If you judged America by my Facebook friends, about half not only did not watch the Super Bowl, but didn’t watch it vehemently. The rest of them were rooting for the Packers. We did watch it this year, right at home on the world’s crappiest TV set, surrounded by mounds of salt and fat in several forms. I thought the Packers were going to win, and I based it on a vignette I saw while waiting at a traffic light earlier in the day. A car rolled up and honked and the window rolled down and the driver started yelling Steelers! Steelers! Steelers! while flapping all the Steelers paraphernalia festooning his ride. This outburst was directed at a gentleman on the sidewalk wearing a Packers hat. He started yelling Packers! Packers! Packers! while pointing at his jacket (Packers), peeling off his jacket to reveal his sweatshirt (Packers) and peeling off THAT to show his Packers wife-beater and bicep tattoo. I blacked out before he removed his pants, but declared him the winner. He’s got devotion. (I would have had a Red Sox tattoo by now, but it would have to go between my legs.)
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| Hall-Of-Famer Franz Liszt |
Anyhoo, we really pumped up our street cred this year by not only watching the Super Bowl but by skipping a classical piano concert to do it. It’s been on the calendar for a while, and Dave noticed it last week. “That Louis Lortie concert is during the Super Bowl,” he said with resignation, “I guess we can go and then we can always come home and finish cutting off my nuts.” Dave likes piano more than football, but it is a source of some dejection to him that we hardly ever seem to take in the Super Bowl. It started 25 years ago when we went furniture shopping instead. Subsequent years have even found us in the fabric store, where they have a little joyless room set up with a TV for all the other nutless men to watch the Super Bowl on.
Well, the concert was all-Liszt, and I’m not that big a Liszt fan. Liszt is like a moon shot: all flash and technical prowess and brimstone, but an awful lot of trouble to go to just to hit a golf ball and bring home a bag of dirt. We found a good home for the tickets and stayed put.
It was a pretty good game, for football. I didn’t much care whose side God was on this year, and I never have. I used to root for my numbers in the office pool. “Go, five to one! Go, five to one!” I’d shout at the screen. But I’m no longer employed. I had to find other areas of interest.
One was the possibility of a blowout, a giant explosion of lineman meat. The field looked like a Spandex proving ground. Everywhere there were men so enormous they could eclipse a blimp; they shouldn’t have been able to move at all; but thanks to their being encased in miracle fabric, they got around just fine. They each had so much potential energy from the heroic compression of the uniforms that whenever a hole opened up, they’d blast right ahead. I think that’s how it worked. The announcers were always pointing out where the holes opened up.
But the announcers were a letdown in general. They were okay if all you wanted to know was who had the most heart or the most adversity, but they were a total washout in the figurative language department. I’m a fan of analogy and metaphor. When you compare something to something else, like Liszt to a moon shot, you allow the reader’s mind to make its own connection, which makes it that much stronger, especially if the things being compared are not obviously related. [My favorite example from the archives is when I compared evolution to both a videotape and the U.S. Congress.]
In drawing his analogy, this announcer dude went from football all the way to baseball. He was proud of it; he hammered it home. The quarterback could not be counted out, he said, because he could hit a home run at any time, and it was just a matter of how many at-bats he had. Really, dude? That’s all you got? If the announcer dude had been Lord Byron, we would never have had:
“The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold;” it would have been:
“The Assyrian came down like a sneaky Babylonian.” Lame.
There is something to be said for not using references so obscure your audience fails to make the connection (see obscure Red Sox reference above), so maybe that’s the justification. If so, maybe this is an audience I don’t want to be a part of.
I’m penciling in facials for next year. We want to look good for the ballet.
I would say this is a nearly perfect analysis, Murr. After working for ESPN and A-B as a marketing consultant for almost 25 years my husband routinely turns down tickets to the SB, much to the chagrin of every guy he knows. Because they are in the ESPN box he isn't free to give them to others. And we see all the commercials 72 hours before. So SB is a great opportunity for us to take a beach walk, except this year we went and consumed fat and salt with our neighbors. I am now going to consider the Red Sox reference further.
I also thought this year's SuperBowl commentary was the worst ever. I've heard more creative analysis and more enthusiastic review at high school volleyball games!
