American football. Another local fad that gets totally lost in translation. I've never been interested in football of any kind -- but American football has got me baffeld beyond comprehension.In good fashion, my neighborhood has gone into football mode -- starting with practices on Labor weekend. You don't see that many people on the streets anymore, despite the goldious weather. Everyone is indoors, glued to their gigantic TV, yelling and clapping while eating whopper pizzas and drinking beer. Weird -- but cultural.
This will last until January [gulp]. So I'm laying low, with earplugs and good books. Lost in translation indeed.
5 comments:
Ah, American football. Yes, a bunch of overweight, steroid-abusing (allegedly) men beating the living crap out of each other, but also a game where every single play involves strategy - an extended and painful (amd sometimes bone-headed) game of chess, if you will.
I personally love football (the American kind). Granted, I am an American, but there is nothing better that the smell of fall in the air the prospect of an entire Sunday spent watching games. I loved getting up and doing the Sunday crossowrd while the morning game played in the background (while I lived in California, of course - there are no morning games on the east coast).
It is certainly a specifically American game, but if you just spend a bit of time with it, learning it, you can really grwo to appreciate it.
Barbaric? Sure, it has its moments. But I still love it - the play-calling, the kick returns, the overtime games, the off-the-field drama and the 300+-pound primadonnas.
I've been wearing my jersey every time my team plays, and love breaking that out every year! (Go Colts!)
M: Thanks for the comment. Very interesting and helpful. I'm going to have to take another, more informed look at the game.
One of the things I love about living in France is that you never have to watch football. A bunch of giants deformed with padding, mauling each other over and over again-- from a distance they don't even look as if they belong to the human race.
But then I remember all the men in my family gathered around the television with their beers, telling jokes, even the ones who don't care about the game; the women dancing in the kitchen as they fix the food for half-time, the kids wandering in and out. I love to go to a football game in the fall just cool enough for you to need a thermos and a blanket and snuggle with your friends. It's the tradition. It's not optional.
France/Europe has its own soccer-mania, and evading it may prove challenging. But at least you don't feel "colonized" by it like you do in the U.S.
Sedulia,
Here's the post I wrote about the Euros and their Mondial:
http://losangelesfrog.blogspot.com/2006/07/distant-blue.html#links
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