By Bart Barry-
There is ever much thought given to layers and how they might best be created in a thing linear as the written word but some new thoughts on the subject. The layers be supplied by the reader and the rest is anxiety about how uncontrollable be that reader – the bolding and italicizing and capslocking and footnoting, and, to a lesser extent, the rigid overapplication of commas, howsoever grammatically justifiable. Ultimately it appears folly no matter where its writer’s heart.
Hi Mom . . . had these thoughts while enjoying a bout of what turned out to be a virile and viral strain of food poisoning in the Ecuadorian township of Otavalo – who orders a steak medium-rare in South America (possible answer: hardly anybody; the waitress failed thricely to dissuade my prep instructions)? – and its 48 hours of refractory restlessness, a mashup of thoughts and sensations occasioned by zaniness and immobility 18 storeys above Quito. I was staring out a pair of windows, as you know I’m wont to do, and reading a book I found in my borrowed apartment, “Envisioning Information” by Edward R. Tufte, and thinking about my futile chase in words of what visual artists do in a different sort of collaboration with the human eye. The book did nothing so much as convince me graphic artists, like my Quito host, practice applied visual arts the way racecar (a palindrome!) engineers practice applied physics. Along we go . . . Bart
Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz comes first to mind when I think after a boxing incarnation of the Labor Day spirit for these reasons:
1. He applied a template of constant pressure.
1a. If he relented, everything would collapse – his defense, his footwork, his identity.
2. He wore blue.
3. He was workforce, not management.
3a. He punched-in for a full, 36-minute shift.
4. When he was put in a bad system (against Juan Manuel Marquez) the system won.
Marquez doesn’t spring to mind as a Labor Day prizefighter, and yet, how else did he attain such technical mastery but via hundreds of thousands of repetitions, and isn’t that workmanlike?
A Brief Oral History of Why Marquez Was Not Workmanlike . . .
MONEY: I’m the reason he changed his physique, you know?
MEMO: I don’t know about that, but I truly did not hear from him until after you fought him.
MANNY: I went crazy when he hit me to the mat with that loop right hand in our four fight. The punch was not happy. The punch was a lie.
MEMO: But you opened the door to that when you didn’t want to do testing.
MONEY: Only reason people know he didn’t want the test was because of me.
If you posit those who use modern scientific methods to enhance their performance are undeserving of Labor Day recognition you foolishly imply, at least partially, anyone with the same cocktail regimen of whatever these guys ingest would, too, become world champion. And before this finds you on hindlegs asserting it’s all so unfair to those who adhere to whatever arbitrary group happens currently to be enforcing arbitrarily agreed-upon standards, maybe ask a few questions about the testing agencies’ agents’ self-interests and just how pure you’re certain all the publicized adherents are actually. Marquez didn’t need PEDs to be elite and neither did Barry Bonds, but the sort of ambition that brings eliteness is not slumberous. It rarely obeys a threshold and hasn’t an off switch. Which is to imply in an era of PEDs any argument about any athlete not needing PEDs to be elite is self-invalidating.
[HitThese thoughts about creating a threedimensional experience with a twodimensional medium like words-arranged-in-paragraphs began in 2001! A few writer friends had a magical vision: To spread goodwill by making the already enjoyable reading experience way different by departing from proven methods. Whether in an effort to hide stylistic shortcomings or in the name of literary revolution (founder’s note: Or boredom!) these writers sought to celebrate a subversive experience for their readers by applying a “rigid standard of ultimate quality, craftsmanship and creativity” like Happy Socks!
In conclusion, whatever happened to labor in America or appreciation of those who do labor – and if you’re reading this from your job on Labor Day, why, that’s the point – things shall certainly worsen before they betteren. Employers flatten and automate, making entrylevel a permanent level, now that leveraged shareholders have replaced customers and workers, and so, and still, if boxing does not repay fully what vicarious expectations – better put: expectations for vicariousness – we lend our beloved sport, it ever holds the possibility a man, some man, may rise from hopeless circumstances, may overcome derogatory socioeconomic factors numerous, and improbably become celebrated and secure while entertaining us. If Oleksandr Usyk, world’s unified and undisputed and undefeated cruiserweight champion, possessed of a quirky workhorse style that requires constant motion and occasional improvisation, does not represent every American everyman’s Labor Day ideal, he represents ideals enough.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
