From the ridiculous to the sublime, David Roth buried the lede. Roth — not the Van Halen guy, not the musician, it’s the other David Roth — is an annoyingly young and irritatingly good writer, and even his Tweets are clever, though sometimes bitterly sarcastic. He made me and many another Twit laugh out loud with repeat video postings of a llama, bounding happily along in time with a rap sample. (It didn’t even have to be late at night for me to grin egregiously.) Later, he argued that a similarly goofy, arresting video about otters was a sports thing, because he likes sports and he likes otters, I guessed. Then I read the piece, which was very short, though long on otter love, in the midst of which he suddenly he broke out this wonderful definition. Sport, wrote young Mr. Roth, is this:
“a place to put our willingness to be awed and amused — to see and feel things suddenly and unexpectedly, outside of our normal rhythms and ranges of experience.”
I’m still not too sure about the musical otters, but I love Roth‘s description. It would certainly make CHINA a sport.
The same definition could be applied to another “activity”. To me, his definition could be said perfectly and amazingly of love. I may never be able to feel this in relation to sport; unless they make putting on socks a sport. But maybe one day I will have the opportunity to be “awed and amused” and “to feel things suddenly and unexpectedly” if ever love comes my way.