Brazil on penalties. A thoroughly competent, versatile, athletic leader who plays The Beautiful Game with poise and elegance.
9. Janeane Garofalo
I haven't seen "The Truth About Cats and Dogs", but I was astonished to learn that the "little & large", "pretty & dumpy" dichotomy pal-flick formula was being applied to Uma Thurman and Janeane. She's charmed my socks off in every interview I've ever seen, and her performances always seems authentic and real. She has a wonderful self-deprecatory sense of humour which I find warm and infectious. She's funny, honest, open and unpretentious. In a word: great.
8. Mira Sorvino
Graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in Chinese Studies, and a very well-spoken and personable actress who's not afraid to take the mickey out of herself, as she did in the ditz-fest "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion." She's done action, horror, comedy and whatever genre Woody Allen films fall into. She's an Oscar-winner who doesn't stand on her achievements, but pushes the envelope further.
7. Joanne Guest
A English model who is not only stunningly good looking, but has lectured the Oxford Debating Society. A little dirty and a very blunt and candid speaker in interviews, she's forthright and open, down-to-earth and keenly aware of the opinions and perceptions of others. A confident and ambitious woman who is also laddish to the extent that she would be a person with whom it would be great to meet down the pub and sink a few pints. A complex personality equally capable of demure diffidence and brash vulgarity.
6. Jennifer Hedger
An anchorwoman on TSN who is witty, funny, and not afraid to take on male colleagues intellectually or professionally. She's also really tall. It was once written of her that she could walk across Lake Winnipeg without getting her ankles wet. She digs on sports, has strong opinions and a strong will, and would be a great person with whom to have an argument. She's got a sparkling conversational sense and doesn't let any challenge go unanswered.
5. Laura Harring
The co-star of David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" graduated from Switzerland's Aiglon College with academic honours, worked as a social worker in India. She can do the Argentine tango, perform any of the roles in a Commedia Dell'Arte production, was born in Mexico and grew up in Texas. A true cosmopolite, this is a truly interesting woman with stories to tell, and who shares my interest in the investigation of people and cultures globally. I find her fascinating and would really love to sit down with a bottle of Mateus, a baguette, and an assortment of cheeses to discuss geography and human interaction.
4. Sadie Frost
Her oftimes understated demeanour belies a keen mind and a seething sexuality. Most people will remember her as Lucy from "Bram Stoker's Dracula", playing the bad girl to Winona Ryder's good-girl Mina. I still think of her as the best part of Eric Idle's film "Splitting Heirs." A talented English actress with much more to offer the cinematic community, I would really love to gain an insight into her mind and her thinking. A consummate professional who has never put a figurative foot wrong and, like some of the other actresses listed here, hasn't sold out to Hollywood by choosing her roles rather than just cranking out brainless potboilers for the sake of feeding the ravenous film industry's need for more revenue. No pointless sequels or insipid summer blockbuster action films on her resumé.
3. Lisa Loeb
My music library, mysteriously, has very few female lead singers. Carole King, Edie Brickell and Christine Lavin are probably the only ones with anything near the volume of music I have of Lisa's stuff. She's bright, clever, creative, and not at all self aggrandizing. And she's got the kind of character needed to wear glasses - most people chicken out and wear contacts, but not our Ms. Loeb. She's got the personality of Nanci Griffith, she's prettier than Sarah McLachlan, and writes better songs than both of them. Someone with whom I would very much like to jam and collaborate. And I'd like to ask her whether she's a big J.D. Salinger afficionado, as I suspect.
2. Emily Mortimer
Yes, another actress. I was going to spring for Dr. Linda Woodbridge in this spot, but how many people know the English Literature professor teaching at Pennsylvania State University? Not many, though I'm sure a google search would probably turn up something. She was the professor that changed my academic career irrevocably. Instead, I'm going with Emily Mortimer. She studied English Literature and Russian at Oxford, is a remarkably versatile actress with a talent I deeply admire - being able to emulate English dialects. I've been trying all my life to study, memorize and perform impressions of different dialects, but Emily is the real deal. Her American is great Californian and her Scouse accent is great, although very South Mersey. She's also worked as a newspaper columnist and a playwright, and her commitment to language is perfectly congruent with my University career and personal interests. She starred in one of my all-time favourite films, "Formula 51", a.k.a. "The 51st State," and thus I have seen her often enough to memorize the story of her face and the song of her voice. I'm gonna stop before I start waxing maudlin, if I haven't already.
1. Melanie Chisholm
No, I don't own a single Spice Girls album, single, or song. Why then is Sporty Spice number one on the list? Well, for one, her solo stuff is much better than any of the Spice Girls rubbish, but that's not saying much. She's also from Liverpool, which is worth a lot of consideration. Plus she's fun, spunky, energetic, and a strong personality. Really, whom would you rather your pre-teen daughter idolize? A singing, dancing martial artist like Mel C., or some egregious tramp like Britney Spears? Who is a better role model for girls? I like Mel because she doesn't use sex to sell her music, she's an unabashed Northerner, and she follows the correct football team. Another great woman to meet down the pub and sink a few pints with.
Conclusion:
So what is it that I find attractive in women? What are the common factors of these twenty women? Well, they're approachable, ambitious, energetic, with great character and a sense of humour. They're different shapes, sizes, ages, but I suppose that the overall commonality is that they're good conversationalists with interesting opinions and personality quirks. They're people that I would like to know and hang out with. I guess that's the bottom line: if I can't have a solid debate with them, or at least a heated discussion, it's just not worth it.
Back later.
Cheers, all.
-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^
I recently had a conversation with a friend wherein she actually asked "It must be really tough for nice guys, huh?" before stating that "I know lots of girls who won't date a guy because he's too nice." Despite the inherently depressing nature of those comments, I tried to forge ahead in the exchange. Eventually, she asked what guys want in a girl. By way of response, I've got my top 20 list of women-folk that I find attractive. I may want to shuffle the order about a bit, since I've just sort of conceptualized it, and my rankings may be a tad off in terms of prioritizing or valuating. Anyway, my dream woman would be some sort of genetic mutant made up of the following individuals.
20. Hillary Rodham Clinton
I once wrote that elegance is sexy, but competence is sexier. Hillary may come off as a little cold at times, but she's a fine lawyer, a solid United States Senator, in addition to being a former first lady and mother of a successful college student. She hasn't put a foot wrong since she's come to the attention of the public eye, and her drive for health care reform in the United States should give her an amazing status - if Tommy Douglas has been voted The Greatest Canadian, and his major contribution was in the field of health care, it's possible that Hillary might just become one of the greatest American women of all time.
19. Jennifer Love Hewitt
Not the best actress in Hollywood by any stretch of the imagination, nor the best songwriter or singer. The point is: she does this stuff and is successful at it. I haven't gotten a role in any Jackie Chan films, haven't had any albums released, or even recorded. I haven't even had any music published. She's got diverse aestethic talents and interests, as well as an energetic optimism that's infectious. It doesn't hurt her case that she's pretty and has a body that looks like it was put together by a pubescent pervert with too many plush toys.
18. Kara Lang
Kara's a bit young. I confess. I was almost in junior high when she was born. But she's got several things going in her favour to get her included on the list. She's Canadian, and that's never a bad thing. That encapsulates a number of inherent characteristics, including modesty, a sense of fair play, kindness and generosity. Plus, she plays The Beautiful Game. And she's really, really good at it. She plays with a Steve McManaman-esque galloping, dribbling game down the flanks, occasionally drifting inside to lash a shot on goal. She's from British Columbia, but I don't really see that as too much of a negative characteristic.
17. Ali Landry
Okay, so this American model and actress is very physically beautiful. She's like a visual exclamation mark. But anyone who has seen "Repli-Kate" will know that she's also a very cool person. Her interviews and performances are congruent with a person who is approachable, fun-loving, humourous and cleverly flippant. First seen by mass audiences in a famous Doritos advert where she sets off the sprinkler system in a library, she doesn't take herself too seriously, and would be a fun person with whom to kick back with a beer and watch a football game.
16. (Tie) Jennifer Dale / Cynthia Dale
OK. I'm not going to choose one sister over the other. That just leads to much unhappiness. What makes these two desirable? Well, they're Canadian (see above), and they've been demonstrating fantastic acting ability for years and years, making daytime CBC movie specials tolerable, and promoting the Canadian Film Industry. They're also not Hollywood "names", which could mean that their talents have gone unrecognized south of the border, but it can also mean that they are women of integrity who haven't sold out.
15. Anna Faris
Star of the "Scary Movie" trilogy, and a deeply under-rated talent. To spend an entire film open-mouthed, wide-eyed, and breathless with simulated terror, and then to pull off some positively brilliant slapstick or deadpan delivery shows versatility and character. Full of enthusiasm, humour, and fun. And cute as a button.
14. Wendy Mesley
Another Canadian, and a woman I've been goggle-eyed over for decades. She has a kind of austere beauty, and her intelligence flashes through it like an electrical current. The smile that perpetually tugs at the corner of her mouth and the way her eyebrows bunch when she gets really intense made me want to watch the National on CBC every week. Blindingly intelligent, incisive, hard-working, committed, knowledgeable and eloquent... she's great. Oh, and for those who don't know, she's a news anchor/reporter.
13. Miranda Otto
J.R.R. Tolkien wasn't very good at writing female characters. Something about the Oxford academic atmosphere, I think, that precludes any delving into a lot of professors' feminine sides. When Peter Jackson did what seems to be the definitive film version of "The Lord of the Rings", he did a bit of shuffling to give the girls a bit more of a run out. One role that benefitted in particular was that of Eowyn, niece to Theodred. Miranda did amazingly well to bring the role to life. As I watched the scene where she is confronted by Gríma Wormtongue (played chillingly by Brad Dourif), I expereienced the same feeling that one gets when just starting to fall asleep - that light-headed, falling sensation. I have the suspicion that I could stare into her deep and expressive eyes for a thousand years. Mesmerizing.
12. Hazel Irvine
For those of you that don't know, Hazel is a television sports presenter in the U.K. She covers the Embassy World Snooker Championships, as well as some of the alpine events during Winter Olympics and other such competitions. Not only can she intelligently discuss sports, but she's erudite, quick-witted, and disarmingly charming. It's not easy trying to coax an entertaining interview from Stephen Hendry or Ronnie O'Sullivan when they're feeling glum and taciturn after losing a 19 rack match. And she makes a Scottish accent sound sexy. Hazel is to men as Sean Connery is to women. And lovely teeth, to match.
11. Natalie Portman
A precocious acting talent that first tugged heart-strings as a waif in "Léon", released in North America as "The Professional", she has also completed her Harvard degree. Intelligent, thoughtful, focused, and diligent, she has a force of character which is hard to avoid noticing. She has her own personality - independent and forceful, and it gives her an undeniable presence.
10. Linda Bresonik
Another decidedly young entry whom I first noticed at the Under-19 Women's World Cup in 2002. She was the standout performer for the champion German team, scoring goals, and playing in every position on the park except goalkeeper - she played sweeper, back, midfield and striker as the Germans strode confidently to an eventual Final win over Brazil on penalties. A thoroughly competent, versatile, athletic leader who plays The Beautiful Game with poise and elegance.
9. Janeane Garofalo
I haven't seen "The Truth About Cats and Dogs", but I was astonished to learn that the "little & large", "pretty & dumpy" dichotomy pal-flick formula was being applied to Uma Thurman and Janeane. She's charmed my socks off in every interview I've ever seen, and her performances always seems authentic and real. She has a wonderful self-deprecatory sense of humour which I find warm and infectious. She's funny, honest, open and unpretentious. In a word: great.
8. Mira Sorvino
Graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in Chinese Studies, and a very well-spoken and personable actress who's not afraid to take the mickey out of herself, as she did in the ditz-fest "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion." She's done action, horror, comedy and whatever genre Woody Allen films fall into. She's an Oscar-winner who doesn't stand on her achievements, but pushes the envelope further.
7. Joanne Guest
A English model who is not only stunningly good looking, but has lectured the Oxford Debating Society. A little dirty and a very blunt and candid speaker in interviews, she's forthright and open, down-to-earth and keenly aware of the opinions and perceptions of others. A confident and ambitious woman who is also laddish to the extent that she would be a person with whom it would be great to meet down the pub and sink a few pints. A complex personality equally capable of demure diffidence and brash vulgarity.
6. Jennifer Hedger
An anchorwoman on TSN who is witty, funny, and not afraid to take on male colleagues intellectually or professionally. She's also really tall. It was once written of her that she could walk across Lake Winnipeg without getting her ankles wet. She digs on sports, has strong opinions and a strong will, and would be a great person with whom to have an argument. She's got a sparkling conversational sense and doesn't let any challenge go unanswered.
5. Laura Harring
The co-star of David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" graduated from Switzerland's Aiglon College with academic honours, worked as a social worker in India. She can do the Argentine tango, perform any of the roles in a Commedia Dell'Arte production, was born in Mexico and grew up in Texas. A true cosmopolite, this is a truly interesting woman with stories to tell, and who shares my interest in the investigation of people and cultures globally. I find her fascinating and would really love to sit down with a bottle of Mateus, a baguette, and an assortment of cheeses to discuss geography and human interaction.
4. Sadie Frost
Her oftimes understated demeanour belies a keen mind and a seething sexuality. Most people will remember her as Lucy from "Bram Stoker's Dracula", playing the bad girl to Winona Ryder's good-girl Mina. I still think of her as the best part of Eric Idle's film "Splitting Heirs." A talented English actress with much more to offer the cinematic community, I would really love to gain an insight into her mind and her thinking. A consummate professional who has never put a figurative foot wrong and, like some of the other actresses listed here, hasn't sold out to Hollywood by choosing her roles rather than just cranking out brainless potboilers for the sake of feeding the ravenous film industry's need for more revenue. No pointless sequels or insipid summer blockbuster action films on her resumé.
