On Pi, Richard Parker, and Don Quixote

I am reading “The Life of Pi” (Martell) again, and I am again troubled by the dueling stories offered by Pi to the Japanese insurance investigators. Most anyone who has read the novel gets a pie (Pi?) in the face toward the end of the novel when Pi offers up an alternative story/explanation to his time at sea, adrift, in a life boat. His alternative story involving his mother and a couple errant crewmen is a shocking reversal to his story about the tiger Richard Parker and their solitary days adrift at sea. The insurance investigators are mesmerized by Pi’s story of survival, danger, and fear, but they are also incredulous, and could not believe Pi’s wild story of shipwreck and survival in a lifeboat with a full-grown Bengal tiger. After they question his story–no tiger to be seen anywhere–Pi tells an alternative version that does not involve a tiger, but his alternate version is violent, tragic, grisly, sad, and mundane, lacking the verve and imagination of the same story involving Richard Parker, the tiger. The insurance investigators, who by their very nature must be cynics, are only looking for the facts, and an imaginative and unbelievable story involving a non-existent (at least from their point of view) tiger will not help them settle a multimillion dollar claim on the lost ship. They are pragmatists. They want an explanation they can sell to others. The problem is that Pi tells two stories, one, about how he tames a tiger and rides out a long shipwreck narrative at sea, the other story, the short version, is about how Pi might have witnessed the murder of his mother while he himself might have murdered others in order to survive. During my first reading experience with Pi and Richard Parker, I opted to believe the strange story that Pi narrates about his life in India, the crossing on the ship, the shipwreck, the lifeboat, and Richard Parker. The story is elaborate and unusual, but it chronicles a fight for survival, the ability to adapt to changing circumstance, courage and the unwillingness to just give up in the face of horrible odds. Pi works to train the tiger, fight off boredom and fear, fishes, collects fresh water, does everything in his power to survive. He makes a heroes journey from the depths of despair to the top of Olympus when he and Richard Parker finally come ashore in Mexico. This is a story about the strength of the human heart, about human ingenuity, about loving life, about surviving in the face of enormous odds. Pi’s story about his interactions with a Bengal tiger seems highly improbable given the killer nature of a hungry predator. In fact, Pi’s story is so improbable that it seems impossible, but there is a huge distance between improbable and impossible. Perhaps believing in one story or the other is a question of what Cervantes called “verisimilitude” in a narration. The Spaniard felt that although readers had to suspend their disbelief while reading a novel, a writer must also give his readers a place to “hang their hats,” so to speak–that the story had to have its feet on the ground at some point to be believable. If you are writing about a crazy guy who thinks he’s a knight, plays with horses and swords, you must first make him a regular guy who people might meet in the street on any given day, so before you invent Don Quixote, you must first invent Alonso Quijano, the Good. I believe Jan Martell is playing on the ground between fantasy and verisimilitude, walking a thin line between what is possible and improbable and impossible and fantastic. Martell rocks the narrative boat by offering a very real alternative that lacks any sort of improbable elements–no tiger, no fantasy, handing readers a problem: which narrative do they choose to believe.

