18 Apr 2018 - Graham
previously: issue 1: join or die
Welcome to week two of this experiment in collaborative newslettering.
This week’s issue covers bike polo because so many of you ask why I do it, but first let’s take another look at last week’s issue.
Several of you asked how to contribute. The answer: send me an email with your thoughts or recommendations. Please also share this with anyone you think might be interested!
Dave and Mahroh both pondered the effects of social media on dating. Dave’s father has suggested that apps have replaced the workplace as a venue for men to meet women, and thus dramatically reduced men’s incentives to work. And Mahroh recommends this solid New Yorker piece reviewing the interwoven history of dating and work:
The monogamy of the booming postwar fifties offered “a kind of romantic full employment,” while the free love of the sixties signified not the death of dating but its deregulation on the free market. The luxury- and self-obsessed yuppies of the “greed is good” eighties demanded that the romantic market deliver partners tailored to their niche specifications, developing early versions of the kinds of matchmaking services that have been perfected in today’s digital gig economy, where the personal is professional, and everyone self-brands accordingly.
Ben, who has also decided to delete his facebook, pondered the ways that our physical (not just social media) environment tends to bombard us with others’ designs. He asks: “What does it mean to walk through LIVING spaces, where spaces are THEMSELVES living, not just dead spaces (e.g. Manhattan) with living beings (humans) put into or on top of or amongst them?” And there’s even a word for the distress caused by changes to our environment: Solastalgia. Ben also recommends reading Last Child in the Woods and watching The City Dark In contrast to my experience, Colin has found that facebook is essential for making community in isolated Alaska. Otto likes using facebook but only as an address book. And Jason uses a browser extension to block the newsfeed.
For those of you who don’t have a good sense of what bike polo is, here’s a solid explainer video. And here’s some of the best bike polo from last year’s World Championship. The polo doesn’t start until 10 minutes in, but those 10 minutes feature some solid gold announcing.
Bryce reminds us that bike polo was featured at the 1908 Summer Olympics.
Alias wonders about what kind of person bike polo has made him:
I look back and ask myself when did I accidentally become a jock? In the story I have told myself since my adolescence, the jocks represent a class whose power is a reward of their physical prowess. I had always felt intimidated and scared by jocks. Had I also been idolizing and secretly envying them from my goth-and-art-kid lunch table in the social cafeteria? If I am now the jock, am I making other people feel the way I felt?
But in contrast to his story about the confident jock, Alias has found that improvement demands vulnerability. And that it is possible to both want to win and to treat your teammates and competitors with respect.
Here’s Alias (foreground) and James (background) and me (far background in only the first frame) in safety vests at the annual Turducken tournament. James claims he bailed in order to not run into someone:
For my part, the most interesting part of bike polo is the community. When I visited Oregon I wasn’t planning to stay for the eclipse, but thankfully the Portland players convinced me to stick around and camp with them in Blue River. We didn’t play much polo, but we did use a boat slip as a beach (I didn’t realize it was a boat slip for the first two days), jump off some rocks into the river (it was very safe, but it still took me like 30 minutes to work up the courage to do it) and stay up late looking at the Milky Way (I’d never seen it so clearly).
And this past weekend, I was lucky enough to have about 10 players, from New York, Boston and Asheville, stay at my house for a fun tournament. We biked around DC to see the Cherry Blossoms and stared in awe at the Obama portraits. Erica gives Barack’s a 5/5 but thought it was a shame that Michelle’s was grey. After a full day of polo, we cooked a big family dinner and shared car-buffer massages. Sunday was miserably cold and wet so the court was slippery and I was extremely grumpy in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, but it was still a great weekend on balance.
One more meta-political thought: bike polo might be one model for the return of an older, more democratic form of civic organizations that Theda Skocpol highlights in Diminished Democracy, one of the best books I read last year. (Thanks, Pete!) Unlike those past groups, bike polo welcomes anyone willing to play and has taken a number of positive steps to encourage players who aren’t men. Personally, I’m especially thankful that the sport is co-ed, because it’s how I met my lovely lady, Erica.
I’ve been laughing and grooving to Kari Faux’s Primary. This album, along with a few others of very different tone, helped remind me that we can feel many different ways about relationships and breakups: sadness, regret, relief, anger, &c. Her take is especially harsh and self-protective:
Saw your call was urgent (I saw your call baby)
But I missed that shit on purpose
April 23ish: Should we read the news? My answer: no.
April 30ish: Why is DC so basic and how is basic-ness related to gentrification?
May 7ish: Can we become generalists again?
next post: against the news