3. Lisa Loeb
My music library, mysteriously, has very few female lead singers. Carole King, Edie Brickell and Christine Lavin are probably the only ones with anything near the volume of music I have of Lisa's stuff. She's bright, clever, creative, and not at all self aggrandizing. And she's got the kind of character needed to wear glasses - most people chicken out and wear contacts, but not our Ms. Loeb. She's got the personality of Nanci Griffith, she's prettier than Sarah McLachlan, and writes better songs than both of them. Someone with whom I would very much like to jam and collaborate. And I'd like to ask her whether she's a big J.D. Salinger afficionado, as I suspect.
2. Emily Mortimer
Yes, another actress. I was going to spring for Dr. Linda Woodbridge in this spot, but how many people know the English Literature professor teaching at Pennsylvania State University? Not many, though I'm sure a google search would probably turn up something. She was the professor that changed my academic career irrevocably. Instead, I'm going with Emily Mortimer. She studied English Literature and Russian at Oxford, is a remarkably versatile actress with a talent I deeply admire - being able to emulate English dialects. I've been trying all my life to study, memorize and perform impressions of different dialects, but Emily is the real deal. Her American is great Californian and her Scouse accent is great, although very South Mersey. She's also worked as a newspaper columnist and a playwright, and her commitment to language is perfectly congruent with my University career and personal interests. She starred in one of my all-time favourite films, "Formula 51", a.k.a. "The 51st State," and thus I have seen her often enough to memorize the story of her face and the song of her voice. I'm gonna stop before I start waxing maudlin, if I haven't already.
1. Melanie Chisholm
No, I don't own a single Spice Girls album, single, or song. Why then is Sporty Spice number one on the list? Well, for one, her solo stuff is much better than any of the Spice Girls rubbish, but that's not saying much. She's also from Liverpool, which is worth a lot of consideration. Plus she's fun, spunky, energetic, and a strong personality. Really, whom would you rather your pre-teen daughter idolize? A singing, dancing martial artist like Mel C., or some egregious tramp like Britney Spears? Who is a better role model for girls? I like Mel because she doesn't use sex to sell her music, she's an unabashed Northerner, and she follows the correct football team. Another great woman to meet down the pub and sink a few pints with.
Conclusion:
So what is it that I find attractive in women? What are the common factors of these twenty women? Well, they're approachable, ambitious, energetic, with great character and a sense of humour. They're different shapes, sizes, ages, but I suppose that the overall commonality is that they're good conversationalists with interesting opinions and personality quirks. They're people that I would like to know and hang out with. I guess that's the bottom line: if I can't have a solid debate with them, or at least a heated discussion, it's just not worth it.
Back later.
Cheers, all.
-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^
02 December 2004
Emotional Stability
Greetings, gentle readers.
Oh, there are so many things on the plate for us to examine and consider the delicacy thereof. Liverpool defeated Arsenal. As Friar Lawrence would say, "in that art thou happy!" Of course, I'm also riding the roller-coaster of being the most liked guy at work to being the worst performer in the eyes of the managers. My co-workers are great, but the only messages I get from managers and supervisors is that of incompetence and inadherence to company policy. The fragility of my ego does not let me perform anything with competence under those circumstances. I tried to quit, but we'll see how that works out...
Next up: platonic relationships.
My friend Trevor called it "the Riot Act." The moment it was directly or indirectly connoted that a woman "just wants to be your friend" or "loves you like a brother".
Yes. Those of you who have been afflicted with this horrid sequence of events not only have our greatest pity and understanding, but only because I am the master of this situation. Of course, by master, I mean that I have done it the most times, and will continue doing it until I die loveless and alone. I love my friends. I will take bullets for them. I will willingly lie down on freight train tracks for them. I will cover my face in luncheon meat and stick my face in a cage of rats for my friends. But somehow, every woman that wants to be my friend immediately excludes carnal knowledge. I will cross every bridge, ford every crossing and climb any mountain for the first woman who says, "Do you want a drink?" but there is no access to love in the nether-world in which I exist.
I am like Brainy Smurf in the Smurfs. He was the most concerned about everything, even getting to the point of running around to all the wildlife and trying to educate them on the uses of handkerchiefs. Of course, no one ever retuned his affection, and he was the least appreciated of all the smurfs but, being a smurf he diligently kept on at his futile task all of his Belgian-inspired life. Welcome to the 21th century wage-slave philosophy where all identity will begin to disintegrate.
So I'm Brainy-smurf. Love is this nebulous thing that exists on Europe, but not in North America for me. I would say that I'll contribute the next time I get the slightest feeling of appreciation or affection, but aside from Mike, I don't think that anyone cares enough to really review this nonsense.
All that remains is to keep giving and to keep caring until either I expire from exhaustion or someone starts to care in return.
As Peter and Gordon famously sang (although the lyrics and music were written by Paul McCartney) "I don't care what they say, I won't stay in a world without love", I can't stay in job where I am unappreciated, in a city where I am unloved, in a country that considers me a source of income tax, and a continent where women find me so repulsive that none have found me worthy of a single date in over 18 months.
But enough about me. In a few days, I should be able to post an academic paper which should shed some light on China's "one-child policy" and the resultant atrocities. Until then, good night England, and the colonies. Cheers,
-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^
Oh, there are so many things on the plate for us to examine and consider the delicacy thereof. Liverpool defeated Arsenal. As Friar Lawrence would say, "in that art thou happy!" Of course, I'm also riding the roller-coaster of being the most liked guy at work to being the worst performer in the eyes of the managers. My co-workers are great, but the only messages I get from managers and supervisors is that of incompetence and inadherence to company policy. The fragility of my ego does not let me perform anything with competence under those circumstances. I tried to quit, but we'll see how that works out...
Next up: platonic relationships.
My friend Trevor called it "the Riot Act." The moment it was directly or indirectly connoted that a woman "just wants to be your friend" or "loves you like a brother".
Yes. Those of you who have been afflicted with this horrid sequence of events not only have our greatest pity and understanding, but only because I am the master of this situation. Of course, by master, I mean that I have done it the most times, and will continue doing it until I die loveless and alone. I love my friends. I will take bullets for them. I will willingly lie down on freight train tracks for them. I will cover my face in luncheon meat and stick my face in a cage of rats for my friends. But somehow, every woman that wants to be my friend immediately excludes carnal knowledge. I will cross every bridge, ford every crossing and climb any mountain for the first woman who says, "Do you want a drink?" but there is no access to love in the nether-world in which I exist.
I am like Brainy Smurf in the Smurfs. He was the most concerned about everything, even getting to the point of running around to all the wildlife and trying to educate them on the uses of handkerchiefs. Of course, no one ever retuned his affection, and he was the least appreciated of all the smurfs but, being a smurf he diligently kept on at his futile task all of his Belgian-inspired life. Welcome to the 21th century wage-slave philosophy where all identity will begin to disintegrate.
So I'm Brainy-smurf. Love is this nebulous thing that exists on Europe, but not in North America for me. I would say that I'll contribute the next time I get the slightest feeling of appreciation or affection, but aside from Mike, I don't think that anyone cares enough to really review this nonsense.
All that remains is to keep giving and to keep caring until either I expire from exhaustion or someone starts to care in return.
As Peter and Gordon famously sang (although the lyrics and music were written by Paul McCartney) "I don't care what they say, I won't stay in a world without love", I can't stay in job where I am unappreciated, in a city where I am unloved, in a country that considers me a source of income tax, and a continent where women find me so repulsive that none have found me worthy of a single date in over 18 months.
But enough about me. In a few days, I should be able to post an academic paper which should shed some light on China's "one-child policy" and the resultant atrocities. Until then, good night England, and the colonies. Cheers,
-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^
23 November 2004
Contentiousness Galore
Greetings, gentle readers.
Once upon a time, in a university not so far away, I was a contributing reporter to a campus newspaper, and for a lark, I sent in a letter to the editor discussing why beautiful, intelligent, and attractive women always seem to end up dating brutish, insensitive clods, and complain to us sensitive guy-folk about why their dating lives are so miserable. I was in a situation where I had a number of really otherwise interesting women spend all of their time with me moaning about how their boyfriends were total jerks. Here I am years later, and the same problem keeps resurfacing. Women consciously or subconsciously choose the scummiest segment of the male population for romantic involvement, and although I confess that I'm by no means an example of male pulchritude, it seems to be fellows like me that not only get passed over, but are subsequently sought out as sources for consolation during the ensuing misery.
So why do women find arrogant bastards so attractive? And why do they walk into the same trap repeatedly without ever seeming to realize that their catastrophic love-lives are largely of their own making? And why have I been without a girlfriend since May, 2002? Is it my fragrance? A lack of pheromones? But back to the earlier questions...
According to current anthropological thought, women are driven by two considerations when seeking to find a mate: security and support. Desmond Morris postulates that the first thing a woman looks for is programmed into the historical psyche of femininity - the desire for an alpha male. In a hunter-gatherer society, it is logical in terms of survival and reproduction to want the biggest and the strongest male to donate his genetic material to a future child. After all, the big and the strong are most likely the best able to kill dinner and bring it home, as well as protect the family unit from things that see humans as dinner. The second consideration comes into play later. Who's going to help raise the child and give emotional support to the family unit?
This is where women get stuck. They want the same guy to do both things. The hulking brute who can bring down a woolly mammoth and fend off sabretoothed tigers is very rarely into Haagen-Dazs, Meg Ryan movies, and cuddling.
So when looking for a mate, the first thing that women find attractive, aside from physical appearance, is confidence. Confidence is usually closely linked to capability. It's also closely linked with abrasive arrogance. So the loud, strutting and obnoxious musclebound chowderhead with the wife-beater t-shirt and greasy trousers will have his pick of girlfriends, while Bill Gates at age 21 would be more likely to be struck by a meteor, a lightning bolt, and a freight train filled with wombats simultaneously than have a girl say any sentence longer than "You want fries with that?" to him.
The best way to express the situation, in terms of Jungian archetypes, is to say that women want to tame a wild stallion. If the rough, uncultured lout with the muscles can be changed into a polite and caring guy, he'd be the best kind and caring guy ever. Only problem is that no one I know has ever been successful at such a thing, and the American chat shows so prevalent on TV like Maury, Montel, and Oprah are filled with failed attempts. And in fact, most male pop-culture sex symbols tend to implode spectacularly, leaving behind widows and orphans. Jim Morrison was sexy. Jim Morrison is also dead. James Dean was sexy. He was also known as "the ashtray" because he liked to stub out cigarettes on his arms before he crashed his Porsche and died.
So what can I say? If people are preconditioned in terms of behaviour and preference, then most women are doomed to prefer guys like Kurt Cobain and Tommy Lee over lads like Peter Gabriel and Nicky Wire, and they'll keep falling into the same traps over and over again. I can only speculate on why, and I certainly don't have a recipe to fix things or people.
As for me, I'll just spew out a string of clichés. Romantically, I'm like 7-11. I may not be doing business, but I'm always open. And if love is a two-way street, right now all the traffic is on-coming. No one's going my way, and it's been like that for so long now that I've just relaxed and considered it normal. I'm so inured to the indifference of others that any woman that would actually want to spend time with me would have to smack me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper to convince me that someone cares.
But enough of that. Need to finish serving out my graveyard shift this morning and then rush home to play with Jim's PS/2 which he has so generously donated to my Vortex of Total Entertainment, a.k.a. My Basement. Fifa 2005 is the greatest thing since glueless spice racks.
So until next time, good night England and the colonies. Cheers,
-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^
Once upon a time, in a university not so far away, I was a contributing reporter to a campus newspaper, and for a lark, I sent in a letter to the editor discussing why beautiful, intelligent, and attractive women always seem to end up dating brutish, insensitive clods, and complain to us sensitive guy-folk about why their dating lives are so miserable. I was in a situation where I had a number of really otherwise interesting women spend all of their time with me moaning about how their boyfriends were total jerks. Here I am years later, and the same problem keeps resurfacing. Women consciously or subconsciously choose the scummiest segment of the male population for romantic involvement, and although I confess that I'm by no means an example of male pulchritude, it seems to be fellows like me that not only get passed over, but are subsequently sought out as sources for consolation during the ensuing misery.
So why do women find arrogant bastards so attractive? And why do they walk into the same trap repeatedly without ever seeming to realize that their catastrophic love-lives are largely of their own making? And why have I been without a girlfriend since May, 2002? Is it my fragrance? A lack of pheromones? But back to the earlier questions...
According to current anthropological thought, women are driven by two considerations when seeking to find a mate: security and support. Desmond Morris postulates that the first thing a woman looks for is programmed into the historical psyche of femininity - the desire for an alpha male. In a hunter-gatherer society, it is logical in terms of survival and reproduction to want the biggest and the strongest male to donate his genetic material to a future child. After all, the big and the strong are most likely the best able to kill dinner and bring it home, as well as protect the family unit from things that see humans as dinner. The second consideration comes into play later. Who's going to help raise the child and give emotional support to the family unit?
This is where women get stuck. They want the same guy to do both things. The hulking brute who can bring down a woolly mammoth and fend off sabretoothed tigers is very rarely into Haagen-Dazs, Meg Ryan movies, and cuddling.