On Pi, Richard Parker, and Don Quixote

I am reading “The Life of Pi” (Martell) again, and I am again troubled by the dueling stories offered by Pi to the Japanese insurance investigators. Most anyone who has read the novel gets a pie (Pi?) in the face toward the end of the novel when Pi offers up an alternative story/explanation to his time at sea, adrift, in a life boat. His alternative story involving his mother and a couple errant crewmen is a shocking reversal to his story about the tiger Richard Parker and their solitary days adrift at sea. The insurance investigators are mesmerized by Pi’s story of survival, danger, and fear, but they are also incredulous, and could not believe Pi’s wild story of shipwreck and survival in a lifeboat with a full-grown Bengal tiger. After they question his story–no tiger to be seen anywhere–Pi tells an alternative version that does not involve a tiger, but his alternate version is violent, tragic, grisly, sad, and mundane, lacking the verve and imagination of the same story involving Richard Parker, the tiger. The insurance investigators, who by their very nature must be cynics, are only looking for the facts, and an imaginative and unbelievable story involving a non-existent (at least from their point of view) tiger will not help them settle a multimillion dollar claim on the lost ship. They are pragmatists. They want an explanation they can sell to others. The problem is that Pi tells two stories, one, about how he tames a tiger and rides out a long shipwreck narrative at sea, the other story, the short version, is about how Pi might have witnessed the murder of his mother while he himself might have murdered others in order to survive. During my first reading experience with Pi and Richard Parker, I opted to believe the strange story that Pi narrates about his life in India, the crossing on the ship, the shipwreck, the lifeboat, and Richard Parker. The story is elaborate and unusual, but it chronicles a fight for survival, the ability to adapt to changing circumstance, courage and the unwillingness to just give up in the face of horrible odds. Pi works to train the tiger, fight off boredom and fear, fishes, collects fresh water, does everything in his power to survive. He makes a heroes journey from the depths of despair to the top of Olympus when he and Richard Parker finally come ashore in Mexico. This is a story about the strength of the human heart, about human ingenuity, about loving life, about surviving in the face of enormous odds. Pi’s story about his interactions with a Bengal tiger seems highly improbable given the killer nature of a hungry predator. In fact, Pi’s story is so improbable that it seems impossible, but there is a huge distance between improbable and impossible. Perhaps believing in one story or the other is a question of what Cervantes called “verisimilitude” in a narration. The Spaniard felt that although readers had to suspend their disbelief while reading a novel, a writer must also give his readers a place to “hang their hats,” so to speak–that the story had to have its feet on the ground at some point to be believable. If you are writing about a crazy guy who thinks he’s a knight, plays with horses and swords, you must first make him a regular guy who people might meet in the street on any given day, so before you invent Don Quixote, you must first invent Alonso Quijano, the Good. I believe Jan Martell is playing on the ground between fantasy and verisimilitude, walking a thin line between what is possible and improbable and impossible and fantastic. Martell rocks the narrative boat by offering a very real alternative that lacks any sort of improbable elements–no tiger, no fantasy, handing readers a problem: which narrative do they choose to believe.

On Henry James’ "The Beast in the Jungle"

I first read this longish short story over thirty years ago, and I was just as floored then by the ending as I was last night when I read it again for perhaps the twentieth time. The complexity of the author’s discourse, a labyrinth of syntactic juggling and back-tracking, embedded clauses, and hyperbolic double-talk, is daunting because he manages to talk about love and falling into it for the entire story without ever saying anything directly. The story revolves around the dynamics of a couple, May Bertram and John Marcher, who definitely are a couple, but they never marry, have children, or formalize in any serious way their informal relationship. Everyone who knows them understands that they are a couple. May considers them to be a couple, but Marcher just can’t seem to formalize the relationship even though he participates fully in the relationship as if they were married, but they aren’t married, and are not having sex, which their particular society would frown upon. On the other hand, Marcher is obsessed with some imaginary “great thing” to which he will be exposed and which will change his life significantly. He has shared this delusion/idea/tragedy with May, and she agrees to “watch” with him for the horrendous event. He dismisses the question of love almost outright, but he enlists the help of May to help him watch for this “great thing” he is to experience. They discuss the nature of this “great thing” but one gets the sensation that Marcher is only ever more clueless about what this great thing might be, and one also understands, as does Marcher at some point, that May Bertram knows exactly what the “great thing” will be. She knows, he doesn’t, awkward moment. Over the decades through which the relationship endures they grow to love each other to the exclusion of all others, but they each maintain a dwelling, so they are never in an economic situation which might force them into living together–getting married, that is. Marcher is an independent fool who cannot get past his own ego, cannot understand that he is a man like all others, cannot understand that he is much more common than he pretends to be. He believes himself to be “above average” or “special” but the entire story only proves that he is of the most common type of man who lives under the delusion that he is in some significant way special. May, on the other hand, is paralyzed by the fear that if she expresses her love for Marcher that he will disappear and never come back. For her, his companionship is enough, going to the opera, the theater, out to dinner, eating dinner at her home. Their intimacy is mental and occurs through their conversations about Marcher’s “great thing.” Since their intimacy is not centered on sex, their verbal intimacy, based solely on their conversations, their shared meals, their public companionship, serves to bring them together in a way that is much more emotionally based than physical. Since they go together so well, their natural interactions are taken for granted by Marcher and treasured by May. Only when she gets sick and things happen, does Marcher realize what their relationship has been about all along, and he has been an all-too-willing participant. Whether the story is a bitter ironic comedy or a stone-cold tragedy is for each reader to decide. In the end, the reader is the only witness to Marcher’s comic/tragic suffering. Ultimately, one must decide to live in each day, never take anyone or anything for granted, and take great joy in relationships no matter what form they might take.

