A Funeral For Geese
9/21/2019 – Michigan 14, Wisconsin 35 – 2-1, 0-1 Big Ten
The End of the Tour, a movie about Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky glomming on to David Foster Wallace at the end of his Infinite Jest book tour, is immediately good. The first sensory experience the movie gives you is the ultra-deep cut instrumental from REM's Automatic For the People:
This is a song with no oboes in it that sounds like nothing but oboes. It is weird, lilting, and mournful, a funeral for geese. The opening scene of the movie is Lipsky getting a call from someone trying to confirm a rumor that Wallace has committed suicide, because Lipsky once spent a few days on the road with him.
Wallace has. Lipsky goes through his tapes.
[After THE JUMP: marshmallows!]
The rest of the movie is a flashback to those few days on the road. Two highbrow white guys talk to each other about stuff. Mostly about how they are precarious and alone, the guy with the critic-melting novel and the other guy with a novel who also writes for Rolling Stone. Sometimes they bluff. The introduction of a woman, any woman, is cause for a tiff. Jason Segel, the guy who's inserted by default as Affable Stoner in every Judd Apatow movie, plays DFW.
I know, okay? I know. It sat in our Netflix queue for months, looming, more a threat than a promise. But you watch it for a bit and questions surface. Questions like:
- How did this get made?
- How is it good?
- When will my wife stop watching it?
At press time answers were not available for any of these questions, and only the third has even the distant prospect of resolution. I played two seconds of "New Orleans Instrumental No. 1" to confirm it was indeed the song used and she popped her head out of the office. "Ooh," I project she thought.
But anyway because of your living situation this thing has been on a lot. And when you're a guy who writes about Michigan the aftermath-of-spirit-crushing defeat mine has been well and truly depleted. Do you want chipper ha-ha that was weird? Done. Talking people off the ledge? Done. Outright nihilism? Done. Columns about buying a mattress? Done.
So when it's time to write something about a game that Michigan spiritually lost 35-0 after being favored by a touchdown preseason the goose funeral music follows you around. It is my theory that I can get it to stop following me around by loosing it on you, the reader.
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In the aftermath of Wallace's demise there are two great unfortunate things. The first is the relegation of Infinite Jest into the category of intellectual bro-novel that sites like The Toast use as a stand-in for a particular sort of bearded quasi-intellectual who is the seething insecurity the End of the Tour protagonists are enduring minus any offsets like having a face-melting novel or writing for Rolling Stone.
I dunno, I wasn't a woman on a train in Brooklyn in 2013. I'm sure if I'd been subject to hordes of slavering women trying to butter me up with copies of Beloved I'd be pretty negative about Beloved. But this would not make Beloved any less of a banger, as the kids say. IJ's status is increasingly as a punchline in an unfunny joke about the patriarchy of hipster dudebros, and that sucks.
This is painful to me for many reasons. Foremost amongst them is that it says a bunch of things I think everyone should take to heart about entertaining themselves to death. The title is literal: the book weaves back and forth in time and ends abruptly, seemingly unfinished. It was only after I'd gone back to the beginning to try to piece together some plot points that I realized I was re-reading the thing. It was a loop, a literally infinite jest.
The second unfortunate thing is the Hallmark-ization of Wallace's commencement speech to Kenyon College. Titled "This Is Water," it became a minor sensation and became the kind of small book you give to someone at a juncture when they are getting all the small books. The way the thing is discussed is the opposite of ASMR. Your skin crawls backwards into the primordial ooze:
This is Water by David Foster Wallace (Full Transcript and Audio)
David Foster Wallace‘s 2005 commencement speech to the graduating class at Kenyon College, is a timeless trove of wisdom — right up there with Hunter Thompson on finding your purpose and living a meaningful life.
I feel like I shouldn't have to explain this? But I have to anyway? Holy hopping death, following up "a timeless trove of wisdom" with a link to "Hunter Thompson," no S, on finding your purpose: both of these people murdered themselves and now I know why. It's you, FS dot blog. You did it. Give Thompson his S back.
Despite this, the Kenyon college speech is also good. Its key passage is Wallace envisioning a dreary trip to a mausoleum of a supermarket as part of another routinely long day. There are traffic and lines. This doesn't resonate with my personal experience of shopping, in which I take DRC to Busch's and people there recognize us and he attempts to push the cart at supersonic velocities while cleaning the place out of marshmallows. There one specific domain, however, in which the mental state he describes does apply:
… the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don’t make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it’s going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.
I can't tell you I'm any good at shaping my attention in this regard. Offseason projects to walk more and drink less have been drilled between the eyes just three games in. But if there is a way out it's probably through that door.