So when looking for a mate, the first thing that women find attractive, aside from physical appearance, is confidence. Confidence is usually closely linked to capability. It's also closely linked with abrasive arrogance. So the loud, strutting and obnoxious musclebound chowderhead with the wife-beater t-shirt and greasy trousers will have his pick of girlfriends, while Bill Gates at age 21 would be more likely to be struck by a meteor, a lightning bolt, and a freight train filled with wombats simultaneously than have a girl say any sentence longer than "You want fries with that?" to him.
The best way to express the situation, in terms of Jungian archetypes, is to say that women want to tame a wild stallion. If the rough, uncultured lout with the muscles can be changed into a polite and caring guy, he'd be the best kind and caring guy ever. Only problem is that no one I know has ever been successful at such a thing, and the American chat shows so prevalent on TV like Maury, Montel, and Oprah are filled with failed attempts. And in fact, most male pop-culture sex symbols tend to implode spectacularly, leaving behind widows and orphans. Jim Morrison was sexy. Jim Morrison is also dead. James Dean was sexy. He was also known as "the ashtray" because he liked to stub out cigarettes on his arms before he crashed his Porsche and died.
So what can I say? If people are preconditioned in terms of behaviour and preference, then most women are doomed to prefer guys like Kurt Cobain and Tommy Lee over lads like Peter Gabriel and Nicky Wire, and they'll keep falling into the same traps over and over again. I can only speculate on why, and I certainly don't have a recipe to fix things or people.
As for me, I'll just spew out a string of clichés. Romantically, I'm like 7-11. I may not be doing business, but I'm always open. And if love is a two-way street, right now all the traffic is on-coming. No one's going my way, and it's been like that for so long now that I've just relaxed and considered it normal. I'm so inured to the indifference of others that any woman that would actually want to spend time with me would have to smack me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper to convince me that someone cares.
But enough of that. Need to finish serving out my graveyard shift this morning and then rush home to play with Jim's PS/2 which he has so generously donated to my Vortex of Total Entertainment, a.k.a. My Basement. Fifa 2005 is the greatest thing since glueless spice racks.
So until next time, good night England and the colonies. Cheers,
-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^
21 November 2004
Can I Repeat Myself? Can I?
Greetings, gentle readers.
Apparently I posted these poems back in June, and I'm trying to figure out how to insert tabs into these guys, so for now, just ignore the apostrophes. They're just place holders until I can work out a more permanent solution. But the thesis below won't make much sense without these poems around, so I'm posting them back up in close proximity to the analysis thereof.
song for a cracked earth
somewhere:
`in the icy nebulousness of altitude
``& that tremulous treble
` `of drifting clouds
` `weightless in the aether
` `aloft in a fugue of fleeting
` `images---forgetfulness is all.
`in sleep, near the darkness
` `distant mists of dreaming,
` `the substitute for substance
` `singing songs to empty evenings
` `crying endlessly for eternity.
`in dreams, ideas flying
` `amidst hazes of high-pitched
` `humming filling spaces
` `quiet spaces between
` `the waking memories.
`in remembrances cold & vague
` `motionless by moonlight
` `angles austere in the chill
` `isolation of that solitude.
`in that nowhere that is everywhere
` `there might be some of
` `you might find a piece of you
` `in me.
` ` `where we
` ` ` `can be
` ` ` ` `together.
-mARKUS
song from a cracked earth
alive and so
deep within me
in the darkened warmth
of our union
a joining of our
selves in the centre of our passion
we create the milky smooth
currents that melt
rough caresses into
the love of touching
breathing
wanting
to lie bare
naked below the earth
beneath the song for our
selves within a trembling embrace
holding hands
brushing thighs
you
kiss my eyelashes
and i
feel you through the shadows
smell the scent of you
in the heavy richness
of our stormy love
through the beatings of our hearts
of our heart
in the all too sweet
tender instant
of touch
when we can be together
-mARKUS
So there you have it. Read these, and then you can read the post-modern deconstruction of them in the post just below this one. Excelsior! Cheers, all.
-mARKUS
^+ Justice for the 96 +^
Apparently I posted these poems back in June, and I'm trying to figure out how to insert tabs into these guys, so for now, just ignore the apostrophes. They're just place holders until I can work out a more permanent solution. But the thesis below won't make much sense without these poems around, so I'm posting them back up in close proximity to the analysis thereof.
song for a cracked earth
somewhere:
`in the icy nebulousness of altitude
``& that tremulous treble
` `of drifting clouds
` `weightless in the aether
` `aloft in a fugue of fleeting
` `images---forgetfulness is all.
`in sleep, near the darkness
` `distant mists of dreaming,
` `the substitute for substance
` `singing songs to empty evenings
` `crying endlessly for eternity.
`in dreams, ideas flying
` `amidst hazes of high-pitched
` `humming filling spaces
` `quiet spaces between
` `the waking memories.
`in remembrances cold & vague
` `motionless by moonlight
` `angles austere in the chill
` `isolation of that solitude.
`in that nowhere that is everywhere
` `there might be some of
` `you might find a piece of you
` `in me.
` ` `where we
` ` ` `can be
` ` ` ` `together.
-mARKUS
song from a cracked earth
alive and so
deep within me
in the darkened warmth
of our union
a joining of our
selves in the centre of our passion
we create the milky smooth
currents that melt
rough caresses into
the love of touching
breathing
wanting
to lie bare
naked below the earth
beneath the song for our
selves within a trembling embrace
holding hands
brushing thighs
you
kiss my eyelashes
and i
feel you through the shadows
smell the scent of you
in the heavy richness
of our stormy love
through the beatings of our hearts
of our heart
in the all too sweet
tender instant
of touch
when we can be together
-mARKUS
So there you have it. Read these, and then you can read the post-modern deconstruction of them in the post just below this one. Excelsior! Cheers, all.
-mARKUS
^+ Justice for the 96 +^
Guy-Wires and Dolly Grips.
Greetings, gentle readers.
I've been procrastinating about posting this thesis for far too long, and now that I'm on graveyard shifts, I actually have the time and opportunity to hammer the whole thing out. The paper actually starts out with the poems "song for a cracked earth" and "song from a cracked earth", and I think I've posted those already in this blog somewhere. I'll check later, and if they're not up, I'll retype them and post them up. Should probably do that anyway. Fifteen hour day at work today, so I've got loads of time.
The other reason I've finally gotten around to typing this thing out is because Liverpool turned in a truly dire performance today, and somehow I don't feel like talking about football when a team that Liverpool spanked in the Carling Cup with the junior 'B' squad humiliates the senior team in the Premiership. Barça whipped Réal Madrid, supporting my theory that they'll win La Liga, while being tanked out of the Copa del Rey. And Germany thrashed Cameroon, again confirming that my powers of prognostication are unprecedented. I love being right all the time.
Anyway, on with the thesis. It's a long one, so brace yourself, kids.
Cracked Earth Theory
Judeo-Christian mythology tells us that the first man and woman were derived from the same body. Once, there was human unity and harmony, but in the act of creating the two separate genders, something was lost. Even in this early literary tradition, male and female have not just been separated, they have been severed from one another. The course of history has been a journey of progressive alienation - a series of misunderstandings, misinterpretations and miscommunication between men and women. The lack of understanding which the sexes experience in dealing with one another has now become so great that even their languages have diverged. This paper is a look at two halves of humanity who have lost each other along the way, and the ways in which they plead to be together again.
First, it should probably be emphasized that not all people fit neatly into the essentialist categories of masculine and feminine. It should also be noted that it is not the categories or gender identities which speak, but people, whose psychological compositions are complex manifestations of identities. What is crucial to understanding the issues at stake is the understanding that language, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ, and that words have organized themselves into separate camps associated with gender. The consistency with which certain words or phrases are used in gender-specific circumstances is remarkable. It is this division of language, echoing the division of the human population, which is of interest.
What characterizes the feminine language? What words or groups of words carry an inherently feminine nature? In romance languages, words are inherently associated with gender, but to assume that English has shed this division is to misrepresent the vocabulary of the language. In poetry, one of the first and foremost uses of language is to evoke imagery, and to create sensory appeals for the reader. The first step in examining language of this sort is to form a perspective congruent with the female gender identity, and then to negotiate with the various images which are associated with that perspective.
Women carry babies in wombs filled with water containng exactly the same saline content as natural sea water. Women bleed once a month on a lunar cycle which mimics the ebbing and flowing of ocean tides. Because of the nature of childbirth, women have a higher physical pain threshold, though that does not detract from an acute sense of touch. Women experience painful cramps with which men cannot fully empathize. The female ovarian cycle circulates several more behaviour modifying hormones through women than the male hormonal system, leading to more unpredictable emotional responses to stimuli than men. These biological characteristics have helped to form a linguistic demesne with distinct demarcations.
The lexicon which is symptomatic of this demesne is generally somatic and chthonic in nature. The image patterns are full of appeals to the senses of touch and taste. Bodies and things that directly influence them become the focus of the textual attention. Metaphorical bodies such as earth, oceans and seas become vehicles for emotional appeal. Daphne Marlatt provides a prime example when she describes going
to the heart of
(Ayer Itam, black
water
"all
people know that
the sea is deep."
The sea is placed in direct opposition to later images in the poem, such as "inter- / national finance". Looking at the etymological derivations of the terms in opposition, we can see that the word "heart" is based on the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) word "heorte", "water" is from the Old English "wæter", and "sea" is from the Old English "sæ". The masculine and negative imagery which follows in the poem forms a motif of artificial imposition on nature, particularly from an etymological standpoint. "International is a compositional construct formed from the Latinate roots "inter", meaning "between", and "natio, nation", meaning a race or a people. If one interprets the Latinate preposition as one of separation rather than conjunction, it makes Marlatt's statement just that much more poignant.
The subtext is that the natural, the physical, the tactile are real. You can touch them and swim in them, but abstract concepts are as worth while as "shit." The other important feature of Marlatt's work is the notion of the interior. The insides of a woman are dark, mysterious and warm. Where does the child live before birth? Where does the blood come from each month? Each question, upon being answered, delves into a sea of more questions. And all people know that the sea is deep.
But what of male imagery? What do men experience in "this box you call a world," where "...we cannot touch except through bodies."? Men, unlike women, generally don't have to fret about iron deficiency, or premature osteoporosis. So what do they feel and think about? More importantly, how do they appear to themselves in contrast with feminine perceptions of men? Aristotle wrote that man is a political animal. From whence does this politicization derive? The male question is one of separation. Women belong to the Earth, and their biological cycles echo the tides of the oceans flowing across its surface. Men are adrift, confused and insecure. The cure for insecurity in many cases is simply to create the illusion of being better or above others. Where women tend to co-operate, men tend to compete. Where women seek to feel, men seek to gain advantage. It is speculated that as early human civilizations developed agriculture and depended less on hunter-gatherer skills, most civilizations developed along a matriarchal line, with the women responsible for staple foods and administration, with the males increasingly marginalized. The development of early religious and political administrations were a reflexive impulse to establish a hierarchical system with men at the top.
As the male question is one of separation, the male answer is one of power. With enough power or control, a situation may be remedied through force of will. And as Francis Bacon remarked "Knowledge itself is power." And so we arrive at the perception and presentation of males as figures interested in objectively increasing a quotient of control over scenarios and situations through whatever means are at hand over the course of history - physicality, seniority, and finally intellectual prowess, as Bacon suggests. A potent and tragic example of the assertion of the male ego comes from Beth Goobie, who describes her father as being
"...in that space on the other side of sound.
brahms, weighted with beard, crowds his shoulders
and voices of heavier angels, foreheads lined
with symphonies, introspective fugues,
whisper down the conch shell passage of his ears..."
The complex portrait of Goobie's father which occupies so much of the space in "Scars of Light" is filled with images of brutality and lofty authority. He is "hidden behind a rembrandt beard", distant in his studio, and yet present in his threats and violence. He is musician, rapist, brute, genius, monster, and artist. The only common factor of these facets is the depiction of an individual seeking to triumph over everyone, everything. The father seems to be thinking - I don't understand, so I must conquer it and make it into something that I can understand.
The masculine vocabulary is primarily technical and based in logical and rational traditions. Latinate and Hellenic-derived wordsappear complex and difficult and thus all the more attractive to those frightened to show weakness. Dionne Brand shows her contempt for the masculine predilection for domination not with direct attacks on men per se, but by appropriating their language when she writes, "[t]he malicious horizon made us the / essential thinkers of technology. How to fly gravity..." The horizon is not the oppressor in this scenario, men are. This becomes overtly obvious later, but the first clues are already in place. As in Marlatt's "Ghost Works", the etymology is indicative of the gender associations. The word "malicious" comes from the Latin "malus" meaning bad or cruel, "essential" comes from the Latin "essentia", which means being or existence and technology is derived from the Latin "technicus", which was in turn taken from the Greek "tekhne", meaning craft or skill. The rational and logical nature by which these terms were assimilated into the English language create an image of the gender they portray: man as demanding, as oppressor, as will incarnate. Man as thinker. Man as user of technology.
The image patterns for men generally have visual sensory appeals. Why is this? If one bears in mind the hypothesis that the male psyche is predominantly motivated by insecurity and fear, then it follows that the optimal sense of experience should be the one which allows the greatest distance and the fewest vulnerabilities. Touching something means being close enough that one might get touched in return, which poses problems of defence and escape. In a game where one does not know the rules or the opposition, everything and everyone is a potential danger. So it is that we get references to males as figures and sights. They are too far away to be hurt, but too close to be avoided. Goobie's father cannot be touched, even as he beats her brothers Vince and Mark.