On Henry James’ "The Beast in the Jungle"

I first read this longish short story over thirty years ago, and I was just as floored then by the ending as I was last night when I read it again for perhaps the twentieth time. The complexity of the author’s discourse, a labyrinth of syntactic juggling and back-tracking, embedded clauses, and hyperbolic double-talk, is daunting because he manages to talk about love and falling into it for the entire story without ever saying anything directly. The story revolves around the dynamics of a couple, May Bertram and John Marcher, who definitely are a couple, but they never marry, have children, or formalize in any serious way their informal relationship. Everyone who knows them understands that they are a couple. May considers them to be a couple, but Marcher just can’t seem to formalize the relationship even though he participates fully in the relationship as if they were married, but they aren’t married, and are not having sex, which their particular society would frown upon. On the other hand, Marcher is obsessed with some imaginary “great thing” to which he will be exposed and which will change his life significantly. He has shared this delusion/idea/tragedy with May, and she agrees to “watch” with him for the horrendous event. He dismisses the question of love almost outright, but he enlists the help of May to help him watch for this “great thing” he is to experience. They discuss the nature of this “great thing” but one gets the sensation that Marcher is only ever more clueless about what this great thing might be, and one also understands, as does Marcher at some point, that May Bertram knows exactly what the “great thing” will be. She knows, he doesn’t, awkward moment. Over the decades through which the relationship endures they grow to love each other to the exclusion of all others, but they each maintain a dwelling, so they are never in an economic situation which might force them into living together–getting married, that is. Marcher is an independent fool who cannot get past his own ego, cannot understand that he is a man like all others, cannot understand that he is much more common than he pretends to be. He believes himself to be “above average” or “special” but the entire story only proves that he is of the most common type of man who lives under the delusion that he is in some significant way special. May, on the other hand, is paralyzed by the fear that if she expresses her love for Marcher that he will disappear and never come back. For her, his companionship is enough, going to the opera, the theater, out to dinner, eating dinner at her home. Their intimacy is mental and occurs through their conversations about Marcher’s “great thing.” Since their intimacy is not centered on sex, their verbal intimacy, based solely on their conversations, their shared meals, their public companionship, serves to bring them together in a way that is much more emotionally based than physical. Since they go together so well, their natural interactions are taken for granted by Marcher and treasured by May. Only when she gets sick and things happen, does Marcher realize what their relationship has been about all along, and he has been an all-too-willing participant. Whether the story is a bitter ironic comedy or a stone-cold tragedy is for each reader to decide. In the end, the reader is the only witness to Marcher’s comic/tragic suffering. Ultimately, one must decide to live in each day, never take anyone or anything for granted, and take great joy in relationships no matter what form they might take.

