Posts Tagged: sports

The Honesty of Aggression

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The continual references to my sex are striking. On the one hand, they stand in stark contrast to the identity-digging that I am attempting. On the other, they resonate: trying on aggression for size is foreign territory.

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A Die-Hard Fan’s Lament

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Rumpus columnist Steve Almond, an unwavering Oakland Raiders fan, writes for The New York Times about being a true sports fan, specifically a fan of a floundering team: “As I prepare to immerse myself in another season of ill-fated devotion, there is a question I can’t shake: Why? Not why do the Raiders keep losing, but why […]

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“Hard Times in the Uncanny Valley”

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Colson Whitehead went on a London Olympics adventure, which you can read all about in his multi-part dispatch for Grantland. “I started scoring events in terms of what they’d offer in a human-annihilation-type scenario. Offensewise, archery skills seemed like an obvious asset at first. But the archers’ high-tech bows wouldn’t survive a day of jumping […]

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In Defense of Lolo Jones

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Much controversy has been sparked over the recent media attention being bestowed on the American hurdler Lolo Jones. Jones, who placed fourth in this Olympics’ 100-meters hurdle competition, has been a figure of debate since the New York Times wrote an scathing article about her reliance on image to win endorsement deals and garner national […]

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We Can Be Heroes

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“Poems are made of words that live in bodies — bodies shaped by line breaks, and fixed forever in space, on the page. Picture a gymnast in relation to the trampoline, the invisible line between the two driven equally by unseen forces of gravity and the gymnast’s own strength. When a poem is read aloud, […]

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Olympic Poetics

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“It’s easy to say poets are attracted to sport for reasons that have something to do with form. I’m sure that’s true, but I also think that it has something to do with the possibility of failure and, in the case of many Olympic sports, the fact that nobody really watches what you do most […]

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Sport v. Human Rights

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Eurozine’s Mihir Bose lays out the development of modern athletics in connection with human rights, citing the political and ethical pressures involved in not-so-nice countries hosting major sports events. He writes that the International Olympic Committee, among other major governing bodies of sport, has paid little attention to its founding rhetoric in the last 100 […]

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In the Park

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Doin’ It In the Park, a forthcoming documentary from Bobbito Garcia and Kevin Couliau, reveals the world of New York City pick-up basketball. In gathering footage for the film, the co-directors made visits to 180 courts throughout the five boroughs. You can check out the trailer here. (Via Flavorpill)

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Soccer to the Rescue?

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At The Atlantic, Rumpus contributor Chris Feliciano Arnold looks at efforts to draw Major League Soccer to Tucson, Arizona and wonders whether building a community around the game can be a healing force in a region “facing one of the most tumultuous periods in its history.”

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War Games

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“It’s war. They don’t give a freakin’ you-know-what about you. They will kill you. They’re out there to kill you. So I’m ‘a kill them.

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Men with Balls

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“This show is an act of complete personal indulgence. When the good people at apexart approached me about curating something in their space, they made a huge mistake. After some polite back and forth, Steven Rand said to me directly, ‘We’d like you to do something that reflects your passion.’ I responded, ‘Well, football or […]

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