You Give Me Fever

I wanted to write something here about how, as expected, I had planned to be disinterested in the Olympics only to find myself up at 2 in the morning watching time trials for the women's cycling road race event, whipped into a nationalistic lather by the marketing geniuses at NBC to the point where I'm trying to invent racist things to say about Uzbeks. I think in the past, just trying and failing at that last endeavor is proof that racism isn't 100% rooted in ignorance. You have to know something about a people to hone the kind of invective that's really going to land.

But I can't say that any of that is happening because... well, it's just not. It's not for lack of trying. I've avoided the spoilers ahead of the tape-delay coverage and watched a few hours here and there, but I just haven't found myself entirely rapt as yet. I've been rapt-ish, but not quite a full-on rapting.

I think the problem is I've finally reached a tipping point in my life experience where I know enough about all the events presented that none of them are quite exotic enough anymore to pull me in out of sheer curiosity. I've seen enough cycling, enough swimming, enough gymnastics, enough soccer, enough fucking horse jumping to know the basics of the intent behind the action and the scoring systems and for me to realize that maybe I just don't really give a shit. Which I say without cynicism or sanctimony of self-righteousness. That's all the slow wheeze of deflation as I realize the lucky curse of longevity has robbed me again of the chance to enjoy something I took such great pleasure in when I was younger.

The only thing left going that's really bizarre enough to pull me in is team handball, but even that I think I'm starting to figure out. If you watch it long enough, you'll be confused at first, sure, but that's only until you realize what's going on isn't a sporting competition at all but instead a highly ritualized form of interpretive, improvised group dance meant to convey a complex matrix of nationalist, nihilist and sexual sentiments built around an elaborate metaphor of international sport. The France-Tunisia match looked like a win for France, but you had to watch it to get the subtle message of post-colonial criticism of the western imperial impulse.

Maybe my ennui has less to do with the burden of my life experience and just that we haven't started the events I'm usually interested in. The track events are usually a lot more visually inviting than swimming, which, let's be honest, is really just a lot of splashing followed by a video graphic of a spreadsheet. The track and field events, in the Olympic stadium, above ground, not hindered by happening in an obscuring fluid medium, are always so much more dynamic to watch. You've got what is usually the crown jewel of monumental sporting architecture in the Olympic stadium, the immense, electrified crowd, the fissile chain of starbursts as cameras flash in the post-dusk setting of the glamor events like the 100 meter finals. Also, the hammer throw? That maybe might kill someone. Who isn't interested in that?

I'm hoping that's it: that my events of preference haven't started yet and less that I'm standing on the fat edge of a falling-away wedge-shaped ramp of diminishing emotional returns for the rest of days, however many I am graced to endure. There have been flickers, little sparks to remind me of the embered fire that once raged. I mean, that opening ceremony was fucking weird, right? Was there a giant mannequin baby at one point? I think there was. Straight out of Trainspotting. I was attuned as all hell to that shit.