Dionne Brand turns the male language on itself in an altogether hostile fashion. She forces technology to humiliate itself in a twist of bitter irony. She manipulates the Hellenic etymologies of the male lexicon and turns them into a vehicle for female liberation. She has appropriated the language of the oppressor for her own devices when she describes Mammy Prater as having
"... waited until she was one hundred and fifteen
years old to take a photograph
to take a photograph and put those eyes in it
she waited until the technique of photography was
suitably developed
to make sure the picture was clear
to make sure no crude daguerrotype would lose
her image
would lose her lines and most of all her eyes
and her hands
she knew the patience of one hundred and fifteen years"
Mammy Prater is two people: the image captured on film and the woman using the camera to show her patience and strength. The technology of the daguerrotype and the photograph came from the society which had oppressed her and taxed her spirit. The maleness of the nouns, their technical nature, and the artificiality of them echoes a falsity which is underlied by Mammy Prater's hands. Not much is said about the hands, but the implication is that they are worn by years of working with earth and plants. She is authentic and real; the technology that wants to encapsulate her is not. She takes control of the situation with her understated strength, and in doing so, appropriates the masculine device of looking and visual imagery for the very feminine purpose of making connections and forming bonds. not only this, but she does so at her pleasure. "She waited until it suited her."
A good, though again, as in Goobie's case, tragic example of angst pertaining to the distance and lack of contact between male and female is found in Sharon Thesen's "Aurora". She writes often of heartache and separation, very explicitly in this instance where she writes:
"... Big shot
control panel. So like
a satellite she tears around
the outer darkness of his planet
-centrism, translating
pathways of storms -- cloudy
spirals intentioned as a herd of bees
among a mass of blue
hollyhocks -- from a distance. She has
many books to read, one
on what gardens can't help meaning. Eventually
she will fall & all her data
with her. The EKG wire is still attached
to her heart or wherever it is
attached..."
And so despite an inversion of the usual convention which would dictate that the feminine identity is generally the centre, and the masculine identity will choose to orbit at a distance, the linguistic indicators of loss and isolation are still operative. There are words like "outer", "clouds", and most overt of all, "distance". What Thesen has done is discuss a woman who has constructed herself in accordance with a male visualization of her role. In a very artificial and unnatural manner, she circles a male "planet- / centrism". The escape from this false role is hidden in what seems to be a Georgia O'Keefe reference, "on what gardens can't help meaning." which gives an affirmation of feminine sexuality as authentic without external validation.
The imprisonment of the subject of the poem in a self-imposed lonely ostracism is created textually by having the technical terms and male language describe a woman. Of course, there is an immediate discrepancy between the language and the subject, and that disconnect creates the feeling of isolation. The subject of the poem has an EKG wire, but doesn't really know or care what part of her body it's attached to. Her heart has gone so numb that she can't feel it any more. The technological terms seem incongruous with the deep emotional anger and frustration in the poem. The very vocabulary of the verse speaks as strongly as the ways in which they are organized and presented to the reader.
Aside from the literal associations with words as entities, another important factor of poetry is phonetics; the sounds of the words as they are formed by the lips and released by the tongue. Feminine words often have a low resonant tone. Mother, love, womb, blood, touch -- all these words toll with the rhythms and echoes of nature and the earth, and they are all derived from the very sometic language of the Anglo-Saxons. Masculine words are often quick and high and forward of the palate, as is the case with intellect, science, attitude, desert and empty. Whereas the feminine lexicon comes from the Anglo-Saxons, a people very much concerned with the sea and survival, the masculine lexicon seems based in the languages most closely associated with abstract thought, mathematics and philosophy: the Latin of the Romans and the Hellenic of the Greeks.
The effect which is most often generated is for female language in poetry to be slow and dolorous; to resonate deeply and leave a lasting emotional impact. Marlatt uses this to great effect in one poem by repeating the word "broom" in conjunction with words like "kabun" and "noon". The lexicon which finds itself affiliated with the masculine is generally responsible for distraction and diversion. Rather than being candid, the male words play games and conceal meaning and emotion, much as the beard of Goobie's father did. Again, the disparate lexicons produce opposite effects: the feminine attempting to adjoin, the masculine to divide and isolate.
This thesis began with two original poems: "song from a cracked earth", and "song for a cracked earth." Both of them envision a union between the essentially divided groups of male and female, but they do so from two separate linguistic directions. After examination, perhaps these poems will yield further insights, or they may simply discredit this paper's hypothesis from the start. In any event, let us consider the component elements of the two poems and negotiate with the gender identities behind them.
The "song from a cracked earth" is laden with somatic images. There is a great deal of emphasis on the body and the sensations produced by the body. The words which are explicitly about the body travel further to the interior of the physionomy as the poem progresses. "Hands" are followed by "thighs", then "eyelashes" before concluding with references to the heart. The suggestion is one of ever increasing intimacy and closeness. The other image pattern is that of light and darkness, which tends to have some interplay with the weather imagery. The poem begins in "darkened warmth", goes into "shadows", and ends up being "stormy". The development here is one of action. More and more things are happening: the darkness becomes a desire, the desire becomes a consummation, and that consummation is perceived to be stormy.
The "song for a cracked earth" is markedly different in the respect of imagery. There are very few objects in the poem, at least in the literal sense of the word. The poem is rather like the first noun in the second line: "nebulousness". Most of the imagery is devoted to creating fogs, mists and hazes, through which meaning is obscured. The key to the images is the "somewhere", which acts as a conductor of a disjointed orchestra. It begins as the only real place, even if just a hidden or an undiscovered one. Then the images take us through possible places: the sky, sleep, dreams, memories, until they finally give up and say that all places are nowhere and hope is lost.
The vocabulary of the respective poems is interesting to observe as well. The "song from a cracked earth" is filled with euphonious words which connote closeness and love. We find "milky smooth / currents" and "the love of touching / breathing" which are evocative of intimacy and gentle contact. The verbs are very often soft and melodious to pronounce, as is the case with "trembling", "brushing", and "breathing". This pattern of euphony is symptomatic of inclusive language, which encourages contact between the poet and the reader. It is also typical of the somatic language which has already been discussed; the appeals are very specifically tactile.
In "song for a cracked earth", the lexicon is quite different. Out of context, many of the words actually describe the philosophy which directs them to their use in the poem. Words like "distant", "spaces", "isolation", and "solitude" speak of a hollow existence which is unsatisfying and inauthentic. There are also no references to the earth, a significant departure from the other poem of the pair. Most of the words describe the sky, as in "altitude", "clouds", "aloft", and "floating". The overall impression is one of separation and loneliness.
The structure of the two poems is also suggestive of the orientation of their narrative gender identities. The "song from a cracked earth" hugs the left hand margin as though rooted to it. The lines run together in a smooth and fluid fashion, the most notable technique for accomplishing this being the breaking of the word "our / selves" in order to implement a form of free verse enjambment. This occurs on two occasions, adn each time, it is because the sentential construction has begun to break down. In the first instance, the lines "...darkened warmth / of our union / a joining of our / selves", "union" does not seem to be terribly congruent with "A joining of our", which might cause a visual hiccup. Hence the device to speed the reader from one line to the next.
In the other poem, the structure is rigid and inflexible. Here there is a framework which dictates the poem almost as much as the reverse is true. Again, the "somewhere:" acts as a facilitator, turning the first line of every stanza into a continuation of its statement. in addition, one can observe a slow decline in the number of lines and indeed syllables in the stanzas as they proceed toward the conclusion of the poem. As the imagery and vocabularyhave already shown, the progression leads to a fatalistic and pessimistic conclusion. The "somewhere:" acts as a searchlight, illuminating different avenues of expression for the human psyche, and as the locations become smaller and less certain, the hope for finding a route toward unity becomes dimmer and dimmer until the answer lies "in that nowhere that is everywhere" and the "somewhere: / where we /can be / together." becomes a place that cannot be reached. This contrasts directly with the "when we can be together" of "song from a cracked earth". Somewhere creates a scenario that allows room for nebulousness, whereas "when" indicates that the resolution will come, but that it is simply a matter of time.
So we find two poems at the opening of this treatise. One is optimistic and warm, while the other is pessimistic and cold. They are reflections of one another in that they view a similar circumstance with completely different perspectives. One is open, honest and giving, while the other is reclusive and unreceptive. One speaks with assurance while the other hides behind terminology, concepts and ideas rather than exposing weaknesses.
The human condition is about learning how to live and love and last. One factor which affects the way that people do this is through the gender identity that they have acquired, either through biological factors or through social conditioning. Gender is more than just individual people - the notion of gender has filtered into the very words we use to communicate with one another. Physionomy, psychology, psychiatry; all of these are virtually meaningless terms when it comes to defining gender when one considers that the male and the female speak different languages, even though they may be of the same country, race or creed. They are two separated groups with different views of the world, and their means of expression verifies that fact.
Nowhere has the alienation of the two sexes manifested itself more firmly than in the poetic or literary arts. in this realm, language is used consciously and deliberately to achieve effects. When poets cry out for the lonely, the confused or the misplaced, they understand the means by which to express their sentiments. In recent times, recent books, recent poets have shown that something is absent or missing. Beth Goobie misses her brother, Daphne Marlatt travels restlessly without being certain of where she belongs, Dionne Brand anguishes for travesties past while trying to define herself in relation to others, and Claire Harris doesn't trust a future daughter in a projected hostile world.
Somewhere: there is a cry for something better. The world shouldn't need to be so full of isolation and hostility. There should be a closeness which permits friendship and love. In writing poetry, people are expressing a very deep-seated need - the need to communicate, express, and make themselves understood. When both halves of humanity are cut off from one another by the very words that they use, perhaps the only solution is to keep on talking, keep on writing, and keep on trying. Somewhere: perhaps we can all be together.
-mARKUS
So there it is. Hope that it was vaguely interesting enough for someone to peruse it and glean the slightest modicum of insight. I've now been at work for 14 hours straight, and I'm going to end this post here, so that I can try and focus on my job for the next two and a half hours rather than beating my fingers raw and pushing myself closer to exhaustion. So cheers everyone, and I'll check back later to see if I need to repost those two poems. Take care,
-mARKUS
^+ Justice for the 96+^
I've been procrastinating about posting this thesis for far too long, and now that I'm on graveyard shifts, I actually have the time and opportunity to hammer the whole thing out. The paper actually starts out with the poems "song for a cracked earth" and "song from a cracked earth", and I think I've posted those already in this blog somewhere. I'll check later, and if they're not up, I'll retype them and post them up. Should probably do that anyway. Fifteen hour day at work today, so I've got loads of time.
The other reason I've finally gotten around to typing this thing out is because Liverpool turned in a truly dire performance today, and somehow I don't feel like talking about football when a team that Liverpool spanked in the Carling Cup with the junior 'B' squad humiliates the senior team in the Premiership. Barça whipped Réal Madrid, supporting my theory that they'll win La Liga, while being tanked out of the Copa del Rey. And Germany thrashed Cameroon, again confirming that my powers of prognostication are unprecedented. I love being right all the time.
Anyway, on with the thesis. It's a long one, so brace yourself, kids.
Cracked Earth Theory
Judeo-Christian mythology tells us that the first man and woman were derived from the same body. Once, there was human unity and harmony, but in the act of creating the two separate genders, something was lost. Even in this early literary tradition, male and female have not just been separated, they have been severed from one another. The course of history has been a journey of progressive alienation - a series of misunderstandings, misinterpretations and miscommunication between men and women. The lack of understanding which the sexes experience in dealing with one another has now become so great that even their languages have diverged. This paper is a look at two halves of humanity who have lost each other along the way, and the ways in which they plead to be together again.
First, it should probably be emphasized that not all people fit neatly into the essentialist categories of masculine and feminine. It should also be noted that it is not the categories or gender identities which speak, but people, whose psychological compositions are complex manifestations of identities. What is crucial to understanding the issues at stake is the understanding that language, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ, and that words have organized themselves into separate camps associated with gender. The consistency with which certain words or phrases are used in gender-specific circumstances is remarkable. It is this division of language, echoing the division of the human population, which is of interest.
What characterizes the feminine language? What words or groups of words carry an inherently feminine nature? In romance languages, words are inherently associated with gender, but to assume that English has shed this division is to misrepresent the vocabulary of the language. In poetry, one of the first and foremost uses of language is to evoke imagery, and to create sensory appeals for the reader. The first step in examining language of this sort is to form a perspective congruent with the female gender identity, and then to negotiate with the various images which are associated with that perspective.
Women carry babies in wombs filled with water containng exactly the same saline content as natural sea water. Women bleed once a month on a lunar cycle which mimics the ebbing and flowing of ocean tides. Because of the nature of childbirth, women have a higher physical pain threshold, though that does not detract from an acute sense of touch. Women experience painful cramps with which men cannot fully empathize. The female ovarian cycle circulates several more behaviour modifying hormones through women than the male hormonal system, leading to more unpredictable emotional responses to stimuli than men. These biological characteristics have helped to form a linguistic demesne with distinct demarcations.
The lexicon which is symptomatic of this demesne is generally somatic and chthonic in nature. The image patterns are full of appeals to the senses of touch and taste. Bodies and things that directly influence them become the focus of the textual attention. Metaphorical bodies such as earth, oceans and seas become vehicles for emotional appeal. Daphne Marlatt provides a prime example when she describes going
to the heart of
(Ayer Itam, black
water
"all
people know that
the sea is deep."
The sea is placed in direct opposition to later images in the poem, such as "inter- / national finance". Looking at the etymological derivations of the terms in opposition, we can see that the word "heart" is based on the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) word "heorte", "water" is from the Old English "wæter", and "sea" is from the Old English "sæ". The masculine and negative imagery which follows in the poem forms a motif of artificial imposition on nature, particularly from an etymological standpoint. "International is a compositional construct formed from the Latinate roots "inter", meaning "between", and "natio, nation", meaning a race or a people. If one interprets the Latinate preposition as one of separation rather than conjunction, it makes Marlatt's statement just that much more poignant.
