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get your game on

2020-04-28 · review / recommendation · John · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Sports · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook

Missing sports during the pandemic, John shares where he finds their feeling: Marbula One marble racing, Zwift and competitive Tetris, and old games with unknown results; quoting William Carlos Williams, he argues we all need things with no end save beauty, and recommends Jason Rosenthal's memoir.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Missing sports: the luxury of caring about things that don't matter, and William Carlos Williams's ball-game poem

  • ★★★ John says losing sports is one of the least important losses of this historical moment, and sports don't matter, but he misses the luxury of caring about things that don't matter. — 00:00:00 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★ John cites a great William Carlos Williams poem about a baseball game whose crowd is moved by a spirit of uselessness that delights them, and says he misses that crowd and game. — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — Living in the meantime: Marbula One marble racing, Zwift racing and classic Tetris tournaments

  • ★ John says 'in the meantime' is a real winner for describing right now: we are living in the meantime. (playful) — 00:00:29

    “we are living in the meantime”

  • ★★★ John says Jelle's Marble Runs' Marbula One season has been an absolute joy; he started with the Marblelympics as somewhat sublime and somewhat ridiculous, and is now all in. — 00:00:29

  • ★★ John says Marbula One taught him how fandom works: he picked the Green Ducks for their shared name, and two months later calls them the greatest team and hates the Limers. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • ★★ John explains Zwift, a video game connected to a bike trainer: pedalling moves your avatar, so you can climb the Alps, sprint through Central Park and draft off other riders. — 00:00:58
  • ★ John says on Zwift he gets passed on long climbs by cyclists labelled '84 years old and loving it'. (playful) — 00:01:27
  • ★★ John says Zwift is one of his favourite forms of exercise, and he loves watching Zwift racing on YouTube, where cyclists reach speeds and power he can only imagine. — 00:01:27 · YouTube
  • ★★ John says every month a classic Tetris tournament pits the world's best players of a 36-year-old video game against each other. — 00:01:27

00:01:56 — Old games with unknown results: uncertainty that is bearable because sports don't matter, and things with no end save beauty

  • ★★ John, who plays Tetris terribly, finds it extremely soothing and calls watching competitive Tetris an experience of mesmerized wonder. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ John says the uncertainty he lives with now is horrible, but the uncertainty before a live sporting event is bearable or exciting precisely because sports don't matter on that scale. — 00:02:26 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★ John recaptures that not-knowing by watching old games: yesterday, while exercising, he watched the 2012 Italian Cup Final without knowing the winner, and it was thrilling. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ Taking up the poem's line that the crowd enjoys the game to no end save beauty, John says we all need things in our lives with no end save beauty; he finds it in competitive Tetris and marble racing. — 00:02:55

00:03:24 — Ask for comments; P.S. on Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Jason Rosenthal's memoir

  • ★★ John wonders where Hank and viewers are finding mere beauty, sport-adjacent or not, and asks them to say so in comments. — 00:03:24
  • ★★ John says Amy Krouse Rosenthal beckoned so much lovely into the world and helped him and many others sing and hope that we're here because we're here. — 00:03:24 · The Beckoning of Lovely
  • ★★★ John recommends Amy's husband Jason's new memoir about their marriage, Amy's illness and his life afterwards, My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me: wonderful, highly recommended. — 00:03:53

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In a comment, John says Zwift is much cheaper than Peloton and in his opinion way more fun; Zwift didn't pay him, and he pays them every month. — creator comment
  • ★★ The description says that for Zwift racing John enjoys watching Cam Jeffers and the real-life pro cyclist Alex Dowsett. — video description
  • ★ Answering a punishment question, John says the video really ends at 3:59:26 and YouTube's counter adds a second, so no punishment is due. — creator comment · YouTube

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Marbula One · Tetris · The Crowd at the Ball Game · Uncertainty · Zwift

Also: People: Amy Krouse Rosenthal · William Carlos Williams

Works: Marble League · My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me · The Beckoning of Lovely (“beckoned so much lovely”) · We're Here Because We're Here

Organizations: Jelle's Marble Runs · YouTube

Concepts: association football · Fandom

Places: Alps · Central Park

Events: 2012 Coppa Italia Final · Classic Tetris Monthly · COVID-19 pandemic

Characters: Green Ducks · Limers

Only in the description or credits: Alex Dowsett · Cam Jeffers · Jason Rosenthal · Peloton

Also centred on Tetris: Tetris Day! · Tetris Day! · Why Are Humans Suddenly Getting Better at Tetris? · Breaking News: Complexly Signs Major Tetris Athlete

Also centred on Uncertainty: you'll never know · On February 3rd, 2020, I Wrote a Video I Didn't Make. Here It Is. · How Actually Crazy is This Mess?

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