The Spectacle

Super Bowl Sunday - a day of solitude and spectacle. Those twin pillars of philosophical wisdom were swirling around inside my head:

V. Lombardi - When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
J.P. Satre - A man has no excuses.

Both of these guys offered hard-nosed philosophies. One was a man of faith, the other was not. I adopted a 'tough guy' stance, and kind of skated on the periphery of the day. I had a 'breakthrough' meditation, a long, exhilarating run on the lakefront, worked on notes for my new play, ordered Indian food for dinner, and watched the Super Bowl. I loaded up the cd player with an appropriate soundtrack (The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Boz Scaggs, Neil Young, The Animals, Harry Nilsson). This disconnection from the silliness and bombast of the spectacle was absolutely essential. The commericals were stupid and relentless (hey monkeys are funny!) but the game was pretty good.

I had no money riding on the contest, I liked both teams, so I just kind of rode along with the momentum of the moment, thinking, 'I wonder what's gonna happen next?'