The subtext is that the natural, the physical, the tactile are real. You can touch them and swim in them, but abstract concepts are as worth while as "shit." The other important feature of Marlatt's work is the notion of the interior. The insides of a woman are dark, mysterious and warm. Where does the child live before birth? Where does the blood come from each month? Each question, upon being answered, delves into a sea of more questions. And all people know that the sea is deep.
But what of male imagery? What do men experience in "this box you call a world," where "...we cannot touch except through bodies."? Men, unlike women, generally don't have to fret about iron deficiency, or premature osteoporosis. So what do they feel and think about? More importantly, how do they appear to themselves in contrast with feminine perceptions of men? Aristotle wrote that man is a political animal. From whence does this politicization derive? The male question is one of separation. Women belong to the Earth, and their biological cycles echo the tides of the oceans flowing across its surface. Men are adrift, confused and insecure. The cure for insecurity in many cases is simply to create the illusion of being better or above others. Where women tend to co-operate, men tend to compete. Where women seek to feel, men seek to gain advantage. It is speculated that as early human civilizations developed agriculture and depended less on hunter-gatherer skills, most civilizations developed along a matriarchal line, with the women responsible for staple foods and administration, with the males increasingly marginalized. The development of early religious and political administrations were a reflexive impulse to establish a hierarchical system with men at the top.
As the male question is one of separation, the male answer is one of power. With enough power or control, a situation may be remedied through force of will. And as Francis Bacon remarked "Knowledge itself is power." And so we arrive at the perception and presentation of males as figures interested in objectively increasing a quotient of control over scenarios and situations through whatever means are at hand over the course of history - physicality, seniority, and finally intellectual prowess, as Bacon suggests. A potent and tragic example of the assertion of the male ego comes from Beth Goobie, who describes her father as being
"...in that space on the other side of sound.
brahms, weighted with beard, crowds his shoulders
and voices of heavier angels, foreheads lined
with symphonies, introspective fugues,
whisper down the conch shell passage of his ears..."
The complex portrait of Goobie's father which occupies so much of the space in "Scars of Light" is filled with images of brutality and lofty authority. He is "hidden behind a rembrandt beard", distant in his studio, and yet present in his threats and violence. He is musician, rapist, brute, genius, monster, and artist. The only common factor of these facets is the depiction of an individual seeking to triumph over everyone, everything. The father seems to be thinking - I don't understand, so I must conquer it and make it into something that I can understand.
The masculine vocabulary is primarily technical and based in logical and rational traditions. Latinate and Hellenic-derived wordsappear complex and difficult and thus all the more attractive to those frightened to show weakness. Dionne Brand shows her contempt for the masculine predilection for domination not with direct attacks on men per se, but by appropriating their language when she writes, "[t]he malicious horizon made us the / essential thinkers of technology. How to fly gravity..." The horizon is not the oppressor in this scenario, men are. This becomes overtly obvious later, but the first clues are already in place. As in Marlatt's "Ghost Works", the etymology is indicative of the gender associations. The word "malicious" comes from the Latin "malus" meaning bad or cruel, "essential" comes from the Latin "essentia", which means being or existence and technology is derived from the Latin "technicus", which was in turn taken from the Greek "tekhne", meaning craft or skill. The rational and logical nature by which these terms were assimilated into the English language create an image of the gender they portray: man as demanding, as oppressor, as will incarnate. Man as thinker. Man as user of technology.
The image patterns for men generally have visual sensory appeals. Why is this? If one bears in mind the hypothesis that the male psyche is predominantly motivated by insecurity and fear, then it follows that the optimal sense of experience should be the one which allows the greatest distance and the fewest vulnerabilities. Touching something means being close enough that one might get touched in return, which poses problems of defence and escape. In a game where one does not know the rules or the opposition, everything and everyone is a potential danger. So it is that we get references to males as figures and sights. They are too far away to be hurt, but too close to be avoided. Goobie's father cannot be touched, even as he beats her brothers Vince and Mark.
Dionne Brand turns the male language on itself in an altogether hostile fashion. She forces technology to humiliate itself in a twist of bitter irony. She manipulates the Hellenic etymologies of the male lexicon and turns them into a vehicle for female liberation. She has appropriated the language of the oppressor for her own devices when she describes Mammy Prater as having
"... waited until she was one hundred and fifteen
years old to take a photograph
to take a photograph and put those eyes in it
she waited until the technique of photography was
suitably developed
to make sure the picture was clear
to make sure no crude daguerrotype would lose
her image
would lose her lines and most of all her eyes
and her hands
she knew the patience of one hundred and fifteen years"
Mammy Prater is two people: the image captured on film and the woman using the camera to show her patience and strength. The technology of the daguerrotype and the photograph came from the society which had oppressed her and taxed her spirit. The maleness of the nouns, their technical nature, and the artificiality of them echoes a falsity which is underlied by Mammy Prater's hands. Not much is said about the hands, but the implication is that they are worn by years of working with earth and plants. She is authentic and real; the technology that wants to encapsulate her is not. She takes control of the situation with her understated strength, and in doing so, appropriates the masculine device of looking and visual imagery for the very feminine purpose of making connections and forming bonds. not only this, but she does so at her pleasure. "She waited until it suited her."
A good, though again, as in Goobie's case, tragic example of angst pertaining to the distance and lack of contact between male and female is found in Sharon Thesen's "Aurora". She writes often of heartache and separation, very explicitly in this instance where she writes:
"... Big shot
control panel. So like
a satellite she tears around
the outer darkness of his planet
-centrism, translating
pathways of storms -- cloudy
spirals intentioned as a herd of bees
among a mass of blue
hollyhocks -- from a distance. She has
many books to read, one
on what gardens can't help meaning. Eventually
she will fall & all her data
with her. The EKG wire is still attached
to her heart or wherever it is
attached..."
And so despite an inversion of the usual convention which would dictate that the feminine identity is generally the centre, and the masculine identity will choose to orbit at a distance, the linguistic indicators of loss and isolation are still operative. There are words like "outer", "clouds", and most overt of all, "distance". What Thesen has done is discuss a woman who has constructed herself in accordance with a male visualization of her role. In a very artificial and unnatural manner, she circles a male "planet- / centrism". The escape from this false role is hidden in what seems to be a Georgia O'Keefe reference, "on what gardens can't help meaning." which gives an affirmation of feminine sexuality as authentic without external validation.
The imprisonment of the subject of the poem in a self-imposed lonely ostracism is created textually by having the technical terms and male language describe a woman. Of course, there is an immediate discrepancy between the language and the subject, and that disconnect creates the feeling of isolation. The subject of the poem has an EKG wire, but doesn't really know or care what part of her body it's attached to. Her heart has gone so numb that she can't feel it any more. The technological terms seem incongruous with the deep emotional anger and frustration in the poem. The very vocabulary of the verse speaks as strongly as the ways in which they are organized and presented to the reader.
Aside from the literal associations with words as entities, another important factor of poetry is phonetics; the sounds of the words as they are formed by the lips and released by the tongue. Feminine words often have a low resonant tone. Mother, love, womb, blood, touch -- all these words toll with the rhythms and echoes of nature and the earth, and they are all derived from the very sometic language of the Anglo-Saxons. Masculine words are often quick and high and forward of the palate, as is the case with intellect, science, attitude, desert and empty. Whereas the feminine lexicon comes from the Anglo-Saxons, a people very much concerned with the sea and survival, the masculine lexicon seems based in the languages most closely associated with abstract thought, mathematics and philosophy: the Latin of the Romans and the Hellenic of the Greeks.
The effect which is most often generated is for female language in poetry to be slow and dolorous; to resonate deeply and leave a lasting emotional impact. Marlatt uses this to great effect in one poem by repeating the word "broom" in conjunction with words like "kabun" and "noon". The lexicon which finds itself affiliated with the masculine is generally responsible for distraction and diversion. Rather than being candid, the male words play games and conceal meaning and emotion, much as the beard of Goobie's father did. Again, the disparate lexicons produce opposite effects: the feminine attempting to adjoin, the masculine to divide and isolate.
This thesis began with two original poems: "song from a cracked earth", and "song for a cracked earth." Both of them envision a union between the essentially divided groups of male and female, but they do so from two separate linguistic directions. After examination, perhaps these poems will yield further insights, or they may simply discredit this paper's hypothesis from the start. In any event, let us consider the component elements of the two poems and negotiate with the gender identities behind them.
The "song from a cracked earth" is laden with somatic images. There is a great deal of emphasis on the body and the sensations produced by the body. The words which are explicitly about the body travel further to the interior of the physionomy as the poem progresses. "Hands" are followed by "thighs", then "eyelashes" before concluding with references to the heart. The suggestion is one of ever increasing intimacy and closeness. The other image pattern is that of light and darkness, which tends to have some interplay with the weather imagery. The poem begins in "darkened warmth", goes into "shadows", and ends up being "stormy". The development here is one of action. More and more things are happening: the darkness becomes a desire, the desire becomes a consummation, and that consummation is perceived to be stormy.
The "song for a cracked earth" is markedly different in the respect of imagery. There are very few objects in the poem, at least in the literal sense of the word. The poem is rather like the first noun in the second line: "nebulousness". Most of the imagery is devoted to creating fogs, mists and hazes, through which meaning is obscured. The key to the images is the "somewhere", which acts as a conductor of a disjointed orchestra. It begins as the only real place, even if just a hidden or an undiscovered one. Then the images take us through possible places: the sky, sleep, dreams, memories, until they finally give up and say that all places are nowhere and hope is lost.
The vocabulary of the respective poems is interesting to observe as well. The "song from a cracked earth" is filled with euphonious words which connote closeness and love. We find "milky smooth / currents" and "the love of touching / breathing" which are evocative of intimacy and gentle contact. The verbs are very often soft and melodious to pronounce, as is the case with "trembling", "brushing", and "breathing". This pattern of euphony is symptomatic of inclusive language, which encourages contact between the poet and the reader. It is also typical of the somatic language which has already been discussed; the appeals are very specifically tactile.
In "song for a cracked earth", the lexicon is quite different. Out of context, many of the words actually describe the philosophy which directs them to their use in the poem. Words like "distant", "spaces", "isolation", and "solitude" speak of a hollow existence which is unsatisfying and inauthentic. There are also no references to the earth, a significant departure from the other poem of the pair. Most of the words describe the sky, as in "altitude", "clouds", "aloft", and "floating". The overall impression is one of separation and loneliness.
The structure of the two poems is also suggestive of the orientation of their narrative gender identities. The "song from a cracked earth" hugs the left hand margin as though rooted to it. The lines run together in a smooth and fluid fashion, the most notable technique for accomplishing this being the breaking of the word "our / selves" in order to implement a form of free verse enjambment. This occurs on two occasions, adn each time, it is because the sentential construction has begun to break down. In the first instance, the lines "...darkened warmth / of our union / a joining of our / selves", "union" does not seem to be terribly congruent with "A joining of our", which might cause a visual hiccup. Hence the device to speed the reader from one line to the next.
In the other poem, the structure is rigid and inflexible. Here there is a framework which dictates the poem almost as much as the reverse is true. Again, the "somewhere:" acts as a facilitator, turning the first line of every stanza into a continuation of its statement. in addition, one can observe a slow decline in the number of lines and indeed syllables in the stanzas as they proceed toward the conclusion of the poem. As the imagery and vocabularyhave already shown, the progression leads to a fatalistic and pessimistic conclusion. The "somewhere:" acts as a searchlight, illuminating different avenues of expression for the human psyche, and as the locations become smaller and less certain, the hope for finding a route toward unity becomes dimmer and dimmer until the answer lies "in that nowhere that is everywhere" and the "somewhere: / where we /can be / together." becomes a place that cannot be reached. This contrasts directly with the "when we can be together" of "song from a cracked earth". Somewhere creates a scenario that allows room for nebulousness, whereas "when" indicates that the resolution will come, but that it is simply a matter of time.
So we find two poems at the opening of this treatise. One is optimistic and warm, while the other is pessimistic and cold. They are reflections of one another in that they view a similar circumstance with completely different perspectives. One is open, honest and giving, while the other is reclusive and unreceptive. One speaks with assurance while the other hides behind terminology, concepts and ideas rather than exposing weaknesses.
The human condition is about learning how to live and love and last. One factor which affects the way that people do this is through the gender identity that they have acquired, either through biological factors or through social conditioning. Gender is more than just individual people - the notion of gender has filtered into the very words we use to communicate with one another. Physionomy, psychology, psychiatry; all of these are virtually meaningless terms when it comes to defining gender when one considers that the male and the female speak different languages, even though they may be of the same country, race or creed. They are two separated groups with different views of the world, and their means of expression verifies that fact.
Nowhere has the alienation of the two sexes manifested itself more firmly than in the poetic or literary arts. in this realm, language is used consciously and deliberately to achieve effects. When poets cry out for the lonely, the confused or the misplaced, they understand the means by which to express their sentiments. In recent times, recent books, recent poets have shown that something is absent or missing. Beth Goobie misses her brother, Daphne Marlatt travels restlessly without being certain of where she belongs, Dionne Brand anguishes for travesties past while trying to define herself in relation to others, and Claire Harris doesn't trust a future daughter in a projected hostile world.