On reading for pleasure

I bought a book the other day, and it is no great work of art, but it will be fun to read–action, mystery, good tough guys, hot sexy women, suspense, chases, gun fights, love scenes, evil rotten bad guys, breathless landscapes, strange religious manias, mistaken identities, stunning denouement, victory lap for the hero and his girl. There are times when you just cannot read another serious book for your research, another book on literary theory, another article of literary criticism before you start to question your own sanity. Reading for pleasure, for many of us academic ivory tower sorts, is a lost art, or at least we have forgotten that reading can be fun, a vicarious thrill, an intriguing mystery, a heart-breaking romance, an existential journey on blue roads, a search for meaning in a nihilistic culture of rampaging consumerism, a coming-of-age epiphany. Reading is fun, but when it is also your job you might lose track of the fun. If reading ceases to be fun, then it can only be work, and too much work makes Jack a dull boy. When I started out reading as a small child, all of reading was fun. I read about adventures, dinosaurs, soldiers and battles, inventors, magicians, wizards, flying. The world of fun reading is almost boundless. Later I discovered Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, Daniel Dafoe and Bram Stoker, Stephen King and Peter Straub, and reading was still fun. Somewhere along the way, however, I went to college and starting reading things that were more informational and less fun and reading became a burden. Don’t get me wrong, I still loved reading, but when reading is a chore, you start to hate doing it, and even the books you loved in the past become a part of that burden and those chores. Nevertheless, even during college I learned to love Hemingway and Faulkner, Shakespeare and Wilde, Eco and Borges. They made me read Cervantes, and I found out he was a genius. Then I read García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, Rulfo, Castellanos, Allende, and Carpentier, and I was hooked on reading forever. Reading for pleasure is an escape for the imagination, a letting the monsters go, a moment to forget about the pressures of the day and let the mind wander into other places and times, to walk in the footsteps of heroes looking for the Grail, of detectives trying to return social stability to an unstable world, of explorers headed to the center of the earth, of a scientist traveling into time. So I have no problem with buying a nice, fat potboiler for reading on the plane, or before going to bed, or for a lazy Sunday afternoon. No, I can’t pull a don Quijote and lose myself in endless narratives of fantasy and adventure, but from time to time, it cannot really hurt. A giant here and there, an evil villain, a frantic chase across an urban landscape, climbing mountain, riding a griffin, skulking through an underground passage, a dead body or two, a tragic love affair (although all love affairs are tragic), impending doom. You know you love it too, a guilty pleasure that lurks within your library that you pull out and read from time to time. You feel nostalgic, you know every word, you remember entire descriptions, but it is a pleasure, and you will return time and time again, and you love it.

On reading for pleasure

I bought a book the other day, and it is no great work of art, but it will be fun to read–action, mystery, good tough guys, hot sexy women, suspense, chases, gun fights, love scenes, evil rotten bad guys, breathless landscapes, strange religious manias, mistaken identities, stunning denouement, victory lap for the hero and his girl. There are times when you just cannot read another serious book for your research, another book on literary theory, another article of literary criticism before you start to question your own sanity. Reading for pleasure, for many of us academic ivory tower sorts, is a lost art, or at least we have forgotten that reading can be fun, a vicarious thrill, an intriguing mystery, a heart-breaking romance, an existential journey on blue roads, a search for meaning in a nihilistic culture of rampaging consumerism, a coming-of-age epiphany. Reading is fun, but when it is also your job you might lose track of the fun. If reading ceases to be fun, then it can only be work, and too much work makes Jack a dull boy. When I started out reading as a small child, all of reading was fun. I read about adventures, dinosaurs, soldiers and battles, inventors, magicians, wizards, flying. The world of fun reading is almost boundless. Later I discovered Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, Daniel Dafoe and Bram Stoker, Stephen King and Peter Straub, and reading was still fun. Somewhere along the way, however, I went to college and starting reading things that were more informational and less fun and reading became a burden. Don’t get me wrong, I still loved reading, but when reading is a chore, you start to hate doing it, and even the books you loved in the past become a part of that burden and those chores. Nevertheless, even during college I learned to love Hemingway and Faulkner, Shakespeare and Wilde, Eco and Borges. They made me read Cervantes, and I found out he was a genius. Then I read García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, Rulfo, Castellanos, Allende, and Carpentier, and I was hooked on reading forever. Reading for pleasure is an escape for the imagination, a letting the monsters go, a moment to forget about the pressures of the day and let the mind wander into other places and times, to walk in the footsteps of heroes looking for the Grail, of detectives trying to return social stability to an unstable world, of explorers headed to the center of the earth, of a scientist traveling into time. So I have no problem with buying a nice, fat potboiler for reading on the plane, or before going to bed, or for a lazy Sunday afternoon. No, I can’t pull a don Quijote and lose myself in endless narratives of fantasy and adventure, but from time to time, it cannot really hurt. A giant here and there, an evil villain, a frantic chase across an urban landscape, climbing mountain, riding a griffin, skulking through an underground passage, a dead body or two, a tragic love affair (although all love affairs are tragic), impending doom. You know you love it too, a guilty pleasure that lurks within your library that you pull out and read from time to time. You feel nostalgic, you know every word, you remember entire descriptions, but it is a pleasure, and you will return time and time again, and you love it.

