[Two-minute read]
Just home from a gathering of the friends, and now I get to fire up the National Basketball Association Finals. It’s the Knicks, it’s the Spurs, it’s game 2. Game 1 was my second time watching during this playoff run – wait, is that right? – well, in any case, I am trying to limit the amount of time I devote to the watching of televised sport. I do pretty well for a pathological devotee of hockey, baseball, football and basketball on the ‘boob tube’. (Does anybody still call it that? Haven’t heard that expression this century, I do believe.) Not much hockey or baseball anymore, except when the Blue Jays, or I guess any Canadian-based NHL club (thanks, and sorry, Oilers!), make their Big Dance. Football is mainly just the Super Bowl now. Freedom!
My SportsNet feed keeps trying to take me ahead to Spurs-up-7, but I’m gonna watch the whole thing. Okay, I fast-forwarded through the anthem. (Rather attractive young lady, but I’ve heard enough “Banners”; I can hear my sports-centric big sister grumbling about the big pride-of-America hoopla.) And hey, the guy San Antonio had to introduce the Knicks seemed like he was heavily sedated, but for the Spurs, suddenly he was on caffeine, amphetamines and who knows what.
Man, the hype. The game never gets old, but man, the crazed intensity – so much of it performative and rehearsed and amplified, having to outdo the manic fans of days of yore (like, say, way back in March for the Madness) – gotta say, it just, y’know, seems like a lot.
So yeah, I’m watching the NBA. On a sort of television: my laptop screen. (But EVERYTHING IS TELEVISION. If we thought Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death was out of date, consider how our screen addictions have only deepened and multiplied.) And you get to read, Not Quite Live But Surely Of Surpassing and Profound Interest, my random thoughts. Blessings! And peace be upon you and your mind. Further instalments to come. TONIGHT.
