Oilympic Flames. Oilympic cooking?

Oilimpic Flames.

Since alls
war that end war let sports be leisure and
bring and buy fair. Ah ah athclete, blest your
bally bathfeet! --James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, Page 279.

The wonderful story of Jesse Owens seems like a fairy tale to me, a modern folk tale in which the skill, dexterity and physical ability of a single individual human being overcomes and dances-a-jig upon the face of evil political super-power, in the Jesse Owens case Adolf Hitler, and one of the most violent and openly hateful super-powers in history--The Nazi Party.

In 2008 this tale of a good hero overcoming an evil villain, or at least dancing upon the face of evil--if you wish to adopt the popular dualism good/evil--seems an encouraging one we can all learn from. A Positive story of an individuals brilliance demonstrated through skill and endurance. I think that the general heart, of all humanity, or an approximation of all humanity would agree that if you can show your the BEST, then fairs fair. You are the best, or fastest, or highest scorer or most original, and the list goes on and on with adjectives to describe WHY somebody is GOOD. Not just good, but VERY VERY good. Some might even say the best, although i doubt that Tina Turner had table-Tennis in mind when she wrote "Simply the Best"? Many other songs with the words GOLD. WINNER. BEST in them get prescribed by our Big Telecommunication Brothers.

"Free speech without free radio speech is as zero --Ezra Pound, Canto 74.

objectivity and fairness seem to become hyper-skewed around the language surrounding Sporting events, especially the OLYMPICS. Sometimes i think that violence and tribal tensions in many cities across the world are aggravated by BAD LANGUAGE use by the media and the press. There is always an very obvious dualism when TWO teams are playing one-another, but to slip outside of the SPORTS GAME itself into the social, political, economic, gastric and other areas of human experience with this dualistic view seems a terrible blow to any neurological revisions or peaceful-poetic modes of communication.

And frustratingly to me, SPORTS seem to hold mostly VERBS in their track-pack. But to begin mixing metaphor's and facts together when writing or talking about Sports, or sports people: ATHLETES brings up many problems. At least to my understanding. The WHY question arises often. Why are the sports-people doing such and such an event, and not ________ sporting event? WHO MAKES THE RULES? And of course there is the giant carbuncle on the WORLD SPORTING COMMUNITY: DRUGS. (Or some drugs, not all drugs. Sugar seems to still be tolerated and at the heart of most sporting sponsorship deals.

But before i get into the paradoxes and more negative criticisms of the Olympic Games, SPORTS in a general sense, and the language by which we describe these activities; i would like to refocus upon Jesse Owens, and call for everybody to excel in whatever it is they are GOOD at. Practice your crafts and activities and don't be afraid of the big bad wolf, or the so called super-powers. Hopefully by 2012 the world will have lost its fascination with SPORTS CELEBRITY ICONS and re-focused attention on the process of the activity that they are actually doing. And then asking what else can they do? And why are our political puppets on the TV screen, the most un-sporting individuals upon planet earth!

Maybe we should look for our LEADERS and government officials among those who have a great sporting ability and/or accomplishments? Quick in body quick in mind? or Robot Mind robot body?

Well one view: sports is sports. Politics and governance is politics and governance.
Ice cream is ice cream. Horse dung is horse dung. The Mixing of these terms can bring to mind, and page, some nasty smells and sights. Mixing up an INDIVIDUAL with the NATION they are representing visualized as the flag-costume that many athletes pimp. Unable to wear their own colors? Literally wearing the COLORS AND SYMBOLS of THEIR pirate slave nation. But in the process world this seems to me like only going half way. Why not wear your nations statistics, constitutional documents or MOTTOS, or their BEST Graffiti? You want to play communication and costume games.



ZEN and the art of Oilympic Engineering.

“Dom on dam,
dim in dym. And a capital part for olympics to ply at. Steadyon,
Cooloosus! Mind your stride or you'll knock. While I'm dodging
the dustbins. Look what I found! --James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, Page 625.

I fess up that i don't really know ZEN, but ZEN knows me i suspect, and when i read about ZEN, swordsmanship, calligraphy and Tea Ceremony i get the feeling that they have a similar sentiment as i, when asking questions about SPOTSMANSHIP, Sports, Athletes, Games and Rules. Some Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian thinking and ancient wisdom also feels inviting with its flexibility towards WHY people do activities.

Although ZEN seems defined by the Japanese Culture and its Master Teachers, China also has many ZEN like qualities, and when you dig into it you can make ZEN, Confucianism, Taoism and other forms of Buddhism interchange many positive attributes between one another. Respect of others, oneself and the environment. And they can also be shown to carry less appealing traits depending on who is carrying and translating the signals.