On buffets

Is the ubiquitous all-you-can-eat buffet a symbol for the demise of modern civilization? Buffets are as popular as ever in our society, and they show no sign of slowing down, disappearing, or changing. You have been there: you pay one price for your plate and drink, and you can eat until you either pass out from a diabetic coma, your stomach ruptures, or you throw up. Chinese buffets are the most fun, but I find all buffets to be both sinister and creepy as we serve ourselves out of aluminum bins. Buffets seem like a good idea, but they seldom, if ever, are. For most people the idea of the buffet, unlimited food for just one price, seems like a real good deal, but the buffet is just a sign of the times: in a land of plenty where many poor people go hungry, those who have ten dollars in their pocket can pig out to their heart’s content, eating until their stomachs protrude and good taste and manners have left by a rear door. Obesity is a serious problem in our country, and buffets do nothing but feed the problem. Having experienced several buffets I must say that the buffet actually works against a person’s self-interest. The actual amount of food that any person should eat in any given sitting should not really exceed the volume of one closed fist or one cup, eight ounces. Overeating then becomes a national pastime, and the results are ugly and unhealthy. Success has made us fat and sassy, and we all overeat all the time. Our waistlines show it. Now when I go to a buffet, I pick my favorite food and get one portion. I will later add a few fruits and vegetables to accompany whatever protein I might be eating that day. I eat that food and stop. There is nothing cost-effective about me going to a buffet because I don’t take seconds, don’t stuff myself, don’t exercise my gluttony ghost. I’m no saint, but lately I come to realize that a balanced diet combined with portion control is a blueprint for a healthier lifestyle even if I don’t get to eat a lot of sweets and desserts. Just because we have the food does not mean we should eat it. Stuffing ourselves to the point of blindness is, in the long term, unhealthy and detrimental. The buffet is symbolic of the paradox that industrial and agricultural success has brought to our nation and cultural. We have more than we can ever, or should ever, eat. As our waistlines expand, instead of thinking about why that is happening, we just buy bigger clothing, baggy shirts and stretchy waistbands. We lack self-control in the face of delicious luxurious food, and we are willing to sacrifice our collective health. Temptation lies at the heart of the buffet, and buffet owners know that the only thing we cannot collectively resist is temptation itself, ergo, buffets proliferate and are successful, and type-two diabetes becomes a bigger and bigger problem. There is nothing ethically wrong with the buffet, but it does bring out the worst in people who consume too much food, too much sugar, too much starch, too much fat. Buffets are everything in excess, and too much of a good thing, as they say, is a very bad thing even if we are trying to get the most for our dollar. Here the dollar is just as traitorous as Judas or Brutus.

On buffets

Is the ubiquitous all-you-can-eat buffet a symbol for the demise of modern civilization? Buffets are as popular as ever in our society, and they show no sign of slowing down, disappearing, or changing. You have been there: you pay one price for your plate and drink, and you can eat until you either pass out from a diabetic coma, your stomach ruptures, or you throw up. Chinese buffets are the most fun, but I find all buffets to be both sinister and creepy as we serve ourselves out of aluminum bins. Buffets seem like a good idea, but they seldom, if ever, are. For most people the idea of the buffet, unlimited food for just one price, seems like a real good deal, but the buffet is just a sign of the times: in a land of plenty where many poor people go hungry, those who have ten dollars in their pocket can pig out to their heart’s content, eating until their stomachs protrude and good taste and manners have left by a rear door. Obesity is a serious problem in our country, and buffets do nothing but feed the problem. Having experienced several buffets I must say that the buffet actually works against a person’s self-interest. The actual amount of food that any person should eat in any given sitting should not really exceed the volume of one closed fist or one cup, eight ounces. Overeating then becomes a national pastime, and the results are ugly and unhealthy. Success has made us fat and sassy, and we all overeat all the time. Our waistlines show it. Now when I go to a buffet, I pick my favorite food and get one portion. I will later add a few fruits and vegetables to accompany whatever protein I might be eating that day. I eat that food and stop. There is nothing cost-effective about me going to a buffet because I don’t take seconds, don’t stuff myself, don’t exercise my gluttony ghost. I’m no saint, but lately I come to realize that a balanced diet combined with portion control is a blueprint for a healthier lifestyle even if I don’t get to eat a lot of sweets and desserts. Just because we have the food does not mean we should eat it. Stuffing ourselves to the point of blindness is, in the long term, unhealthy and detrimental. The buffet is symbolic of the paradox that industrial and agricultural success has brought to our nation and cultural. We have more than we can ever, or should ever, eat. As our waistlines expand, instead of thinking about why that is happening, we just buy bigger clothing, baggy shirts and stretchy waistbands. We lack self-control in the face of delicious luxurious food, and we are willing to sacrifice our collective health. Temptation lies at the heart of the buffet, and buffet owners know that the only thing we cannot collectively resist is temptation itself, ergo, buffets proliferate and are successful, and type-two diabetes becomes a bigger and bigger problem. There is nothing ethically wrong with the buffet, but it does bring out the worst in people who consume too much food, too much sugar, too much starch, too much fat. Buffets are everything in excess, and too much of a good thing, as they say, is a very bad thing even if we are trying to get the most for our dollar. Here the dollar is just as traitorous as Judas or Brutus.