Somewhere: there is a cry for something better. The world shouldn't need to be so full of isolation and hostility. There should be a closeness which permits friendship and love. In writing poetry, people are expressing a very deep-seated need - the need to communicate, express, and make themselves understood. When both halves of humanity are cut off from one another by the very words that they use, perhaps the only solution is to keep on talking, keep on writing, and keep on trying. Somewhere: perhaps we can all be together.
-mARKUS
So there it is.
-mARKUS
^+ Justice for the 96+^
15 November 2004
Teddy Roethke
Greetings, gentle readers.
I've combed the entire World Wide Web, and despite numerous sites dedicated to Theodore Roethke and his poetry, not a SINGLE site has a copy of his poem "Praise to the End". So I guess that I'll have to step up and redidact it here. Again, the left-side bias of this blog will make it look a bit more monotonous than it is, but at least the poem will exist in cyber space. Somewhere. Any road, here goes:
Praise to the End!
I
It's dark in this wood, soft mocker.
For whom have I swelled like a seed?
What a bone-ache I have.
Father of tensions, I'm down to my skin at last.
It's a great day for the mice.
Prickle-me, tickle-me, close stems.
Bumpkin, he can dance alone.
Ooh, ooh, I'm a duke of eels.
Arch my back, pretty bones, I'm dead at both ends.
Softly softly, you'll wake the clams.
I'll feed the ghost alone.
Father, forgive my hands.
The rings have gone from the pond.
The river's alone with its water.
All risings
Fall.
II
Where are you now, my bonny beating gristle,
My blue original dandy, numb with sugar?
Once I fished from the banks, leaf-light and happy:
On the rocks south of quiet, in the close regions of kissing,
I romped, lithe as a child, down the summery streets of my veins,
Strict as a seed, nippy and twiggy.
Now the water's low. The weeds exceed me.
It's necessary, among the flies and bananas, to keep a constant vigil,
For the attacks of false humility take sudden turns for the worse.
Lacking the candor of dogs, I kiss the departing air;
I'm untrue to my own excesses.
Rock me to sleep, the weather's wrong.
Speak to me, frosty beard.
Sing to me, sweet.
Mips and ma the mooly moo,
The likes of him is biting who,
A cow's a care, and who's a coo? ---
What footie does is final.
My dearest dear my fairest fair,
Your father tossed a cat in air,
Though neither you nor I was there, ---
What footie does is final.
Be large as an owl, be slick as a frog,
Be good as a goose, be big as a dog,
Be sleek as a heifer, be long as a hog, ---
What footie will do will be final.
I conclude! I conclude!
My dearest dust, I can't stay here.
I'm undone by the flip-flap of odious pillows.
An exact fall of waters has rendered me impotent.
I've been asleep in a bower of dead skin.
It's a piece of a prince I ate.
this salt can't warm a stone.
These lazy ashes.
III
The stones were sharp,
The wind came at my back;
Walked along the highway,
Mincing like a cat.
The sun came out;
The lake turned green;
Romped upon the goldy grass,
Aged thirteen.
The sky cracked open
The world i knew;
Lay like the cats do
Sniffing the dew.
I dreamt I was all bones;
The dead slept in my sleeve;
Sweet Jesus tossed me back:
I wore the sun with ease.
The several sounds were low;
The river ebbed and flowed;
Desire was winter-calm
A moon away.
Such owly pleasures! Fish come first, sweet bird.
Skin's the least of me. Kiss this.
Is the eternal near, fondling?
I hear the sound of hands.
Can the bones breathe? This grave has an ear.
It's still enough for the knock of a worm.
I feel more than a fish.
Ghost, come closer.
IV
Arch of air, my heart's original knock,
I'm awake all over:
I've crawled from the mire, alert as a saint or a dog;
I know the back-stream's joy, and the stone's eternal pulseless longing.
Felicity I cannot hoard.
My friend, the rat in the wall, brings me the clearest messages;
I bask in the bower of change;
The plants wave me in, and the summer apples;
My palm-sweat flashes gold;
Many astounds before, I lost my identity to a pebble;
The minnows love me, and the humped and spitting creatures.
I believe! I believe! ---
In the sparrow, happy on gravel;
In the winter-wasp, pulsing its wings in the sunlight;
I have been somewhere else; I remember the sea-faced uncles.
I hear, clearly, the heart of another singing,
Lighter than bells,
Softer than water.
Wherefore, O birds and small fish, surround me.
Lave me, ultimate waters.
The dark showed me a face.
My ghosts are all gay.
The light becomes me.
-Theodore Roethke (1951)
So there it is. Now I'm rather tired of typing, since I've been doing this at work in between taking calls, and it's stressed me out. I'll have to summarize this week's footy action, including Réal Madrid kicking the hell out of Albacete, Liverpool wresting a win from a tenacious Crystal Palace side, and Arsenal edging Tottenham in a defensively nightmarish match by five goals to four. But more on that later. For now, cheerio. Be kind and peaceful to each other.
-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^
I've combed the entire World Wide Web, and despite numerous sites dedicated to Theodore Roethke and his poetry, not a SINGLE site has a copy of his poem "Praise to the End". So I guess that I'll have to step up and redidact it here. Again, the left-side bias of this blog will make it look a bit more monotonous than it is, but at least the poem will exist in cyber space. Somewhere. Any road, here goes:
Praise to the End!
I
It's dark in this wood, soft mocker.
For whom have I swelled like a seed?
What a bone-ache I have.
Father of tensions, I'm down to my skin at last.
It's a great day for the mice.
Prickle-me, tickle-me, close stems.
Bumpkin, he can dance alone.
Ooh, ooh, I'm a duke of eels.
Arch my back, pretty bones, I'm dead at both ends.
Softly softly, you'll wake the clams.
I'll feed the ghost alone.
Father, forgive my hands.
The rings have gone from the pond.
The river's alone with its water.
All risings
Fall.
II
Where are you now, my bonny beating gristle,
My blue original dandy, numb with sugar?
Once I fished from the banks, leaf-light and happy:
On the rocks south of quiet, in the close regions of kissing,
I romped, lithe as a child, down the summery streets of my veins,
Strict as a seed, nippy and twiggy.
Now the water's low. The weeds exceed me.
It's necessary, among the flies and bananas, to keep a constant vigil,
For the attacks of false humility take sudden turns for the worse.
Lacking the candor of dogs, I kiss the departing air;
I'm untrue to my own excesses.
Rock me to sleep, the weather's wrong.
Speak to me, frosty beard.
Sing to me, sweet.
Mips and ma the mooly moo,
The likes of him is biting who,
A cow's a care, and who's a coo? ---
What footie does is final.
My dearest dear my fairest fair,
Your father tossed a cat in air,
Though neither you nor I was there, ---
What footie does is final.
Be large as an owl, be slick as a frog,
Be good as a goose, be big as a dog,
Be sleek as a heifer, be long as a hog, ---
What footie will do will be final.
I conclude! I conclude!
My dearest dust, I can't stay here.
I'm undone by the flip-flap of odious pillows.
An exact fall of waters has rendered me impotent.
I've been asleep in a bower of dead skin.
It's a piece of a prince I ate.
this salt can't warm a stone.
These lazy ashes.
III
The stones were sharp,
The wind came at my back;
Walked along the highway,
Mincing like a cat.
The sun came out;
The lake turned green;
Romped upon the goldy grass,
Aged thirteen.
The sky cracked open
The world i knew;
Lay like the cats do
Sniffing the dew.
I dreamt I was all bones;
The dead slept in my sleeve;
Sweet Jesus tossed me back:
I wore the sun with ease.
The several sounds were low;
The river ebbed and flowed;
Desire was winter-calm
A moon away.
Such owly pleasures! Fish come first, sweet bird.
Skin's the least of me. Kiss this.
Is the eternal near, fondling?
I hear the sound of hands.
Can the bones breathe? This grave has an ear.
It's still enough for the knock of a worm.
I feel more than a fish.
Ghost, come closer.
IV
Arch of air, my heart's original knock,
I'm awake all over:
I've crawled from the mire, alert as a saint or a dog;
I know the back-stream's joy, and the stone's eternal pulseless longing.
Felicity I cannot hoard.
My friend, the rat in the wall, brings me the clearest messages;
I bask in the bower of change;
The plants wave me in, and the summer apples;
My palm-sweat flashes gold;
Many astounds before, I lost my identity to a pebble;
The minnows love me, and the humped and spitting creatures.
I believe! I believe! ---
In the sparrow, happy on gravel;
In the winter-wasp, pulsing its wings in the sunlight;
I have been somewhere else; I remember the sea-faced uncles.
I hear, clearly, the heart of another singing,
Lighter than bells,
Softer than water.
Wherefore, O birds and small fish, surround me.
Lave me, ultimate waters.
The dark showed me a face.
My ghosts are all gay.
The light becomes me.
-Theodore Roethke (1951)
So there it is. Now I'm rather tired of typing, since I've been doing this at work in between taking calls, and it's stressed me out. I'll have to summarize this week's footy action, including Réal Madrid kicking the hell out of Albacete, Liverpool wresting a win from a tenacious Crystal Palace side, and Arsenal edging Tottenham in a defensively nightmarish match by five goals to four. But more on that later. For now, cheerio. Be kind and peaceful to each other.
-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^
09 November 2004
Brummie Rubbish.
Greetings, gentle readers.
So Liverpool have lost at home. For the first time this season. But that's minor when considered in the light that Emlyn Hughes has finally succumbed to a brain tumour and died at the age of 57. An old friend of mine used to say that in his experience, happy people never died. People with positive attitudes, and upbeat philosophies never died at an early age, and it was only when someone became despondent or lost hope that they passed into the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns. Well, here's the proof that his ideas were total horseapples. Whatever made him draw those conclusions from his experiences should be poured back into a bottle and returned to the Tijuana bar it came from.
Emlyn Hughes was the brightest, happiest, fizziest legend to ever emerge from Anfield. Other legends like Kenny Dalglish, are renowned for being taciturn, moody, dour, uncommunicative or unsociable. Not Emlyn. Quite possibly the most positive and outgoing player of Liverpool's long and illustrious history, the man captained the team to TWO Champions' Cups, two UEFA Cups, four top flight championships, as well as an FA Cup, for good measure. Along the way, he played 657 games for the club, as well as captaining England. The man just loved to play football, and his enthusiasm shines through the statistics to tell you just how much this man wanted to play.
In my experience, it doesn't matter how many pets you've got, or how perky you feel - when your number is up, you go down. My grandfather was still earnestly dispensing advice when he died. My uncle fought cancer like a tiger, but he didn't really have a chance. My grandmother had the spirit of a Teutonic lion, but eventually died, surrounded by those of us who loved her for the matriarch that she was. Emlyn was at the top of his spirits, alongside his wife Barbara and his two beautiful children. He had every reason to live, and the story of his life illuminates a man who would not go gently into that good night. All the more reason to mourn a hero, a legend and a champion who has been untimely ripped from us. Is the universe fair? No. I sure wish it would at least give the illusion once in a while, though.
So anyone that wants to do me a favour can, rather softly, and under their breath, sing a snatch of "Come on without, come on within, you've not seen nothing like the mighty Emlyn" on Wednesday morning. Really. It doesn't hurt anyone, and it pays tribute to a human being who didn't deserve to die.
Of course, all of this emotional gushing over my heroes of days past has left me somewhat verklempt. And I'm supposed to be posting my thesis on the masculine and feminine dialects of the English language. I'll get to that eventually. Maybe I'll scan it and thus save myself the hassle of redidacting the whole lot. If I've got any character recognition software... In any event. I'm going to head off and go on about the business of cursing an uncaring cosmos, and idly complaining about an existence I can't change or affect. Particularly not from Canada. Here's looking forward to Liverpool and Germany in 2006. Cheers, everyone.
Justice for the 96.
-mARKUS
So Liverpool have lost at home. For the first time this season. But that's minor when considered in the light that Emlyn Hughes has finally succumbed to a brain tumour and died at the age of 57. An old friend of mine used to say that in his experience, happy people never died. People with positive attitudes, and upbeat philosophies never died at an early age, and it was only when someone became despondent or lost hope that they passed into the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns. Well, here's the proof that his ideas were total horseapples. Whatever made him draw those conclusions from his experiences should be poured back into a bottle and returned to the Tijuana bar it came from.
Emlyn Hughes was the brightest, happiest, fizziest legend to ever emerge from Anfield. Other legends like Kenny Dalglish, are renowned for being taciturn, moody, dour, uncommunicative or unsociable. Not Emlyn. Quite possibly the most positive and outgoing player of Liverpool's long and illustrious history, the man captained the team to TWO Champions' Cups, two UEFA Cups, four top flight championships, as well as an FA Cup, for good measure. Along the way, he played 657 games for the club, as well as captaining England. The man just loved to play football, and his enthusiasm shines through the statistics to tell you just how much this man wanted to play.
In my experience, it doesn't matter how many pets you've got, or how perky you feel - when your number is up, you go down. My grandfather was still earnestly dispensing advice when he died. My uncle fought cancer like a tiger, but he didn't really have a chance. My grandmother had the spirit of a Teutonic lion, but eventually died, surrounded by those of us who loved her for the matriarch that she was. Emlyn was at the top of his spirits, alongside his wife Barbara and his two beautiful children. He had every reason to live, and the story of his life illuminates a man who would not go gently into that good night. All the more reason to mourn a hero, a legend and a champion who has been untimely ripped from us. Is the universe fair? No. I sure wish it would at least give the illusion once in a while, though.
So anyone that wants to do me a favour can, rather softly, and under their breath, sing a snatch of "Come on without, come on within, you've not seen nothing like the mighty Emlyn" on Wednesday morning. Really. It doesn't hurt anyone, and it pays tribute to a human being who didn't deserve to die.