We were the recipients of those Louis Lortie tickets and it was no flash but a lot of technical prowess.There were 3 hours of unimaginable piano playing with a 30 minute intermission for piano tuning. Thanks for watching the SB.
Liszt will get your piano out of tune in a fat hurry. You're welcome.
Humph–and here I thought I was your friend. 'Cuz I root for the Steelers, see? If you-uns live in PA, you-uns roots for the Steelers. See?
Oh oh, so excited that someone actually used "The Assyrians came down like a wolf on the fold"–that was my go-to example for anapest meter when teaching poetry. But that was a long time ago.
Anyhoo–I'll still be on FB and I'll be your friend even though I didn't root for the Packers.
I don't watch the Super Bowl, I never watch the Super Bowl and actually I am completely bored by football. Now some people say that makes me NOT Male. Last I checked, I am… but I still don't like football.
When I die I am going to donate my body to science so they can maybe uncover the scientific mystery.
I watched the whole damn stupid thing just to see the latest Budweiser Clydesdale commercial and there wasn't one! And most of the others sucked this year, too. I want my four hours back.
Donna, I don't think you went Steeler Public on FB. "The Assyrian…" also is a good place to learn the real meaning of "cohort." In case you're still teaching…
Robert, no need to die first. It's nutlessness. Check again.
Jayne, wasn't it worth it for the VW racing beetle?
Murr–I never go public on FB supporting anything. Not Steelers, not Jesus, not my mother etc. All those feelings are too dear to trivialize them with a Steelers shout out or whatever on FB.
An analogy for Murr: playing Liszt is like trying to make the keyboard do math.
The Super Bowl was on in the same room as the woodstove on one of the coldest days of the year so far. So I heard it. Every time I glanced up from the sock I was knitting, someone was doing something like dropping the ball or missing the guy they wanted to hit and hitting their own guy. It seemed kind of dumb. But rugby, there's a game!
I can't get it through my head why anybody would want to watch people knock their heads together so many times that they get concussion-related brain deficits. Judging from interviews with players, they need all the neurons they can muster.
Did the fact that you blacked out before Packers fan took off his pants have anything to do with the obscure Red Sox tattoo reference?
All right, I'll spill–I googled "red sox between the legs" and got my reference right at the top of the page. An indelible moment, for a Red Sox fan. "Dribbled between the legs" probably would have gotten it too.
An almost perfect post, my dear. If you had not omitted the butchering of the National Anthem, it would've been an eleven. As it stands, you've scored a ten in my book. By the way, you can always get into a football pool at your local pub (as long as you don't inquire about it too loudly). It's cheaper than facials. I agree that having a dog in the hunt, even if it's only "five to one" makes viewing more enjoyable; that plus the beverages you must have had to accompany all those snacks! Elaine
This is a first, Murr! First time I've ever thoroughly enjoyed anything anyone ever had to say about football, let alone the Super Bowl.
Interesting story about Liszt and his technicisms. (Before I tell this, please refer back to the picture you included and Liszt's profile). Seems he and another master of technique (whose name I no longer recall) once challenged each other to a duel of sorts: namely, each was to write a piece that would be impossible for the other to play. The day of the challenge, Lizst, of course, sat down before the ivories and sight-read the other guy's piece without a hitch. But when the other pianist played the maestro's opus, he found himself suddenly in the midst of a cadenza in which his left hand was all the way at one end of the keyboard and his right all the way at the other end with a climactic middle C annoted right smack in the midst of such virtuosity. Furious, he stood up from the piano, threw the sheet music at Lizst and called him a trickster and a fraud. The piece was physically impossible to execute, because no one had the reach to have their hands busy at opposite ends of the piano and still hit a middle C.
Lizst picked up the sheet music, sat down as the piano, brilliantly played his own piece and when he got to the middle C in the midst of the cadenza, took a bow and played it with his sharp and talented nose.
Cannot believe you passed on Lortie playing Liszt to watch the SB. And it was a disaster happening just 15 miles down the road this year. We had some smug satisfaction watching all those Yankees who came early, packing only Bermuda shorts, freezing their knee-caps off. Actually the roads were so icy one couldn't even drive to the downtown bars to see them in person, but did watch them on the tube.
