Replay reviewed / Predator praying
Today: Tom Scocca editor of Indignity; and Sam Thielman a reporter, critic, essayist, and editor, and graphic novel columnist for the New York Times.
Issue No. 254
Football Breaks Faith
Tom Scocca
The Great Man at Rest
Sam Thielman
Football Breaks Faith
by Tom Scocca
The Super Bowl was on and I was watching it. I’ve basically stopped watching football, in the same way people stop going to church—not because of a turn to militant unbelief, but just a slow fade-out, an accumulation of dissatisfactions and uninterest. The liturgy has changed and they’ve switched out the old hymns and certainly anyone should be appalled by the scandals; but I’m too American to ever feel superior to football on principle. Maybe what bothers me is a sense that football doesn’t live up to the idea of football.
Still, the middle schooler had wanted to see the game. Or really he had wanted to see Kendrick Lamar at halftime, while having also absorbed the ambient middle school idea that everyone ought to watch the Super Bowl. I worked on dinner in the kitchen while he watched, with mounting incredulity, as the team introductions went to commercial and the National Anthem—stretched out with line repetitions—went to commercial and the coin toss—stretched out with a mass-killing memorial—went to commercial—and the kickoff went to commercial. At some point he went off and brought back his Nintendo Switch.
Keep us breathing fire!
For $3/month you can read this whole post and get our weekdaily newsletter too!