Of course, all of this emotional gushing over my heroes of days past has left me somewhat verklempt. And I'm supposed to be posting my thesis on the masculine and feminine dialects of the English language. I'll get to that eventually. Maybe I'll scan it and thus save myself the hassle of redidacting the whole lot. If I've got any character recognition software... In any event. I'm going to head off and go on about the business of cursing an uncaring cosmos, and idly complaining about an existence I can't change or affect. Particularly not from Canada. Here's looking forward to Liverpool and Germany in 2006. Cheers, everyone.
Justice for the 96.
-mARKUS
29 October 2004
A Prologue to History
Greetings, gentle readers.
First off, an apology to the Manic Street Preachers, whose song title I have appropriated for the title of this particular episode, but basically what I offer here is some poetry. Oh well. Small infractions of decorum make the world go round. Or they make baby Jesus cry. One of the two. Incidentally, those of you bored and just surfing the internet because you've got nothing better to do should try looking into the biographies of Kevin Carter and Paul Robeson. One was a Pulitzer-Prize winning and Time-Magazine cover photographer who committed suicide at the age of 33. The other was an African-American who graduated from Rutgers University as valedictorian in 1919 with 15 varsity athletic letters, including track, basketball, and baseball, as well as football - where he was twice an All-American, before graduating from Columbia Law School and thereafter becoming a published author, essayist, opera and broadway singer, renowned actor on stage and screen, civil rights activist, social commentator and thinker. I'll let people find out which is which on their own. But their stories are incredible, and well worth the time and effort of going to google and looking them up. Eventually, I'll post the big links which will tell people all the big secrets and heart-breaking turns of events in their lives, but not now. For now, you may peruse the following poems, which, while I don't think are class, might still pass muster at a high-school poetry competition (plagiarists take note), although the content is very difficult to pass off as high-school age. Anyhoo, here goes.
and she wore it to dinner that night
drifting along the trace of her skin
at once both bemure and polite
a birthday gift from a year since
and this year she wore it on mine
silky thread of love-locked lacework
that paced ice-cold waves down my spine
my modestly made jests made it jerk
and dance with her lips as she smiled
the bow of her shoulders made it curtsey
as she blushed in her violent style
my evenings always seemed to end early
but this one seemed quicker than most
our unsteady thanks rang empty
when she flew in the night like a ghost
a shade in the night floating breathless
her countenance lit by that necklace
- mARKUS
Yes, I know, gentle readers, that's a bit maulin and nostalgic for some of you to stomach comfortably. So here's something to counterbalance such sickly-sweet sentimentality. It's in five parts plus a sub note, so take care.
1.
sticker
on light switch panel
once demanded
lights be turned off
when unoccupied
now
torn
it just says
unoccupied
2.
surely remote
rarely used
with dead fluourescent
over dull mirrors
as empty as
dostoyevsky's hell
3.
one might
leave the lights off
if blind
or afraid
of finding a way out
again
4.
stark
vacant
at times
i feel
like
that water closet
** "Fathers and teachers I ponder, "What is hell?" I maintain that hell is the inability to love"
- Feodor Dostoyevsky.
-mARKUS
At this point I must protest that the blogsite text-editor-thing won't let me separate anything from the margin when ostensibly left-aligned. I can't tab away from it, nor can I put spaces between anything and that infernal margin. My poetry is generally more spread out, and has more of a feeling across the (virtual) page. So if you ever catch me on the street, I'll print you out a page - the way it's supposed to look. Or you can ask me nicely, and I'll e-mail you an RTF of it. Not that I expect any requests. Few enough people visit this site, and those who do either reel away in waves of nausea, or realize that they've mis-typed the URL. And besides, the poetry is rather rubbish, so it would be better if you read up on Paul Robeson and Kevin Carter. Become more knowledgeable. Aquire more power in the cosmos. There is no knowledge that is not power. There is no negative that is not positive. And other such twaddle. What coke-addled advertising executive comes up with the phrase "there is no knowledge that is not power"? Probably the same intoxicated fiends that came up with "Speed matters. Now more than ever."
Yeah. Piece that one out. Someone didn't have all their neurons firing when they launched their campaign.
Right-o. Coming up soon - the not-long-awaited follow-up of my 3rd June posting. No one has ever requested the full meal deal. Until now. And I'm going to have to burst some bloodvessels in my fingers to get it all posted before the weekend. And then I might have an audience of one. Aside from the article I wrote about why women prefer the ideals of James Dean over Montgomery Clift, Jim Morrison over Peter Gabriel, and Dylan Thomas over Ted Hughes, this is the one piece of critical academism which has dynamized the whole female-male debate. It's also bloody huge. It's 13 pages, double-spaced, so I might have it typed in, say, six or seven hours, depending on the number of ICQ interruptions with which I have to cope.
So, to my entire audience, I say to thee: "Return hence soon, such that ye may receive such bounty as to ye was promised." So hurry back. Both of you. Cheers,
^+Justice for the 96+^
-mARKUS
First off, an apology to the Manic Street Preachers, whose song title I have appropriated for the title of this particular episode, but basically what I offer here is some poetry. Oh well. Small infractions of decorum make the world go round. Or they make baby Jesus cry. One of the two. Incidentally, those of you bored and just surfing the internet because you've got nothing better to do should try looking into the biographies of Kevin Carter and Paul Robeson. One was a Pulitzer-Prize winning and Time-Magazine cover photographer who committed suicide at the age of 33. The other was an African-American who graduated from Rutgers University as valedictorian in 1919 with 15 varsity athletic letters, including track, basketball, and baseball, as well as football - where he was twice an All-American, before graduating from Columbia Law School and thereafter becoming a published author, essayist, opera and broadway singer, renowned actor on stage and screen, civil rights activist, social commentator and thinker. I'll let people find out which is which on their own. But their stories are incredible, and well worth the time and effort of going to google and looking them up. Eventually, I'll post the big links which will tell people all the big secrets and heart-breaking turns of events in their lives, but not now. For now, you may peruse the following poems, which, while I don't think are class, might still pass muster at a high-school poetry competition (plagiarists take note), although the content is very difficult to pass off as high-school age. Anyhoo, here goes.
that necklace
it gilded her neck like a thread of the sun
and she wore it to dinner that night
drifting along the trace of her skin
at once both bemure and polite
a birthday gift from a year since
and this year she wore it on mine
silky thread of love-locked lacework
that paced ice-cold waves down my spine
my modestly made jests made it jerk
and dance with her lips as she smiled
the bow of her shoulders made it curtsey
as she blushed in her violent style
my evenings always seemed to end early
but this one seemed quicker than most
our unsteady thanks rang empty
when she flew in the night like a ghost
a shade in the night floating breathless
her countenance lit by that necklace
- mARKUS
Yes, I know, gentle readers, that's a bit maulin and nostalgic for some of you to stomach comfortably. So here's something to counterbalance such sickly-sweet sentimentality. It's in five parts plus a sub note, so take care.
cantos of a w.c.
1.
sticker
on light switch panel
once demanded
lights be turned off
when unoccupied
now
torn
it just says
unoccupied
2.
surely remote
rarely used
with dead fluourescent
over dull mirrors
as empty as
dostoyevsky's hell
3.
one might
leave the lights off
if blind
or afraid
of finding a way out
again
4.
stark
vacant
at times
i feel
like
that water closet
** "Fathers and teachers I ponder, "What is hell?" I maintain that hell is the inability to love"
- Feodor Dostoyevsky.
-mARKUS
At this point I must protest that the blogsite text-editor-thing won't let me separate anything from the margin when ostensibly left-aligned. I can't tab away from it, nor can I put spaces between anything and that infernal margin. My poetry is generally more spread out, and has more of a feeling across the (virtual) page. So if you ever catch me on the street, I'll print you out a page - the way it's supposed to look. Or you can ask me nicely, and I'll e-mail you an RTF of it. Not that I expect any requests. Few enough people visit this site, and those who do either reel away in waves of nausea, or realize that they've mis-typed the URL. And besides, the poetry is rather rubbish, so it would be better if you read up on Paul Robeson and Kevin Carter. Become more knowledgeable. Aquire more power in the cosmos. There is no knowledge that is not power. There is no negative that is not positive. And other such twaddle. What coke-addled advertising executive comes up with the phrase "there is no knowledge that is not power"? Probably the same intoxicated fiends that came up with "Speed matters. Now more than ever."
Yeah. Piece that one out. Someone didn't have all their neurons firing when they launched their campaign.
Right-o. Coming up soon - the not-long-awaited follow-up of my 3rd June posting. No one has ever requested the full meal deal. Until now. And I'm going to have to burst some bloodvessels in my fingers to get it all posted before the weekend. And then I might have an audience of one. Aside from the article I wrote about why women prefer the ideals of James Dean over Montgomery Clift, Jim Morrison over Peter Gabriel, and Dylan Thomas over Ted Hughes, this is the one piece of critical academism which has dynamized the whole female-male debate. It's also bloody huge. It's 13 pages, double-spaced, so I might have it typed in, say, six or seven hours, depending on the number of ICQ interruptions with which I have to cope.
So, to my entire audience, I say to thee: "Return hence soon, such that ye may receive such bounty as to ye was promised." So hurry back. Both of you. Cheers,
^+Justice for the 96+^
-mARKUS
17 October 2004
Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice.
Greetings, gentle readers.
So what has happened recently? Oh, loads of interesting and exciting things. Let's begin with Liverpool. Why? Because that is where all the good things begin. Hope is for the hopeless, spring is for the flowers, love is for the lovely, and Liverpool belongs to me. My apologies to Dodgy.
A joyous day of celebration on Merseyside as Liverpool racked up their first Premiership away win of the season at Craven Cottage as they rallied valiantly against a competent Fulham. Dippy, minnow-sized opponents have been brutally victimized by the Reds this season, but when the opposition show the slightest modicum of tactical nous, the Red Machine has tended to throw a cog and grind to a halt. Both trends - crap away form and inability to comprehensively beat anyone with a win in the Premiership - crashed to the ground yesterday in West London.
The story from my perspective was a tad dramatic. I finished my shift at work at 0800h MST (1500h GMT), and by the time I'd finished walking through the snow to the car-car and gotten myself back into the warm confines of my home, and sheltered against the onslaught of the blizzard that was piling precipitation onto all horizontal surfaces with alarming alacrity, the first half was already over. And it wasn't even being televised. Instead, Arsenal was stumbling against Aston Villa in a sad and rather pathetic match-up reminiscent of a fox cub fighting against a disinterested and distracted dragon. Arsenal, erm... arsed about for a while until Thierry Henry suddenly decided that perhaps they should score a few goals, and then they ran away with the game. As they do.
So I ran up to my bedroom and fired up the GameCast of the Liverpool game. The half time news was not good. LFC had three attempts on goal in 45 minutes. None of them on target. They'd also shipped two goals to Fulham through crafty Portuguese striker Luis Boa Morte. So two-nil at the break, and no sign that things were going to improve. I went downstairs, ate some leftovers and waited for the Arsenal game to restart. I was depressed. My least favourite Liverpool midfielder, Salif Diao was starting alongside one of my perennial favourites, Didi Hamann. Problem - they both play the same way. Didi is just better at it. But having two central defensive midfielders, and pushing one out, either forward or to the wing bespeaks a lack of strategic foresight, and is a strong precursor to disaster. Diao, predictably, coughs up a goal with a disastrous giveaway, then body-blocks Carra out of the picture as the Cottagers build up in front of the box and surrenders another goal. The team get steamrollered, with American Brian McBride looking very bright and inventive in front of a tame and passive Liverpool defence. Dark fog clouded the periphery of my vision as I contemplated the possibility of Liverpool not qualifying for Europe next year and languishing in mid-table mediocrity. It would be like dying and waking up as an Everton fan.
So I ate my soup and assorted other comestibles and watched Villa gamely trying to match the pace of Henry, Reyes, Vieira, Pires, etc. and failing miserably. Finally, the game wrapped up as the ref decided to stop the humiliation. I went and scrubbed some dishes before heading back to the GameCast to confirm that the away-form blues had struck again, and tragedy had befallen the beloved club.
But it was not to be. The catastrophic Diao had been yanked at half-time to be replaced by Dr. X, also known as Xabi Alonso. And the team had awoken. They had then proceeded to exact vengeance upon the unrighteous with a fury which left the Cottagers gasping. Milan Baros suddenly rediscovered the form which garnered him the Golden Boot at Euro 2004, and coincidentally, right-back Josemi turned into a snarling psychopath who was promptly sent off for two yellow cards. Thus, with ten men against eleven and after a bit of a freak goal involving Baros banking a shot into the net past Edwin Van der Sar off the rump of hapless Fulham defender Zat Knight, the Reds stepped it up and showed what a world-class side can do.
First, Dr. X sailed a beautiful cross into the middle for Baros to blast the game-tying goal. Then the oddly-monikered conquistador hammered in a positively brilliant free-kick from 25 yards out. Finally, fellow substitute Igor Biscan crashed another stinging bullet past the distraught Van der Sar, who must have felt abandoned by his god, as well as by his shell-shocked defenders.
In the space of 45 minutes, the world had changed. Suddenly, Liverpool became a team that can play away games with inventive, creative, and predatory flair. Against quality opponents. A team that could... win championships? I wonder if the passion and dedication of players like the blood-and-thunder Jamie Carragher are wearing off on the new boys? Because if that's the case and they play every game as though it were that second half, and eventually with their return of their captain and leader, improve upon it, they would be nigh-unstoppable.