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[Patrick Barron]
The nice thing about a game like Saturday's is that you blaze through the Kubler-Ross stages in a half and are left at acceptance. (Maybe you're still in depression.) This is probably it for the foreseeable future. It's not what we hoped for when Michigan hired Jim Harbaugh and his astonishing track record.
Instead: this. Michigan's SP+ rankings under Harbaugh: 10, 6, 13, 10. Michigan's currently 26 and sinking like a brick. Prior to this year that's remarkably consistent in the face of some difficulties like not having any quarterbacks. It's not what it needs to be for Michigan to be a consistent challenger to Ohio State. It's good enough to make the idea of trying to hire someone else absurd. OSU just hired a short-term coordinator with no head coaching experience; all coach hires except Urban Meyer are crapshoots.
So this is it: pretty good, sabotaged by an instability inherent in the head coach. It is not Infinite Jest's Entertainment, so appealing as to be lethal. Maybe at some point we'll turn a game on and it'll be a nice time. If it's not, oh well. It's time to adapt to the temperature of the water.
BRIC-A-BRAC
is cancelled this week; UFR will address the actual game parts. To be perfectly frank I wasn't paying the usual level of attention.
September 23rd, 2019 at 1:19 PM ^
Not talking about it won't make it go away.
September 23rd, 2019 at 1:32 PM ^
And talking about it won't fix it.
September 23rd, 2019 at 2:19 PM ^
Yes it does, because it puts pressure on the people in power to fix it...
September 23rd, 2019 at 2:39 PM ^
You don't get it do you?
There's nothing to fix but ourselves. Otherwise, you're going to continue to be miserable.
September 23rd, 2019 at 5:59 PM ^
After the game and most of weekend I was one of those "fire Jim, burn it all down, start over" guys..and personally (and I hope the majority of the old guard on here) I dont blame 90% of the people on this board who felt the same.
But yes, we all need to re-calibrate our "success meter" down 3-4 notches and that is the new normal.
Accept it, be fine with it, be happier ...
September 23rd, 2019 at 7:17 PM ^
This is the take of a limp wrist pussy, which unfortunately is what the majority of the people on this blog, including Brian and Ace, have become. If you’re fine with just merely existing, and getting your penis kicked in 2-3 times per season, then why not just scrap the whole program and save everyone the heartache, because whats the point? This coach is getting paid far too much money to just muddle along and get embarrassed twice per season. He was brought here to win championships. If he isn't going to do that, then to hell with him, and the people who enable him. Get me somebody who can.
September 23rd, 2019 at 8:47 PM ^
This. So much this.
Until now, Harbaugh had the fans in his corner. That all changed on Saturday. The players are next. When they throw in the towel, it’s over. I wonder how close to that we already are?
September 23rd, 2019 at 9:28 PM ^
If you feel that every loss is like being kicked in the genitals than you are the limp wrist pussy.
Your inadequacy in life is not the problem of about 200 people from well compensated coaches, to scholarship players, to volunteer team managers who all work unimaginable hours to entertain.
If existence in a world where a group of students who attend the university of michigan lose 2 or 3 games each year is not worth existing in, id suggest that you get laid, watch the entertainment, jump off of a fucking bridge, i dont care. Just do something in your life to either gain some perspective or to rid humanity of your narcissistic shit.
September 23rd, 2019 at 11:06 PM ^
Narcissistic shit. Are you talking about Michigan fans or everyone on social media?
September 25th, 2019 at 9:39 AM ^
"limp wrist pussy?" seriously, with the gay jokes? fuck off.
please tell me where your seats are, so i can sit as far away as humanly possible, turd.
September 23rd, 2019 at 2:46 PM ^
....
Unless you're a donor on the levels of the Rogels or Stephen Ross your opinion means less than nothing.
I'd advise you make a couple hundred million dollars. Until then you're just some guy shouting into the wind, like the rest of us.
September 23rd, 2019 at 3:16 PM ^
I talk to the Wind
my words are all carried away
I talk to the Wind
The Wind does not hear
The Wind can not hear...
September 23rd, 2019 at 4:25 PM ^
Pressure on people in power to fix it. How long have you followed Michigan football? The things that get you fired around here are not recruiting student athletes and turning a blind eye to your players getting cash and making an ass out of yourself by drinking too much and getting the tape on tv and embarrassing the U. Harbaugh is going nowhere, and you’d better hope he either knows how to fix it or figures it out. Those are the only two good options we have.
September 23rd, 2019 at 1:32 PM ^
In this case, it kind of will though.
September 23rd, 2019 at 1:45 PM ^
yes, let's talk about it some more. let's solve it right now, but because of the urgency, we need to boil it down. fire harbaugh. or don't. because reasons.
most importantly, we need to tell the team what we, in our wisdom out here in the intertubes, think they should do to fix it. and god help them if they don't listen.
talk. talk some more. then talk again.