"fair dream of
sport and game and always something new. --James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, Page 472.

Here in the West it seems a similar situation to me, but with a stronger wind blowing dogmatic certainty in all directions from some but not all of the Christian, Judean, Islamic world views. And with an unfortunate fascination with WHO's GOD is better and more rightfully certainly better than another's. Such are the pitfalls of monotheism, church/state capitalism and Alphabetic Monopoly. I think the same BAD influences and impulses are at work in the Communist East and the Democratic West. The bridge can be constructed or burnt down depending on WHAT it IS you are doing. WHY you do what you do. WHO benefits from your activities. These impulses or the meaning behind the meaning and beyond classification, due to the language barrier between western-occidental Alphabet cultures and more Eastern-Oriental Ideogramic Cultures. Impulses are very hard to represent scientifically, but with sports and games and athletics we have an open invitation to ask these questions, but when the economic and political drives/impulses far out balance any artistic or poetic drives/impules we have a CONTRADICTING GAMES.

Imagine if the United Nations, The Olympic Committee and the World Bank, IMF etc. all gathered to compete? But in 2008 the GAMES are changing. THE NEW GLOBAL GAMES ARE EMERGING. Without any rules, the EARTH is begging to play GAMES. And if our HUMAN games do NOT begin to include a HEALTHY PLANET EARTH and environment soon. The GAMES may appear to be a posh get together of the worlds elite sports-priests to sell whatever it is their NATION state is selling. As POLITICAL ACTION AND PROTEST will not be tolerated at the Olympic Games and most sporting events to be frank, then the possibility of a cultural exchange and a playful loving get-together goes out the window. But still the question begs.

"We are now in a position to get rid of the 150 sovereignties and
have a re:circulatory, interacommadative, world-around
democratic system. -- Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path, page 287.

WHY NOT get the leaders, KINGS and Queens, Emperors and Princes, CEO's and Major BIG shot REAL Estate owners and HOLY chosen ones to COMPETE! COMPETE. PITCH you skill and wisdom up to the world! We are ALL WATCVHING NOW! So why not use the GAMES as a window of communication, without RULES. With Impulses to PLAY and test and learn and feedback with each other?

What of Literature, ART, Music, Economics, Medicine, Cooking? they are all a part of the OLYMPIC or SPORTING EVENT, but unless they are from a corporation that is paying some FATMAN somewhere, they cannot communicate. No matter how GOOD. FREE. Beneficial and humanitarian the case may be. The Olympic Games will NOT become a POLITICAL and/or Economic GAMES, but a purely SPORTING EVENT. In the spirit of fair play, you know, like the war in IRAQ (Gagging)

I echo the fact that 'no one has written anything decent about sports except HOMER (In snatches). And if you write artistically about speed, the color, and the sound and fury of boxing, you'll find it more difficult than writing about the echoes of Confucius, Buddha or Finnegans Wake. HAN and T'ANG dynasties emphasized sports besides the arts. MING and CH'ING dynasties relegated athletics to an inferior position. The greeks were aware of the importance of exercise.'

"my pen is upt to scratch, to compound quite the makings
of a verdigrease savingsbook in the form of a pair of capri
sheep boxing gloves surrounding this matter of the Welsfusel
mascoteers and their sindybuck that saved a city for my publickers,
Nolaner and Browno, --James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, Page 412.

Now America and the United Kingdom and much of the world is in the throws of ATHLETIC GODS taking over the entire planet. Better writers than writers. Better politicians than politicians. Scientists. Talk show hosts and sales people for the SUGAR industry. I am being a bit negative again here, but thats because i see a contradiction GAME being played out. How can you support a team that is sponsored by a company that robs you? Rob them back? Rub their back. Write on?

It seems the Olympic Games and most Sporting events attract Testosterone and ALPHA Male activity, even in some female competitiors. Gymnastics has become a kind of strange celebration of what i see as female, but thats my subjective view. Of course women should be able to compete in sports and athletics like any man, also a man should feel comfortable playing cook or nurse. Here we have an example where these activities are not really conducive to the OLYMPIC games, OLYMPIC COOKING? Fastest, most nutritious, Biggest? sort of breaks down a bit. But still, why are only the current official OLYMPIC ACTIVITIES mostly physical strength and endurance activities opposed to skill and intelligence activities?

I hope i have raised some questions, and i hope to come back and wax on more about SPORTS LANGUAGE and COMMERCE.

"Infantilism incresing till our time,
attension to outlet, no attension to source,
That is: the problem of issue. -- Ezra Pound. Canto LXXXVII.

--Steven Pratt, May 1st 2008.