pasta and football...or fandom in general?
May. 7th, 2007 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perevisionMade me some pasta today! Fusilli with tuna and mildly spicy Bolognese. It wasn't bad; not enough sauce, maybe. I can't be credited--it was my cousin's recipe.
Yesterday someone very hard to refuse dragged me to the Arsenal-Chelsea game. Now I completely fail to understand this constant fanaticism that people have who are REALLY REALLY into sports. Apparently Umberto Eco confesses to the same bewilderment. For the poor creatures who are overwhelmed by this rabid and incomprehensible fandom (and for those actually in it, hint hint), I have transcribed his essay. It's fantastic.
How Not to Talk About Soccer
by Umberto Eco
I have nothing against football. I don't go to stadiums, for the same reason that I wouldn't go and spend the whole night in the basement of the Main Railroad Station in Milan (or stroll in Central Park in New York after six in the afternoon), but if the occasion arises I watch a good game on TV with interest and pleasure, because I recognize and appreciate all the merits of this noble sport. I don't hate soccer. I hate soccer fans.
Please don't misunderstand me. My feelings towards fans are exactly those that the xenophobes of the Lombard League feel towards immigrants from the Third World. "I'm not a racist, so long as they stay at home." By "home" here I mean both the places where they like to gather during the week (bars, living rooms, clubs) and the stadiums, where I am not interested in what happens. And for me it's a plus if the Liverpool fans arrive, because then I can amuse myself reading the news reports: if we must have circenses, some blood at least must be spilled.
I don't like the soccer fan, because he has a strange defect: he cannot understand why you are not one yourself, and he insists on talking to you as if you were. To convey my meaning I will give you an analogy. I play the recorder (worse and worse, according to a public statement by Luciano Berio, but to be followed so closely by a Great Master is a satisfaction). Now let's suppose that I am in a train compartment and, to strike up a conversation, I ask the gentleman sitting opposite me, "Have you heard Frans Brüggen's latest CD?"
"What? Eh?"
"I'm talking about the Pavane Lachryme. If you ask me, he takes the opening bars too slowly."
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
"I'm talking about Van Eyck, of course. (slowly and distinctly) The Blockflöte."
"Look, I'm not...Do you play it with a bow?"
"Oh, I understand, you're not..."
"No."
"That's funny. Did you know that, for a custom-made Coolsma, there's a three-year waiting list? So an ebony Moeck is better. It's the best, at least of those on the market. Galway says the same thing. Tell me something: do you go as far as the fifth variation of Derdre Doen Daphne D'over?"
"Actually, I'm getting off at Parma."
"Oh, I see. You prefer to play in F rather than in G. It's more satisfying in some ways, I know. Mind you, I've discovered a sonata by Loeillet that--"
"Lay who?"
"But I'd like to hear you in the Fantasias of Telemann. Can you manage them? Don't tell me you use the German fingering?"
"Look, when it comes to the Germans, I...Granted, the BMW is a great car, and I respect them, but..."
"Oh, I get it. You use the baroque fingering. Right. Though the St Martins-in-the-Fields bunch--"
There. You understand my point, I'm sure. And you will sympathize with my hapless traveling companion if he pulls the alarm cord. But the same thing happens with the soccer fan. And the situation is particularly difficult when the fan is also your taxi driver.
"So what about Vialli, eh?"
"I must have missed that."
"But you're going to watch the game tonight, aren't you?"
"No. I have to work on Book Z of the Metaphysics, you know? The Stagirite."
"Okay. You watch it and you'll see if I'm right or not. I say Van Basten might be the new Maradona. What do you think? But I'd keep an eye on Aldaiz, all the same."
And so on. Like talking to a wall. It isn't that he doesn't care a fig that I don't care a fig. It's that he can't conceive that anyone could exist and not care a fig. He wouldn't understand it even if I had three eyes and a pair of antennae emerging from the green scales of my nape. He has no notion of the diversity, the variety, the incomparability of the various possible worlds.
I have used the taxi driver as an example, but the situation is the same when the interlocutor belongs to the managerial class. It's like ulcers: they strike rich and poor alike. It is curious, however, that creatures so adamantine in their conviction that all humans are the same are ready to bash in the head of the fan that comes from the neighboring province. This ecumenical chauvinism wrings roars of applause from me. It's as if the members of the Lombard League were to say: "Suffer the Americans to come unto us. So we can kick their ass."
I was laughing at this wicked portrayal of football fans when I was struck by this thought: I know tons of anime and Harry Potter fans who talk like this. My cousin talks like this. I, unless I watch myself carefully, tend to talk like this. This is how fans talk! We belong to something, and have belonged to it so long or so completely that for some people it's hard to adjust to people of a different paradigm. Very often I try (or accidentally happen) to draw other people into this "fandom" world, with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I meet someone else who knows what I'm talking about, and we go at it like the Gilmore Girls, rattling along to the utter bemusement of friends and bystanders. Unless they happen to love Evangelion and hate CLAMP...then we go at it like Liverpool and AC Milan. Or, now I think of it, Arsenal and Chelsea fans.
I don't know what I'm getting at with this...maybe just that we're human. It made me feel more humble, that's all. After I laughed myself sick, of course.
