There’s a huge advertisement plastered inside the tunnel in Montparnasse-Bienvenue, one of those hub-warrens of the Metro. It’s an endless scrum of Frenchmen pushing and shoving to win; the end of the advertisement is “Tous Derriere Les Bleus” (Everyone behind the Blues!). It’s one of my favorite advertisements advising support of the French rugby team (my favorite is, of course, Aux Armes Citoyens! by Nike). Support for Les Bleus reached its peak last night, when France took on the All Blacks of New Zealand.
The striking, visceral thing about watching rugby is the camera angles. The camera embraces the players as they battle and lunge. The viewer gets a much greater sense of the forces involved than the relatively tame football camera angles. I’m sure the pain involved is pretty similar (well, then again, I’ve never heard of a football player getting his ear ripped off), but the way it’s covered made a huge difference in terms of how the viewer perceived it.
Going into the game, from my casual perspective, I felt New Zealand were the favorites: the game wasn’t even being played in France, and everyone knows the All Blacks. Anyway, that was confirmed by the first half of the game. Although the score was fairly close, New Zealand was moving the ball and only barely getting stopped. When New Zealand went up 10-0, and a French player got injured, the announcer said, “Ce n’est pas grave” (It’s not serious) which was greeted with derision from everyone watching—it was clear who was dominating the game.
But France began chipping in with some “field goals” and soon the game got very close, 18-13. And then a bolt from the blue—a steal after a tackle and an open field run for France. But the French player was not quite fast enough—he was going to be chased down from behind. Some sixth sense saved him; he twisted and tossed the ball back to another streaking French player, who muscled his way into the goal. That tied the game, and a chip in put France up by two.
A few seconds after the dramatic score, a roar filled the streets—almost as if they were watching the game on delay. We echoed them; we were rooting for France.
That put France up by two with only a few minutes left to play. The All Blacks commenced on a WWI style campaign to score and beat the hell out of Les Bleus. Each run was only a few yards and burrowing, stumbling, lunging forward followed by rolling the ball back after the tackle. This was fairly successful—New Zealand made it near the goal line, when France was finally able to take the ball and run out the clock. Another roar and honking of horns. It was a dramatic game, and little did I know that that would be only the second most dramatic sports event of the past two days, so far as I am concerned.
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Number one, of course, is Stanford football beating USC. What an event. When I finally made it back home, I happened to check the gamecast of the game. We were close. I watched for a time—quite tired—and then began getting ready for bed. USC scored, 16-7. It was late and there was no way we were going to win, not with our quarterback going 4-13 (at that point). So I went to sleep.
When I woke up, I took a shower, and logged on to the internet, went to ESPN. “CARDINAL RULE” greets me. Then I realize. We won.
How improbable; how wonderful. In typical Stanford fashion, the good news follows unexpectedly and without pattern from bad news—wasn’t it just last week we were shut out 39-0? Isn’t Brook Lopez ineligible for games in fall quarter? Aren’t these things true?
What it proves, of course, is that I was wrong about Jim Harbaugh and Arrillaga, Walsh and Bowlsby were right. Maybe I should stop second-guessing smarter minds than myself; I don’t think I will. Harbaugh seems to have that rare strategic insight and cojones, and of course, “AN ENTHUSIASM UNKNOWN TO MANKIND.” So it’s tough to second-guess that.
But, if I could engage in some second-guessing anyway, I’ll put a little bit of a damper. Harbaugh seems to have named Pritchard starter already. Which may be correct. There seems to be a cult of personality developing around Pritchard. Which is understandable. But we shouldn’t assume that the happy present will transport itself into the equally happy future. Pritchard went 11 for 30 last night. That’s not very good. He made some very fortunate plays—you have to be a little fortunate to make a 4th-and-20. So let’s not assume here, nor should we think that Stanford football has turned the corner. It’s just starting to rotate its hips and quicken its pace around it. We’ll see against TCU whether it can make it around the corner. One game doesn’t make a program, but it sure feels nice. You’d better believe I wore my ‘Red Zone’ shirt around Paris with a bounce in my step, hearing “All Right Now” in my head.
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What happened in between rugby and football was Nuit Blanche, a free festival-party in Paris in which people get drunk and party in the museums. That was fun. The main damper in the night was when the Eiffel Tower failed to light up late at night. What a shame, huh?
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Before the rugby, we had a treasure hunt through Paris. Of that, little can be said, except there seemed to be mutually-agreed upon point in which everyone decided to run to every single location. Of the locations in which it is acceptable run, the Louvre is near the bottom of my list. The White House is probably the point, if only because there are snipers in the latter. I don’t believe there are snipers in the Louvre.
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Before the treasure hunt, we went to a radio show for our media internship. This was so far ago that I’m starting forget relevant, interesting details about the thing. The radio show was about benevolent organizations; the specific one profiled today was an abused children-helping organization, which was interesting, if heavy.
Putting on a radio show is considerably more difficult than it seems, where the public presentation is one of effortlessness. A radio show just seems like a man or woman talking to you, specifically, for minutes and minutes on end. You’re having a one-way conversation, and conversations are often effortless. In reality, of course, there are technicians barking at the host to make sure the host stays within time because there are commercials to run, and the guest might not be the most forthcoming, and the callers not as eager as you would want, and you just want to say, help! It becomes clear once you watch a radio show the number of things that are wrong, and how little you know about how the show is actually going.
Also—and this is not probably not a shocker—American radio is far more angry and vituperative than French radio.
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I saw the strangest store: it was a vending machine as store. The entire window was filled with the products, and you ordered up just as any other vending machine. The products offered were more expensive, but it was an entire storefront. I find this amazing, that a good property in Paris could be devoted to a vending machine.
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So the worst fashion choice of the day, by far, would have to go to you: I don’t care what size you are, but you should clearly buy a shirt, especially a dress shirt, that covers your entire upper body. But when you don’t have a beer-belly but a pint-of-beer belly, the importance of your shirt covering everything is probably magnified. That your dress shirt was in one of the ugliest shades of mauve I’ve ever had the displeasure to see didn’t help matters either.
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So I finished a Tom Wolfe book today. Tom, there’s a certain something we call an editor. Perhaps you could’ve availed yourself of one: no, I don’t want to see random thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnggsssss stretched out for no good reason whatsoever.
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Man, there’s class tomorrow. How can I go to class when I’ve been a fan with AN ENTHUSIASM UNKNOWN TO MANKIND?
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