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Sportswriting Spotlight: The Myth Of Image, The Image Of Myth @ Free Darko
By Jay Busbee | January 14, 2008
Every so often, we like to spotlight some of the best sportswriting around. Today’s entry is a thought-provoking product of Chris Sprow, good friend and fine writer. He’s the editor of the Chicago Sports Weekly, and he’s an occasional contributor to The New York Times, so, you know, he’s pretty decent at what he does. And over at the always-enlightening Free Darko, he’s taking on the whole concept of Image as it relates to our athletes. An excerpt:
The ease of information, and dissenting opinion, may have moved us past the point of myth-building. That we can’t agree on a religion that unites the Earth is matter of many issues, save for the religion of self-preservation, but it is certainly a problem of transcription. God—regardless of your version—has never really had decent access to word processing. Be it stone-carving, papyrus, quills and scrolls, the backs of envelopes, longhand, right on through a steady electric typewriter, and on to your current mode, it’s been a puzzling affair. Godhood is a tough racket. You rely on folks constantly claiming to be speaking on your behalf. Did anybody give you a seat on the canon committee? No, they just shouted out to you, assumed their inspiration, and crafted the book the say “You would have wanted.” Hell, they even say you wrote it, speaking through them. If only the paper survives, if what flashes through the series of tubes ultimately dies, we’ll have written a million pages for our athletic gods, far more than all the guidebooks on the god of your choice combined.
Heavy stuff, and well worth reading for anyone interested in what athletic idol worship might be doing to us.
Topics: Sportswriting Spotlight |