"My idea was to build Liverpool intae a bastion of invincibility, you know, like Napoleon and that idea. Conquer the bloody world. My idea was to build Liverpool up and up and up until eventually they would be untouchable. Everybody would have to submit. Give in."
-Bill Shankly
What else is going on? Well, apparently nothing of the magnitude of my footy team's accomplishments, but some interesting stuff regardless.
First, the predictions. Barçalona will win La Liga. They're a lock. If you've got a mortgage you can liquidate, you can put it all on the Catalans hoisting the trophy without a hint of worry or regret. Dropping the mercurial Patrick Kluivert and acquiring the ridiculously prolific Henrik Larsson was a masterstroke. Partnered with African Footballer of the Year Samuel Eto'o, and given excellent service from midfield by European Champions' League standouts Deco and Ludovic Giuly, as well as the World Cup revelation Ronaldinho, their offence has proven irresistible in Spain. No opponent this season has kept a clean sheet against them, and only one team has managed so much as a draw against them. Frank Rijkaard has very quickly matured from a superstar player to a decent manager to a tactical mastermind.
And betting on Germany in friendlies, a previously risky proposition, has now become safe as houses. Jürgen Klinsmann has experimented, dabbled, and blooded young talent with an air of equitable and just open-mindedness that was absent under the reign of Rudi Völler. Völler seemed paralyzed by a fear of public backlash, and thus stuck with a line-up that invariably included keeper Oliver Kahn and strikers Miroslav Klose and Kevin Kuranyi, and excluded Jens Lehmann and Oliver Neuville. Germany's success in getting to the finals of World Cup 2002 appears to have had the same effect on the national team that winning the World Cup in 1990, and Euro '96 did - a complete paranoia of any kind of change. The team gets older and starts losing its form, but no-one has the courage to effect any kind of evolution. Until someone like Klinsmann comes in. Now, and particularly following the draw with Brazil after Klinsmann's appointment, no player is guaranteed selection, and the competition for places has breathed new life into the team. Kuranyi and Klose are now justifiably threatened by young Lukas Podolski and Thomas Brdaric, and Kahn now has to fight for his position against the strong claims put forward by Lehmann and Timo Hildebrandt. Performance is now the basis for selection, not historical precedent. And the German team that slumped to 13th in the FIFA rankings following a winless Euro 2004 are once again a team to fear.
So what has happened recently? Oh, loads of interesting and exciting things. Let's begin with Liverpool. Why? Because that is where all the good things begin. Hope is for the hopeless, spring is for the flowers, love is for the lovely, and Liverpool belongs to me. My apologies to Dodgy.
A joyous day of celebration on Merseyside as Liverpool racked up their first Premiership away win of the season at Craven Cottage as they rallied valiantly against a competent Fulham. Dippy, minnow-sized opponents have been brutally victimized by the Reds this season, but when the opposition show the slightest modicum of tactical nous, the Red Machine has tended to throw a cog and grind to a halt. Both trends - crap away form and inability to comprehensively beat anyone with a win in the Premiership - crashed to the ground yesterday in West London.
The story from my perspective was a tad dramatic. I finished my shift at work at 0800h MST (1500h GMT), and by the time I'd finished walking through the snow to the car-car and gotten myself back into the warm confines of my home, and sheltered against the onslaught of the blizzard that was piling precipitation onto all horizontal surfaces with alarming alacrity, the first half was already over. And it wasn't even being televised. Instead, Arsenal was stumbling against Aston Villa in a sad and rather pathetic match-up reminiscent of a fox cub fighting against a disinterested and distracted dragon. Arsenal, erm... arsed about for a while until Thierry Henry suddenly decided that perhaps they should score a few goals, and then they ran away with the game. As they do.
So I ran up to my bedroom and fired up the GameCast of the Liverpool game. The half time news was not good. LFC had three attempts on goal in 45 minutes. None of them on target. They'd also shipped two goals to Fulham through crafty Portuguese striker Luis Boa Morte. So two-nil at the break, and no sign that things were going to improve. I went downstairs, ate some leftovers and waited for the Arsenal game to restart. I was depressed. My least favourite Liverpool midfielder, Salif Diao was starting alongside one of my perennial favourites, Didi Hamann. Problem - they both play the same way. Didi is just better at it. But having two central defensive midfielders, and pushing one out, either forward or to the wing bespeaks a lack of strategic foresight, and is a strong precursor to disaster. Diao, predictably, coughs up a goal with a disastrous giveaway, then body-blocks Carra out of the picture as the Cottagers build up in front of the box and surrenders another goal. The team get steamrollered, with American Brian McBride looking very bright and inventive in front of a tame and passive Liverpool defence. Dark fog clouded the periphery of my vision as I contemplated the possibility of Liverpool not qualifying for Europe next year and languishing in mid-table mediocrity. It would be like dying and waking up as an Everton fan.
So I ate my soup and assorted other comestibles and watched Villa gamely trying to match the pace of Henry, Reyes, Vieira, Pires, etc. and failing miserably. Finally, the game wrapped up as the ref decided to stop the humiliation. I went and scrubbed some dishes before heading back to the GameCast to confirm that the away-form blues had struck again, and tragedy had befallen the beloved club.
But it was not to be. The catastrophic Diao had been yanked at half-time to be replaced by Dr. X, also known as Xabi Alonso. And the team had awoken. They had then proceeded to exact vengeance upon the unrighteous with a fury which left the Cottagers gasping. Milan Baros suddenly rediscovered the form which garnered him the Golden Boot at Euro 2004, and coincidentally, right-back Josemi turned into a snarling psychopath who was promptly sent off for two yellow cards. Thus, with ten men against eleven and after a bit of a freak goal involving Baros banking a shot into the net past Edwin Van der Sar off the rump of hapless Fulham defender Zat Knight, the Reds stepped it up and showed what a world-class side can do.
First, Dr. X sailed a beautiful cross into the middle for Baros to blast the game-tying goal. Then the oddly-monikered conquistador hammered in a positively brilliant free-kick from 25 yards out. Finally, fellow substitute Igor Biscan crashed another stinging bullet past the distraught Van der Sar, who must have felt abandoned by his god, as well as by his shell-shocked defenders.
In the space of 45 minutes, the world had changed. Suddenly, Liverpool became a team that can play away games with inventive, creative, and predatory flair. Against quality opponents. A team that could... win championships? I wonder if the passion and dedication of players like the blood-and-thunder Jamie Carragher are wearing off on the new boys? Because if that's the case and they play every game as though it were that second half, and eventually with their return of their captain and leader, improve upon it, they would be nigh-unstoppable.
"My idea was to build Liverpool intae a bastion of invincibility, you know, like Napoleon and that idea. Conquer the bloody world. My idea was to build Liverpool up and up and up until eventually they would be untouchable. Everybody would have to submit. Give in."
-Bill Shankly
What else is going on? Well, apparently nothing of the magnitude of my footy team's accomplishments, but some interesting stuff regardless.
First, the predictions. Barçalona will win La Liga. They're a lock. If you've got a mortgage you can liquidate, you can put it all on the Catalans hoisting the trophy without a hint of worry or regret. Dropping the mercurial Patrick Kluivert and acquiring the ridiculously prolific Henrik Larsson was a masterstroke. Partnered with African Footballer of the Year Samuel Eto'o, and given excellent service from midfield by European Champions' League standouts Deco and Ludovic Giuly, as well as the World Cup revelation Ronaldinho, their offence has proven irresistible in Spain. No opponent this season has kept a clean sheet against them, and only one team has managed so much as a draw against them. Frank Rijkaard has very quickly matured from a superstar player to a decent manager to a tactical mastermind.
And betting on Germany in friendlies, a previously risky proposition, has now become safe as houses. Jürgen Klinsmann has experimented, dabbled, and blooded young talent with an air of equitable and just open-mindedness that was absent under the reign of Rudi Völler. Völler seemed paralyzed by a fear of public backlash, and thus stuck with a line-up that invariably included keeper Oliver Kahn and strikers Miroslav Klose and Kevin Kuranyi, and excluded Jens Lehmann and Oliver Neuville. Germany's success in getting to the finals of World Cup 2002 appears to have had the same effect on the national team that winning the World Cup in 1990, and Euro '96 did - a complete paranoia of any kind of change. The team gets older and starts losing its form, but no-one has the courage to effect any kind of evolution. Until someone like Klinsmann comes in. Now, and particularly following the draw with Brazil after Klinsmann's appointment, no player is guaranteed selection, and the competition for places has breathed new life into the team. Kuranyi and Klose are now justifiably threatened by young Lukas Podolski and Thomas Brdaric, and Kahn now has to fight for his position against the strong claims put forward by Lehmann and Timo Hildebrandt. Performance is now the basis for selection, not historical precedent. And the German team that slumped to 13th in the FIFA rankings following a winless Euro 2004 are once again a team to fear.
Also great to see my heroes Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler getting a run out for Manchester City in their 1-0 win over Chelski. Good for the universe that the Russian moneybags finally clocked up a defeat, and thus restored balance to the force.
Oh, and Canada have failed to qualify for the fifth straight World Cup. Not entirely a surprise when considering the corrupt nature of the Latin American officials in the CONCACAF group. But with Ipswich Town's Jason DeVos, Fulham's Tomas Radzinski, and other notable Canadian talent playing abroad on the squad, expectations were considerably higher than at any time since 1986. But as a result of the outright unfair referees, the only things that have actually increased is the number of expectorations.
And the Champions' League is back on telly this week, although Liverpool aren't being shown in Canada. But as sad as that may be for me personally, I can still look forward to some very fun games, like Bayern v. Juve and AC Milan v. Barça. Who will win the whole shebang this season? I like my boys, but if I had to put my money where my mouth is, I would go with Barça to do the double, but not the triple, as I think they'll lose out in the Copa del Rey as the fixtures start to pile up. It now appears that the Spanish Primera Liga has become the most powerful league on the continent, as Italian Serie A sides start to falter. When Réal Madrid are being hammered on a weekly basis with their team of galacticos, and Barça looking to do an Arsenal and go on a monster undefeated streak, Valencia and Deportivo La Coruna are looking like world-beaters on a weekly basis - all in all, the whole thing makes the appointment of Rafael Benitez as Liverpool manager look like a wonder-move.
Geez, I've been working on this post for the past two days, and I really want to wrap it up and get on with my life for a while. So the final item on the agenda is Adrian Mutu, who's been busted for dipping his hooter into the Devil's dandruff. The 16.7 million pound man, who apparently already has a bit of a rep as a power-party animal, appears to have thrown away a career worth £60,000 a week. I'll repeat that in North American. This lad pulls down roughly seven and a half million Canadian dollars a year. The last guy to be caught hoovering the pixie dust at Chelsea was Mark Bosnich. And he was canned outright. Contract torn up. Player filling out his UB40 and standing in the queue with the rest of the have-nots. Apparently young Adrian wasn't getting picked in the first team ahead of the other multi-million dollar superstars on the Chelsea side, and missed a training session because he was out on the town. Jose Mourinho angrily ordered a drugs test and bang. Career ruined. We'll see how things go for the precocious superstar, but my prognosis will be a club suspension without pay, and an FA ban of a year. And now, those of you who keep track of such things can add Adrian Mutu of Romania to the list of naughty substance-abusing athletes, along with Chris "Toker" Armstrong (wacky weed) , Tony "Donkey" Adams (drink-driving, assault, cocaine, gambling, nun-slapping... OK I made the last one up), Mark "Heil Hitler" Bosnich (space dust), and Diego "Hand of God" Maradona (cocaine, cheating, amphetamines, cheating, steroids, cheating, tax evasion, cheating, paternity liability, oh, and did I mention his egregious cheating?).
But that's it. I've got to get ready to watch the Динамо Київ - Réal Madrid game. Cheers to you all, and may the force be with you. Back soon with a much more abbreviated, but equally less-football related and hopefully more insightful article.
Justice for the 96
-mARKUS
Geez, I've been working on this post for the past two days, and I really want to wrap it up and get on with my life for a while. So the final item on the agenda is Adrian Mutu, who's been busted for dipping his hooter into the Devil's dandruff. The 16.7 million pound man, who apparently already has a bit of a rep as a power-party animal, appears to have thrown away a career worth £60,000 a week. I'll repeat that in North American. This lad pulls down roughly seven and a half million Canadian dollars a year. The last guy to be caught hoovering the pixie dust at Chelsea was Mark Bosnich. And he was canned outright. Contract torn up. Player filling out his UB40 and standing in the queue with the rest of the have-nots. Apparently young Adrian wasn't getting picked in the first team ahead of the other multi-million dollar superstars on the Chelsea side, and missed a training session because he was out on the town. Jose Mourinho angrily ordered a drugs test and bang. Career ruined. We'll see how things go for the precocious superstar, but my prognosis will be a club suspension without pay, and an FA ban of a year. And now, those of you who keep track of such things can add Adrian Mutu of Romania to the list of naughty substance-abusing athletes, along with Chris "Toker" Armstrong (wacky weed) , Tony "Donkey" Adams (drink-driving, assault, cocaine, gambling, nun-slapping... OK I made the last one up), Mark "Heil Hitler" Bosnich (space dust), and Diego "Hand of God" Maradona (cocaine, cheating, amphetamines, cheating, steroids, cheating, tax evasion, cheating, paternity liability, oh, and did I mention his egregious cheating?).
But that's it. I've got to get ready to watch the Динамо Київ - Réal Madrid game. Cheers to you all, and may the force be with you. Back soon with a much more abbreviated, but equally less-football related and hopefully more insightful article.
Justice for the 96
-mARKUS
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
