The South Is Gonna Change
We're still internet-bereft in our house so I've spent the last few days hanging out in coffee shops and being part of the weird couple who shows up at the bar on a Monday and sits in a corner with their laptops, not talking to each other. This is of course extremely unfortunate in the scheme of things, but being nearly off the grid did accidentally provide me with yet another reason to write about Trey Burke's shot—shots—against Kansas, and I'm sure we all agree this is a good thing.
We're down to our DVD collection if we want to pipe entertainment into our faces. I come home to the MGoWife stabbily grading papers and watching O Brother Where Art Thou. At the end, the three travelers are about to be strung up when the Tennessee Valley Authority floods the valley, sparing them. They pop up, taking in great gulps of air.
The yokels talk about providence; Ulysses Everett McGill glibly talks rationality and progress. He has the gift of gab.
He is then struck dumb by a cow on the roof of a barn. While this stands pretty much on his own as a reason to shut up and stare, it was also insanely prophesied to him at the beginning of the movie. In context of a movie so defiantly old-timey it created a minor American roots music revival, the cow is a thesis statement.
Part of why I find sports so compelling is the cow on the roof. See this here blog's previous post for a Ulysses Everett McGill take on the Syracuse game: numbers and averages and techniques for a better life. Progress towards a better preview than rebound margin and "they just wanted it more."
This is my day to day. Which lane seems faster, what is my model of this driver in front of me, which of the three egress points from my new house is fastest given the fact that one has a couple of speed bumps and turns but the other dumps you out farther away from most things. It's fine, the algorithmic life. I like it. It's served me well.
There is something to be said, though, for pointing up at the new star in the sky and deciding this means locusts. I like sports because I can be prattling on about the electrified South and be struck dumb by something I had heard about and not believed. In those moments the day to day evaporates and I'm presented with something that has no reason, that just is.
A great roaring silence fills spaces usually occupied with chatter, modeling, moment to moment estimates, and it occurs to me that there are things other than efficiency. Clutch may not exist, but it happens.
I may have to start a 12 step group for people like me who cannot stop watching replays of that shot.
- Watch a replay of that shot
- Watch a replay of that shot
- Watch a replay of that shot
- Watch a replay of that shot
- Watch a replay of that shot
- Watch a replay of that shot
- Watch a replay of that shot
- Watch a replay of that shot
- Watch a replay of that shot
- Watch a replay of that shot
- Watch a replay of that shot
- Go to 1
I could watch it all day long, reliving that moment. It's that good. Kansas. We freaking beat Kansas. Doesn't get much better than that. Oh what the heck, let's watch it one more time...
no idea what you are talking about, but I could watch that video over and over for the rest of my days.
So Brian is hanging out in an Ann Arbor coffeeshop .... hmmm, I think I need a caffeine fix.
Order of elimination:
(1) Not Starbucks, too corporate
(2) Not Espresso Royale, too undergrad
(3) Not Comet or lab, too expensive
(4) Not Ambrosia, too hippie
(5) Not Sweetwaters, too crowded
(6) Not Mighty Good, they close at 6pm
Must be Biggby.
You eliminate a place for Brian for being too hippie? Have you seen Brian's hair? I don't necessarily believe Brian subscribes to their worldview, but I imagine he respects that at least they have an ethos.
If he's still in Ann Arbor, the whole twisty roads to nowhere, with speed bumps, sounds like the whole Packard-King George Blvd area.
I hate driving down that road in those neighborhoods.
I grew up near the corner of King George and Page. There weren't any speed bumps then and I can tell you the accidents caused by people speeding on King George between Packard and Eisenhower were a constant source of entertainment for neighborhood kids. That said, speed bumps suck.
This is my day to day. Which lane seems faster, what is my model of this driver in front of me, which of the three egress points from my new house is fastest given the fact that one has a couple of speed bumps and turns but the other dumps you out farther away from most things. It's fine, the algorithmic life. I like it. It's served me well.
Get out of my head. I've never read so much from one person that seems to express the EXACT patterns of my thought processes and feelings. From day one back in 2006 (05?) til now.
and I can't turn it off. I push as few buttons as possible on the microwave (to be more efficient!) If there's an "algorithmic life" support group, I probably need it.
same for the TV remote
I know the engineers may scoff, but that's also a pretty damn accurate description of my econ brain as well.
nice piece.
I slaughtered this horse last Tuesday (er, Friday). I'm afraid she's startin to turn.
and are you coming back? we have cows up north, but i'd never put one on top of my house. will butcher one on request though, so there is that...
Beilein, referring to team doing "Harlem Shake" on the bus:
"We had dancing on the bus. It was wonderful."
Doesn't fit the pattern, but might be funnier: "It’s tough to do the Harlem Shake sitting down."
He might as well have said, "Pimpin' ain't easy."
"The stars. We never just look anymore." - Dee, Men In Black
The best stargazing I ever did was in northern Michigan on Little Traverse Bay near Petoskey in the summer. Cloudless nights and inner peace.
Per Michael Rothstein:
Cutting down the nets, getting a sports-drink bath, participating in the Harlem Shake on the plane on the way back from Texas. The stoicism, for a night, disappeared. The lifelong realization eluded him through his radio show all the way until Tuesday morning waking up next to his wife, Kathleen.
"I woke up this morning and I got up, said, 'I feel great,'" Beilein said. "Then I said, 'Are we still going to the Final Four? Is this true?' She said, 'Yes, we are.' There was a moment there, I realized it happened."
Marv Albert sounds like he's screaming and whispering at the same time.
Have fun down there. It's changing all right — all the way back to 1913.
i love the clip of The Shot.
I am also enrolled in a program to help me watch it less often - it is not yet working.
what's best about the shot is that everyone's hands go up when it goes in - michigan hands up in the air to celebrate, kansas hands up on their heads in awful disbelief. WATCH FOR IT
Great write-up. Watching The Trey again a couple times here got me thinking about something, and I'm sorry if this has already been discussed. Regarding McGary's pick on that play, and the fact that Johnson bowled him over. In the normal run of play (i.e., not in the final minute or so), that would be a foul, correct? I think it's semi-interesting to ponder what the reaction from us fans would've been had Trey's shot not gone in and that "foul" gone uncalled as it did. Obviously, I'm glad it wasn't called and this is just a bunch of "what-ifs", but I just wanted to hear the thoughts of the crowd.
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