good morning Hank it's Tuesday I miss
sports you know what I should start with
a caveat I understand that the loss of
sports is one of the least important
losses of our historical moment sports
don't matter in the scheme of things but
I missed the luxury of caring about
stuff that doesn't matter
like there's this great William Carlos
Williams poem about a baseball game that
begins the crowd at the ball game is
moved uniformly by a spirit of
uselessness which delights them and I
missed that crowd and that game and that
delight so here's where I'm getting a
bit of that feeling in the meantime
slightly off topic but it occurs to me
that the phrase in the meantime is a
real winner for describing right now
like we are living in the mean time but
right Hank first and most importantly
there is marble racing yellow as marble
runs marble of one season has been an
absolute joy for me like most people I
started out watching the Marvel Olympics
because it was somewhat sublime and
somewhat ridiculous but now I am all in
and for me Marvel one has been a real
lesson in how fandom works because I
started out being like I guess I'll root
for the green ducks because we share a
name and now two months later I'm like
the green ducks are in arguably the
greatest team in the history of Marble
racing and the lime er suck and I hate
them then there's Swift racing so Hank
Swift is this video game that connects
to your bike trainer and when you move
the pedals in real life your avatar on
the screen also moves and you can climb
through the Alps and sprint through New
York City's Central Park and draft off
of other riders and if you're like me
you can also experience the joy of being
passed on long climbs by cyclists who
after their name have in parentheses 84
years old and loving it
swift is one of my favorite forms of
exercise and I also love watching Swift
racing on YouTube where cyclists achieve
speed and power levels that I can only
imagine another game that I play
terribly and love to watch people play
well Tetris
every month there is a classic Tetris
tournament where the world's best
players of a 36 year old video game
battle it out and it is pure joy
I just find Tetris extremely soothing
and calming and for me watching
competitive Tetris is an opportunity to
experience mesmerised Wonder and then
I've also been watching sporting events
that are from the past but where I don't
know the outcome like part of the
pleasure of sports for me is that you
don't know what's going to happen which
is an interesting phenomenon because now
of course I am surrounded by lots of
uncertainty and it is horrible and
terrifying and there is nothing to
recommend about it but the uncertainty
before a live sporting event is bearable
or even exciting precisely because
sports don't matter or at least they
don't matter on anything like the scale
of the current uncertainty for me most
of the joy of watching a live sporting
event is not knowing how it will turn
out that feeling at the beginning of a
game that all things are still possible
and I found I can experience at least a
version of that by watching old games
like I love soccer but I don't watch a
lot of Italian soccer or at least I
didn't but then yesterday while
exercising I watched the 2012 Italian
Cup final and I didn't know who was
gonna win it was thrilling that William
Carlos Williams poem goes on to say that
the crowd at the ballgame is enthralled
by all the exciting detail of the chase
and the escape the error the flash of
genius all to no end
save beauty and for me at least that's
the key whether it's sports or something
else
we all need things in our lives that
have no end
save beauty for me I'm finding that mere
beauty right now among other places and
competitive Tetris and marble racing I
wonder where you're finding it whether
sport adjacent or not let me know in
comments and Hank I will see you on
Friday but first a PS PS many of you
know the work of Amy Krauss Rosenthal
who beckoned so much lovely into this
world and helped me and many others sing
in hope that we are here because we're
here because we're here because we're
here Amy's husband Jason has just
published a book about their marriage
and Amy's illness and his life
afterwards called my wife said you may
want to marry me it's a wonderful memoir
highly recommended links to that and
everything else in this video in the
doobly-doo