SHIRTS ILLUSTRATED

Looks like Robert Nelson won't be putting his daughter on the cover of Sports Illustrated:

Sport: where we all find our inner idiot

The social role of sport is to provide an outlet for intelligent people to behave like brainless people. Everyone knows there's no intrinsic point in shifting a leather ball from one post to another, no matter how energetic or invested the contest. Nothing is achieved outside the game; no one is wiser or can add a benefit to the world beyond the fury of the struggle.

Intelligent people also recognise the costs of sport, severe and permanent injuries, which burden our hospitals every weekend. But sport is a sanctioned release from responsible thinking, and all these scruples are put aside. The whole point of sport is to insulate you from the things that matter.

The habit of getting excited and screaming for no good reason creates a momentary dome of ignorance; it's a hallowed asylum of folly, a carnivalesque institution of mania against the onus of wisdom. Important and urgent questions should be discussed, such as global warming; but the clamorous distraction of sport assures even the brainiest people that they too can enjoy the mind of an idiot.

I was therefore sceptical of the Basil Sellers Art Prize. Why conceive a lucrative prize around sport? Sport is the antithesis of art, because art is all about the purpose beyond the work. Art engenders speculation, a portal to new insights and imaginative growth. Like music, science and philosophy, art promotes an intoxicating wonder for where the mind can reach. Sport offers no similar transcendence, because it lacks any admirable purpose beyond its own arbitrary exertions.

Comments

[nick]

Why is it that those who are in favour of artistic freedom are so poorly disposed towards the freedom of others?

And if that anaemic frail looking artistic chap utilises less public money than any given sportsperson I'll eat my hat.

[nick]

Art: where others pay for our inner child

The social role of art is to provide an outlet for brainless people to aspire to be like intelligent people. Everyone knows there's no intrinsic point in drawing or music, no matter how energetic or invested the artist. Nothing is achieved outside the art; no one is wiser or can add a benefit to the world beyond the struggle for public funding of private pleasures.

Intelligent people also recognise the costs of art, severe and permanent inabilities to undertake paid employment, which burden our ABC, SBS and Centrelinks every week. But art is a sanctioned release from responsible thinking, and all these scruples are put aside. The whole point of art is to insulate you from the things that matter (paid employment, for example).

The habit of getting excited and dancing/singing/performing for no good reason creates a momentary dome of ignorance; it's a hallowed asylum of folly, a carnivalesque institution of mania against the onus of wisdom. Important and urgent questions should be discussed, such as the manufactured farce that is global warming; but the clamorous distraction of art assures even the stupidest people that they too can enjoy some role in public discourse.

I was therefore sceptical of the Basil Sellers Art Prize. Why conceive a lucrative prize around art when all art is either funded by the public purse or private donation? Art is all about the avoidance of work. Art engenders laziness and a feeling of self importance, a feeling that one is owed something. Art promotes an intoxicating wonder for where the mind can reach, which artists can use to justify gargantuan expenditures on recreational drugs. But, sadly, contempoary art lacks any admirable purpose beyond its own arbitrary exertions and expense upon the public purse.

[Bruce]

Dear Fool,

Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it is stupid or easy.

Regards
Bruce

[TimT]

Let's see if this works...

Sport: Art: where we all find our inner idiot

The social role of sport art is to provide an outlet for intelligent people to behave like brainless people. Everyone knows there's no intrinsic point in shifting a leather ball from one post to another, slopping oil down on a canvas in representative or abstract shapes, no matter how energetic or invested the contest artistic vision. Nothing is achieved outside the game art; no one is wiser or can add a benefit to the world beyond the fury of the struggle. etc, etc...

[Adam 1.0]

Went to the opening of this (hoorah for sponsorship). What they don't mention is that on the second floor there's a heap of tit - that's what would get the sports fans charging through the door.

[TimT]

Ah, Adam, but that tit was there only to engender 'speculation', and be a 'portal to new insights and imaginative growth.' The tit was there to promote 'an intoxicating wonder for where the mind can reach.' It was no ordinary bit of tit.

[Guido]

This guy is so wrong and demonstrate such a glib unawareness of how sport is so socially important.

Doesn't he know about the history of art, how sport has been intertwined with it since the Ancient Greeks made statues and drawings of athletes?

Also he says "Nothing is achieved outside the game; no one is wiser or can add a benefit to the world beyond the fury of the struggle."

Bullshit. Sport transcends you everyday life, a bit like art? Lots is achieved outside the game. Connections within families, friendships, social links, I can go on.

"Important and urgent questions should be discussed, such as global warming; but the clamorous distraction of sport assures even the brainiest people that they too can enjoy the mind of an idiot."

I can assure Mr. Nelson that I do think about 'important and serious questions' but I don't think about them all the time. The same way that sometimes I enjoy watching 'Spicks and Specks' as well as 'Compass' or 'Art Sunday' or 'Four Corners' you know, you need to have some light relief.

I think that the Basil Sellers Art Prize is a great idea. So it was when the Great Southern Stand was built at the G and artists were invited to do some artwork. And I am going to suggest that that the same happens for the new rectangular stadium in Melbourne.

