With the World Cup right around the corner, I've be itching to read How Soccer Explains the World. That is, until I read this review in an Aussie newspaper.
Here's an excerpt: "Any book about Association Football with soccer in the title is ultimately written from an outsider's perspective. Aficionados would never refer to the game as soccer, except in circumstances of coercion or necessity. And they would normally do so with measures of hesitancy and guilt."
Perhaps one day I will write a book entitled, How Corporate Video Explains the World. "In the backyards of middle-class pre-fab homes, in the city plazas of Mexico City, on the greens of St. Andrews are lawns that need to be manicured. Toro was there to meet the challenge..."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Kind of like the story of the guy that spent a lot of his time and energy on physical fitness and exercise, as well as eating all the right foods .... then dies at a young age of a heart ailment. One of the mourners gathered around his casket for viewing was heard to say it was a shame for him to die so young. And another said in response, "yea, but he sure looks good."
I'm thinking about opening a Toro lawnmower franchise in downtown Baghdad; want to invest?
The author was no doubt writing for an American audience. Americans purchase more books than any other nation. However, as a marketing gimmick, he should have titled the book using the term "football" rather than soccer. He would probably sell more copies in America that way. So maybe he is as stupid as the Aussies think. Maybe he is a complete retard. But I've had a chance to read some of the book and he is not as big a retard as you might think. He is actually quite smart and if we judge someone solely on his use of a term to describe a sport with two names then we are as outsiders as penguins are at a rugby match. Err, I meant Austrailian rules football, which uses a ball that looks more like an American football than American soccer ball.
Sports with two names: Canadians call it "Curling." Janitors call it work.
I can't tell you how disappointed Elton John was when he attended his first drag race.
HE or HE OR SHE or S/HE or HE/SHE or (S)HE or SHE OR HE . . . was probably overdressed.
I imagine John Force was just as disappointed when he went to the drag movie, "The Bird Cage."
Post a Comment