Yesterday someone very hard to refuse dragged me to the Arsenal-Chelsea game. Now I completely fail to understand this constant fanaticism that people have who are REALLY REALLY into sports. Apparently Umberto Eco confesses to the same bewilderment. For the poor creatures who are overwhelmed by this rabid and incomprehensible fandom (and for those actually in it, hint hint), I have transcribed his essay. It's fantastic.
How Not to Talk About Soccer
by Umberto Eco
I have nothing against football. I don't go to stadiums, for the same reason that I wouldn't go and spend the whole night in the basement of the Main Railroad Station in Milan (or stroll in Central Park in New York after six in the afternoon), but if the occasion arises I watch a good game on TV with interest and pleasure, because I recognize and appreciate all the merits of this noble sport. I don't hate soccer. I hate soccer fans.
Please don't misunderstand me. My feelings towards fans are exactly those that the xenophobes of the Lombard League feel towards immigrants from the Third World. "I'm not a racist, so long as they stay at home." By "home" here I mean both the places where they like to gather during the week (bars, living rooms, clubs) and the stadiums, where I am not interested in what happens. And for me it's a plus if the Liverpool fans arrive, because then I can amuse myself reading the news reports: if we must have circenses, some blood at least must be spilled.
I don't like the soccer fan, because he has a strange defect: he cannot understand why you are not one yourself, and he insists on talking to you as if you were. To convey my meaning I will give you an analogy. I play the recorder (worse and worse, according to a public statement by Luciano Berio, but to be followed so closely by a Great Master is a satisfaction). Now let's suppose that I am in a train compartment and, to strike up a conversation, I ask the gentleman sitting opposite me, "Have you heard Frans Brüggen's latest CD?"
"What? Eh?"
"I'm talking about the Pavane Lachryme. If you ask me, he takes the opening bars too slowly."
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
"I'm talking about Van Eyck, of course. (slowly and distinctly) The Blockflöte."
"Look, I'm not...Do you play it with a bow?"
"Oh, I understand, you're not..."
"No."
"That's funny. Did you know that, for a custom-made Coolsma, there's a three-year waiting list? So an ebony Moeck is better. It's the best, at least of those on the market. Galway says the same thing. Tell me something: do you go as far as the fifth variation of Derdre Doen Daphne D'over?"
"Actually, I'm getting off at Parma."
"Oh, I see. You prefer to play in F rather than in G. It's more satisfying in some ways, I know. Mind you, I've discovered a sonata by Loeillet that--"
"Lay who?"
"But I'd like to hear you in the Fantasias of Telemann. Can you manage them? Don't tell me you use the German fingering?"
"Look, when it comes to the Germans, I...Granted, the BMW is a great car, and I respect them, but..."
"Oh, I get it. You use the baroque fingering. Right. Though the St Martins-in-the-Fields bunch--"
There. You understand my point, I'm sure. And you will sympathize with my hapless traveling companion if he pulls the alarm cord. But the same thing happens with the soccer fan. And the situation is particularly difficult when the fan is also your taxi driver.
"So what about Vialli, eh?"
"I must have missed that."
"But you're going to watch the game tonight, aren't you?"
"No. I have to work on Book Z of the Metaphysics, you know? The Stagirite."
"Okay. You watch it and you'll see if I'm right or not. I say Van Basten might be the new Maradona. What do you think? But I'd keep an eye on Aldaiz, all the same."
And so on. Like talking to a wall. It isn't that he doesn't care a fig that I don't care a fig. It's that he can't conceive that anyone could exist and not care a fig. He wouldn't understand it even if I had three eyes and a pair of antennae emerging from the green scales of my nape. He has no notion of the diversity, the variety, the incomparability of the various possible worlds.
I have used the taxi driver as an example, but the situation is the same when the interlocutor belongs to the managerial class. It's like ulcers: they strike rich and poor alike. It is curious, however, that creatures so adamantine in their conviction that all humans are the same are ready to bash in the head of the fan that comes from the neighboring province. This ecumenical chauvinism wrings roars of applause from me. It's as if the members of the Lombard League were to say: "Suffer the Americans to come unto us. So we can kick their ass."
I was laughing at this wicked portrayal of football fans when I was struck by this thought: I know tons of anime and Harry Potter fans who talk like this. My cousin talks like this. I, unless I watch myself carefully, tend to talk like this. This is how fans talk! We belong to something, and have belonged to it so long or so completely that for some people it's hard to adjust to people of a different paradigm. Very often I try (or accidentally happen) to draw other people into this "fandom" world, with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I meet someone else who knows what I'm talking about, and we go at it like the Gilmore Girls, rattling along to the utter bemusement of friends and bystanders. Unless they happen to love Evangelion and hate CLAMP...then we go at it like Liverpool and AC Milan. Or, now I think of it, Arsenal and Chelsea fans.
I don't know what I'm getting at with this...maybe just that we're human. It made me feel more humble, that's all. After I laughed myself sick, of course.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-05-07 07:16 pm (UTC)I'll have fled the country by the final whether AC wins or loses; GOOD TIMING.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-08 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-08 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-08 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-08 02:38 am (UTC)I'm sold on Eco. Believe it or not, I have yet to read his books, so if you have any recs, fire away.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-08 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-08 05:17 pm (UTC)The Name of The Rose is his famous mystery novel; Foucault's Pendulum is really good, but after the Da Vinci Frenzy one gets very tired of reading about Templars. I haven't really read his stuff on semiotics...keep meaning to.