[via collins]

Only last weekend, I was watching Nick Stevens sending 30 metre handballs laterally to where he somehow kind of knew another Carlton player was going to be, and wondering, "Is that art?"

Barry Cable was an artist, Greg Williams was as well. Leigh Matthews was a butcher with the mind of an artist.

Robert Nelson's obviously having a re-building year.

[Tony T]

Surely, no one could be that snobby and/or ignorant.

I just assumed he was taking the piss. Or looking for attention. Both would explain the shirt.

[Tony T]

Leigh Matthews would have appreciated Tower of Meat, a vision created to signify "the craziness of the planet" and which... ahem, scored ten grand from the Melbourne City Council in 2003.

[Pedro the Ignorant]

Nelson would have to be soulmate of this tool.

http://flickr.com/photos/quiltingmick/913892254/

[Tony T]

A guy I went to school with once wore a colourful tie to a dance and thus became "Graz".

[Tony T]

Guess who art thou dweeb.

And, no, it's not Nelson.

[Simon]

"a momentary dome of ignorance; it's a hallowed asylum of folly, a carnivalesque institution of mania"

I don't know why he is picking on sport - you could say that about a lot of things.

[Tony T]

I once said it about Two & A Half Men.

[Adsy]

The theme song is quite catchy though, you have to admit.

[Simon]

I love the backing singers cueing the segue from scene to scene with -

"MEEEeeeennnNNNNNNN !!!"

Worst show on TV ?

[Tony T]

I do admit, mit, mit, mit, mit, mit, mit, mit, miiiiiiiittttt.

It's funny in German: Mein cooler Onkel Charlie.

[Tony T]

Luke Foley at Normblog:

The exhilarating batsmen of the Golden Age - Trumper, Clem Hill, C.B. Fry, Gilbert Jessop, Archie MacLaren and Prince Ranjitsinhji - were able to bat as they did because for them cricket was a recreation. Batting was an artistic expression. They extended the scope of the game by adding creativity and daring adventure to the orthodox foundations laid by W.G. Grace and the other cricketers of the Victorian Age.

Trumper was the pioneer of the school of Australian thought that rejects coaching in favour of natural ability and picking up the art of batsmanship from simply watching established players. Monty Noble wrote that Trumper would politely listen to all advice but then go 'his own sweet way'. Like Bradman, Trumper was self-made.

[Simon]

The kid's fatter in the German version - looks like a little strudel.

They should have got Boris Becker to play the Charlie Sheen character - because of the whores and all.

[Tony T]

Simon, you may be appalled to know that I used to like Two & A Half Men:

BEST IN SHOWS

"I hate television as much as I hate peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts."

-- Orson Welles

With that glowing endorsement echoing throughout the cosmos, here are the TV shows I enjoyed watching in 2004.

* Deadwood
Easily the best c**ksucking f**king s**tting c**ting thing on TV this year.

* Las Vegas
Started off well, but went kooky late in the season.

* Two and a Half Men
Makes me laugh out loud. What can I say? I like Charlie Sheen. I like Jon Cryer. Even the kid's not an irritating smartarse.

* CSI
The one in Vegas. With Grissom. Before Nine fucked around with it.

* Line of Fire
David Paymer: dangerous, menacing poindexter.

[Adsy]

Problem is now that the kid is older, more of a smartarse, and becoming irritating.

Charlie Sheen hasn't aged a bit mentally (perhaps regressed a bit after Denise Richards), and Jon Cryer plays the whiny bitch to a T.

I don't mind that Wipeout show either. The commentary makes it.

[Nabakov]

It's moments like this that take a man of courage to point out that the goalkeeper for top thirties frog footy club Racing Universitaire Algerios and a very handy Wisden-mentioned all rounder for Dublin University's first eleven both won the Nobel literature prize.

However I am not that man of courage so you'll have to google it yourselves.

And yes while I agreed with Nelson's take on the Henson thing, he's doing himself no favours with his current outburst. I think he's getting hooked on the media attention.

I bet he never got picked for British Bulldog, King of the Castle or Buka at school.

[Nabakov]

It's moments like this that take a man of courage to point out that the goalkeeper for top thirties frog footy club Racing Universitaire Algerios and a very handy Wisden-mentioned all rounder for Dublin University's first eleven both won the Nobel literature prize.

However I am not that man of courage so you'll have to google it yourselves.

And yes while I agreed with Nelson's take on the Henson thing, he's doing himself no favours with his current outburst. I think he's getting hooked on the media attention.

I bet he never got picked for British Bulldog, King of the Castle or Buka at school.

[nabakov]

Yes also, David Paymer makes a brilliant bad guy. A screen persona built on being a weasel that always gets what coming to him. But now in the right roles he can seriously fuck over all the screen characters that used to fuck him over. Revenge of the middle-aged nerd.

The fact he's also actually a bloody good actor helps.

[Tony T]

Paymer is excellent, and I'm seriously pissed off the Line of Fire was cancelled before it had run one season.