September 23rd, 2019 at 2:53 PM ^
I don’t come to mgoblog to read pseudo intellectual posts, I came to read insightful analysis on the game. If this is the tripe we get to read, what’s the point of the blog again???
September 23rd, 2019 at 3:06 PM ^
It's a free blog. Just go to another blog or write one yourself. Brian and Co. don't owe you shit.
September 23rd, 2019 at 3:29 PM ^
I can see you're new here. And may not belong here anyway. If the likes of you would start your own complainer blog that would be great. I'm romantic enough to yearn for the old days.
September 23rd, 2019 at 5:32 PM ^
he’s had to write this exact piece like 9 times. Just read one of the links. Michigan fans are stuck on a hamster wheel and there’s nothing that can be done. The silver bullet was fired and the werewolf laughed at it.
September 23rd, 2019 at 7:25 PM ^
The point of this blog is to reveal ungrateful twats who haven't been paying attention for the past 10 years.
Another success story for MGoBlog!
September 23rd, 2019 at 11:23 PM ^
How could you possibly have joined in 2009 and not recognize this post as classically Brian?
September 23rd, 2019 at 2:03 PM ^
At long last, however, what will talking about it actually achieve?
September 23rd, 2019 at 2:56 PM ^
It’s like therapy, what point is it to write 1000’s of words posts about shitty movies or books. Just don’t make a post period. I stopped reading after one paragraph, skimmed to see where actual football was being discussed and it was nowhere to be seen. What’s the point?
September 23rd, 2019 at 5:10 PM ^
That's the way it's always been around here. My only issue is maybe we, the superfans, take this stuff way too seriously. We're not playing, we're not coaching, we're watching, so therefore we have absolutely no control over anything that happens on the field. Then, when shit goes south, we take it personally. I have decided this is unhealthy, at least for me. Why do I want to do this to myself? I don't. Brian making connections to DFW and HST is interesting, but those authors wrote about Life, and football isn't Life. It's Saturday's entertainment. It's a release from everyday Life. By Monday, we should be over it.
September 24th, 2019 at 8:16 AM ^
"Then, when shit goes south, we take it personally."
Not taking it personally was the key turning point in my fandom. I love my school and care about its teams, but I don't say "we" anymore because I am not on the team. It's not about me.
Having kids and seeing them compete taught me to watch the games at some distance and be happy and sad for them all on their own. It's not about me. It's about them. And I care, deeply, about them, and I want them to succeed, and to fail, because both teach them something.
M sports, I don't have the same stake in the personal lives of the athletes, but I do wish them well and want to see them succeed. It's not a pronouncement on them as human beings if they don't win every game, and it certainly says nothing about me if they get crushed by Wisconsin. Thinking otherwise is vesting far too much of my own self worth in something over which I have no involvement and only tenuous connection to. I'm not so fragile as to think that it has anything to do with me.
September 24th, 2019 at 11:55 AM ^
I still have a really hard time watching my kids play sports, my son more than my daughter. I don't take it personally, but I feel the pain that I think they're feeling when things don't go well. The fallacy is, my son has matured to a point that he feels it differently than he used to, and I haven't caught up. I still imagine him as an 11 year old, but he's 19.
September 23rd, 2019 at 5:52 PM ^
What’s the point of your existence?
September 23rd, 2019 at 6:12 PM ^
Not football.
September 23rd, 2019 at 6:30 PM ^
Wendy is right. Sports are only important to the extent that they contribute to more important things like family, friends, and community.
September 23rd, 2019 at 2:27 PM ^
I mean, sure. Someone has to address it. I don't know if you've looked around these parts recently though. People have gone and lost their minds. It doesn't matter what Brian would say here. The facts remain.
AND
If we've given ourselves license to blow a head gasket, I'm of the opinion that the writers of this here site can take a pass at explaining that loss right now.
UFR will be informative? Probably?
I begrudge no one their post-loss means of self-care. Especially this week.
Back at it Saturday.
September 23rd, 2019 at 2:35 PM ^
Listen to the podcast. Making a habit of that helps me get a bit of weekly closure on these kinds of train wrecks.
September 23rd, 2019 at 2:46 PM ^
He was talking about it...
September 23rd, 2019 at 1:19 PM ^
After we got the ball to start the second half and did nothing, I proceeded to pull my Switch out of it's dock and start playing Link's Awakening while vaguely paying attention to the football game.
It made my Saturday much more enjoyable.
September 23rd, 2019 at 1:23 PM ^
I've never done this before, even when we played a cupcake and we were up 78-0, or when PSU killed us, but I turned the game off in the 3rd quarter Saturday and didn't return to it.