Now off to google "red sox between the legs".
Years ago, w/a wife and two daughters, I'd watch the Stupid Bowl with a big bag of chips and some salsa just to show 'em I COULDA watched OTHER games all year, but didn't. But I DID go to over 300 of my younger daughter's soccer games before she graduated high school, and used to drive from VA to CT to watch her play in college. If you don't know anyone in the game, you don't have anything in the game…
This certainly outshines anything else I've read about the SB this year. And maybe any other year. I don't recall ever watching the thing – but surely I must have when the Broncos played – but no matter how hard I try, I can't avoid all the hype and the fallout.
I've gathered the whole shebang was a bust this year. Certainly the commercials were, and the announcing, and the 3 seconds of the half-time show I manage to tolerate. Nobody can sing the anthem, so that was no surprise.
Anyway, great piece. I have very belatedly added you to my blog roll. I like your style.
But…but..but..but this year THE PACKERS were in the Super Bowl…. the only team in the NFL without an owner. It is owned by the community. See.. not only do we have CHEESE here…. we are COMMIES!!
V. good, Ms. Murr – how could it not be when it included a lingo lesson plus a Byron reference !
Packers and Saskatchewan Roughriders are community teams. I cheer for both teams but watch neither. Can't figure out the game. My oldest married a Rider fan and has actually learned to enjoy football. On previous football game "dates" she sat in the stands and read a book. Love.
Now "The Assyrian came down…" – that is interesting stuff. anyone know if they still write poetry?
I found myself at first much annoyed, and finally amused, by all the fuss over Xtina and the anthem. One wonders how well any of us would perform in front of a billion people, regardless of previous experience.
Truly is it said: "Those who can, do. Those who can't become critics."
This certainly outshines anything else I've read about the SB this year. And maybe any other year. I don't recall ever watching the thing – but surely I must have when the Broncos played – but no matter how hard I try, I can't avoid all the hype and the fallout.
I've gathered the whole shebang was a bust this year. Certainly the commercials were, and the announcing, and the 3 seconds of the half-time show I manage to tolerate. Nobody can sing the anthem, so that was no surprise.
Anyway, great piece. I have very belatedly added you to my blog roll. I like your style.
This is a first, Murr! First time I've ever thoroughly enjoyed anything anyone ever had to say about football, let alone the Super Bowl.
Interesting story about Liszt and his technicisms. (Before I tell this, please refer back to the picture you included and Liszt's profile). Seems he and another master of technique (whose name I no longer recall) once challenged each other to a duel of sorts: namely, each was to write a piece that would be impossible for the other to play. The day of the challenge, Lizst, of course, sat down before the ivories and sight-read the other guy's piece without a hitch. But when the other pianist played the maestro's opus, he found himself suddenly in the midst of a cadenza in which his left hand was all the way at one end of the keyboard and his right all the way at the other end with a climactic middle C annoted right smack in the midst of such virtuosity. Furious, he stood up from the piano, threw the sheet music at Lizst and called him a trickster and a fraud. The piece was physically impossible to execute, because no one had the reach to have their hands busy at opposite ends of the piano and still hit a middle C.
Lizst picked up the sheet music, sat down as the piano, brilliantly played his own piece and when he got to the middle C in the midst of the cadenza, took a bow and played it with his sharp and talented nose.
An almost perfect post, my dear. If you had not omitted the butchering of the National Anthem, it would've been an eleven. As it stands, you've scored a ten in my book. By the way, you can always get into a football pool at your local pub (as long as you don't inquire about it too loudly). It's cheaper than facials. I agree that having a dog in the hunt, even if it's only "five to one" makes viewing more enjoyable; that plus the beverages you must have had to accompany all those snacks! Elaine
I would say this is a nearly perfect analysis, Murr. After working for ESPN and A-B as a marketing consultant for almost 25 years my husband routinely turns down tickets to the SB, much to the chagrin of every guy he knows. Because they are in the ESPN box he isn't free to give them to others. And we see all the commercials 72 hours before. So SB is a great opportunity for us to take a beach walk, except this year we went and consumed fat and salt with our neighbors. I am now going to consider the Red Sox reference further.