The Game is Afoot

squirrels --> a new footbag league

2008-12-04T21:44:00.004-05:00

Sorry, I've been quiet this month; I've been wanting to make some new posts, but the squirrel problem seems to be getting worse. City vans have been patrolling the streets incessantly, blaring from megaphones, "please stay inside your homes! squirrels are on the loose!" Personally, I think they are exaggerating the danger. There have been stories of groups of squirrels terrorizing people, biting them on their backs and bottoms. People have been footbagging in sterilized concrete chambers, but that's no way to meet interesting people.

In any case, I'm no longer trapped.

It's vacation time. I got off my plane in the Dry Tortugas ready to learn, play, and watch a few games, perhaps make a quick buck. Unfortunately, the game of choice here is pelota or jai alai, but footbag is, of course, widely played as well. I am hoping to start a new league.

This is a phenomenal location for bagging: mellow silty soil, a tropical climate with plentiful mangroves and coral. Clean air, plentiful oxygen. Its one weakness: a lack of fresh water

I spent my nights in an old Jesuit mission, built by Basque settlers in the 16th century. The 16th-century Basque Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier, cofounder of the Jesuit order, is known worldwide as an avid jai alai player; he is, in fact, the patron saint of the sport. His remains show the telltale deformation of the phalanges that mark all handball players. Therefore, nothing -- save perhaps a stain in the shape of the bagging Madonna -- could have been more startling than the sight inside my desk drawer.

What do you think it means?

Election 2008 update: The faces of Congress

2008-11-26T12:52:00.006-05:00

A sign of the changing times --Meet your House Chair of Domestic Policy:

The Revolution, part II

2008-11-02T22:20:00.000-05:00

I was reflecting on what disturbed me about McCain comment. What was lacking was hope. I was beginning to understand what Bush said 8 years ago. McCain may seriously have suffered permanent damage in captivity. He cannot love himself; he cannot love humanity is he disparages people like that. If that's true, what hope is there?
The bagger is doing his own thing. He's free. Is that what McCain can't stand?

The Bag stops here

2008-10-31T16:25:00.003-04:00

"The revolution is not beanbag"

McCain rarely disappoints with the plagiarized bon mots, but this time I fear it is us of whom he speaks. Why is our community constantly held up to ridicule at election time?
Up to now, he has only used code, suggesting that Obama favored policies that discourage work and innovation. Now he practically saying outright that footbag is not real work. Tell that to Vasek Klouda!

I implore fellow footbaggers in the USA to make your election choice very carefully. Obama does not have a sterling record either, but he to his credit he has not stooped to this level suggesting he, at the very least, is not ashamed to have our support.

In search of lost footbaggery, part 1: the footpastry

2008-10-14T20:11:00.010-04:00

She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called
'petites madeleines,' which look as though they had been moulded in the
fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a
dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a
spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner
had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a
shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the
extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had
invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its
origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me,
its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory--this new sensation having
had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence;
or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to
feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this
all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of
tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not,
indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it
signify? How could I seize upon and define it?

There is a reason that Proust has aroused such passion among admirers and detractors. Among the most powerful symbols of Recherche du Temps Perdu is the petite madeleine. Interestingly, Proust chose to transfer the power of the action of footbag to the one of our most primordial objects of desire.
I suspected the doughnut, cruller, or frycake will serve just as honorably.

Footpastry 1:
Origin: my fryer
flavor: saffron glaze

Characteristics: Friendly, light on the foot (puffed with nitrogen bubbles, I believe), soft, moist, childlike, but readily defensive of its virtue. A gentle brush can provoke the faint hint of a live quiver.

After I finished bagging, I left the nut on my windowsill with a few hours of direct autumn sunlight and the occasional breeze.

Day 3, it was a more stalwart pastry, ready to weather the rigors of a dedicated sportsman.
It lent itself to rare & complex moves including the half-nixon and the alger kiss.

Day 6
kind of scaly, lizard like exterior.
grabs you by both lapels and blows smoke in your face. The kind of bag I would use in a competitive match against terrorists. At the same time, very small and light enough to fit in your pocket. I considered adding more sand for ballast.

Day 10 -

This is where it gets scary. Call it the Dionysius model, the footbag Altamont. Multitudes of people, linked for long periods of time in that kind of particular rhythmic ritual which was probably struck upon empirically many thousands of years ago to connect to the Alpha rhythms of the brain. Enhanced by the mind-shaping rot harvested from cereal crops, It does produce these sorts of exploratory states, searches for utopian models or communities that might survive the aftermath of nuclear war.

bit of a beach-like aftertaste.
Next in this series will be "pirate's booty."

The bag flies at midnight

2008-09-29T21:31:00.004-04:00

Having been away from home these past three years, I finally felt that pride of the young unicorn, laying aside all fear to bear love to a fair maiden. From regions of perpetual snow to the depths of the oceans to the interior of the earth, where in obscure grottoes reside unknown cryptogams and chuds, footbag stands the universal language. Kicking the bag across some of these trails was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world. Was there joy in the brilliant sunshine? As much as Adam must have felt caressing his naked skin.

Some footbag forms, among the world's most beautiful, are entirely absent in the world's metropolises, where players are often under the influence of performance enhancing drugs or the conservative footbag educational system, which teaches to the tests.

Shiva, lord of the bag, in an 11th century representation.

It is believed that baggage spread with Vedic culture. Bag and its divine choreography permeated all facets of being, giving expression to spiritual aspiration and ecstasies. The most spectacular example was that of Shiva, the cosmic bagger and possible progenitor, who with his steps relieved by enlightenment the suffering of devotees. In Nitin Kumar's eyes: "His gestures, wild and full of grace, precipitate the cosmic illusion; his flying arms and legs and the swaying of his torso produce the continuous creation-destruction of the universe, death exactly balancing Natarajabirth. The choreography is the whirligig of time. History and its ruins, the explosion of suns, are flashes from the tireless swinging sequence of the gestures." Aspirations to this brand of beauty and ecstasy have been rare since the Enlightenment, but the practice lives on even if its meaning may be lost.

A Specter is haunting New York

2008-09-25T13:03:00.018-04:00

To all who navigate here, greetings.
Like many in the community, I have devoted much of my life to studies of the great game and I periodically attend gatherings of the planet's pre-eminent scholars. However, in this age when limitless data flows encircle us, it is our duty to claim some of claim these advanced technology products for the public good. Hence

The Game is afoot

The decaying empires of the world, adversaries all, have entered a holy alliance to exorcise their lands this specter.

The Institute for Advanced Footbag Research promotes a free & efficient exchange of radical footbag scholarship, methodology, and technique.