September 23rd, 2019 at 1:36 PM ^
I lasted a bit longer than you, but I also bailed for the first time ever. And I've been watching Michigan football since 1970.
September 23rd, 2019 at 8:59 PM ^
This is exactly the type of response that should make Warde Manuel sleep-walk every night. They’ve lost the truest of fans.
September 23rd, 2019 at 1:39 PM ^
You are a better person than I. I too have never turned them off (even/especially during an OSU debacle), but I bailed when it was 14-0 and Wisconsin was driving to make it 21-0.
September 23rd, 2019 at 1:51 PM ^
My 'fuck this' moment was on Wisconsin's first third quarter drive... when a fullback got to the edge for a first down. That was nap time. First time I can remember turning a Michigan game off... that includes all of Rich Rod and Hoke era
September 23rd, 2019 at 1:51 PM ^
missed the michigan game. i was coaching the avatar twins (they're a lot bigger now) in one of the more enjoyable football games i have ever coached. one threw a 95 yd TD pass. the other had 2 long TD runs on an inside zone and a counter, respectively. then we went swimming in a nearby lake as it was hot on saturday. as much as i love michigan football, this might be a good year to step away and let it sort itself out, while doing other things with the time.
September 23rd, 2019 at 2:49 PM ^
Yeah after your report about Shea a little while ago, the doubts started to creep in my head about this year. Something or someone is seriously disconnected on offense. Maybe I’ll spend Saturdays with the family like you Xtra, save myself the heartache. And congrats to the avatar twins on a good game!
September 23rd, 2019 at 5:23 PM ^
thanks rob. it was a really memorable game and day and i'd highly encourage you to take little rob on similar excursions.
September 23rd, 2019 at 11:30 PM ^
What report about Shea?
September 23rd, 2019 at 3:01 PM ^
I was flying back from Europe on Saturday, got messaging via WIFI about 15 min after the game started and began texting to my friends to find out if I should pay an extra $30 for the streaming wifi. They basically said "you should have stayed in Greece." So I didn't. I got updates from them and then a bunch of existential discussion. I stopped watching the OSU game last year around halftime. I didn't even watch the bowl game b/c they don't really matter and I felt a weird lack of energy around our team. I felt that way the entire offseason and even as this season started, I knew the overrating was gonna doom us. I have a 2.5 year old and I'll spend Saturdays doing other things with him and not watching, b/c it's just not worth it anymore.
September 23rd, 2019 at 3:09 PM ^
Agreed XtraM
September 23rd, 2019 at 3:35 PM ^
I shut it down before halftime and on a whim took my daughter, who had never seen a football game, to see FSU-Louisville. After watching for about ten minutes she characterized the whole thing as 'a series of unfortunate events.' I had to laugh. She enjoyed the band and the salute to the national champion FSU women's soccer team. It was a cool day and the wind ruffled our hair and a huge guy adopted us at the end when FSU needed everyone to cheer them to hold on for victory and we really got into it. My daughter left with a big smile on her face. She's not interested in ever doing it again.
September 23rd, 2019 at 3:39 PM ^
A 95 yard TD pass, you say? Is he interested in playing QB at Michigan immediately? We could use a QB who can do that.
September 23rd, 2019 at 5:20 PM ^
to put that in context, the pass itself was only about 15 yds, but it was a well executed play action, calling what looks like the same play twice with no huddle - double TE, full-house backfield, first time its a QB sneak, ala bush push but to get us out of the shadow of our own goal posts. second like the first, except the TE's slip out and the QB fakes forward, steps back, and it was off to the races for the TE as safeties get sucked up trying to stop the run.
he. could. go. all. the. way.
September 23rd, 2019 at 11:27 PM ^
I'm glad to hear that the twins did great at their game. I bet you're a great coach.
I was at my son's football game...so I also missed the game. I am blessed to be able to film the game for the coaches (and me ?) to review.
September 24th, 2019 at 1:52 PM ^
probably not a 'great coach', but i do have some pretty coachable kids on the team. i am able to call 3 or 4 plays at a time and run a true 'hurry up' offense - they aren't standing around waiting for me to signal after each play, they are running to the line to run the next play i called when they left the huddle for the one and only time. that puts a lot of teams on their defensive heels quickly. we have had a couple of games already where we have scored 2 or 3 times in the span of 2-3 game minutes, and had another score called back for some alleged penalty, only to score a play or two later anyway.
as to shea, the scuttlebutt is that he is/was not taking school seriously and wasn't showing up for some football events on time and thus making the offense suffer for it. d-caff is well liked by the offense.
September 24th, 2019 at 11:01 PM ^
Thanks for responding. If that's true about Shea... that's disappointing.
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