On the Yankees

The Yankees were eliminated in four straight games by the Detroit Tigers. Four and out and into the off-season, pitchers and catchers will report to Spring training in February. I am both fascinated and repulsed by the Yankees as a team and as a sports phenomenon. If you had all the money in the world so you could buy all the best players, who would you get, and how could you possibly lose? Well, this year the Yankees didn’t lose very often, and they won the Eastern division. Baltimore pressed hard during the final weeks, but the Yankees can always find a way to win–the best hitters, the best pitchers, the best fielders in the league. I suppose that all leagues need their bullies, their high class hitters in their tailored uniforms and luxury club house. The Yankees create conflict, drama, suspense, romance, comedy, pathos in a continuous narrative of wins and losses, mostly wins, highly charged in a mediatic circus that runs 24/7 during the baseball season. Even when the Yankees lose and get eliminated, the media will make a bigger deal out of that than the fact that Tigers are going back to the World Series. In other words, even when they lose, they are a bigger story than the team that beats them. No matter how they play, they always get coverage from the national media, and they are the object of speculation and analysis, interviews and opinions, and the highlights always feature both their triumphs and their failures, making no distinction between either. When one of their players is injured, dates a movie star, hits for the cycle, or makes an ad for underarm deodorant, it’s national news. One gets a little tired of always hearing about the Yankees, who is playing well, who is going to disappear, who they are going to buy next. Today the Yankees were eliminated by the Tigers, but no one was interviewing the Tigers, they were listening to the Yankees manager talk about the loss. The Yankees are a good team, they should win, so it’s surprising when they collapse. I guess that’s why they play the games because you never know how they might turn out on any given day. The Yankees are supposed to be the heroes of the narrative, the knights that always slay the dragon, that always overcome the opposition. They always occupy the head of the table, get fed first, always get the girl, always ride off into the sunset at the end of the season. All of the rest of the players in the league are just a bunch of also-rans that carry the Yankees bags and act as patsies and victims for the heroic men in pinstripes. The problem with these expectations and hyper-narratives is that they don’t always jive with reality because in the end the Yankees are just men, fallible, weak, tragic, just like all the rest and deserve no more respect than any other team or player in the leagues. I imagine, though, the media is pissed because they won’t make as much money off of a non-Yankees World Series because now the New York area won’t tune in to see Detroit and St. Louis. The commentators will continue to discuss the Yankee “collapse” and wring as much blood out of that stone as they can even while the season goes on without their heroes.

On the Yankees

The Yankees were eliminated in four straight games by the Detroit Tigers. Four and out and into the off-season, pitchers and catchers will report to Spring training in February. I am both fascinated and repulsed by the Yankees as a team and as a sports phenomenon. If you had all the money in the world so you could buy all the best players, who would you get, and how could you possibly lose? Well, this year the Yankees didn’t lose very often, and they won the Eastern division. Baltimore pressed hard during the final weeks, but the Yankees can always find a way to win–the best hitters, the best pitchers, the best fielders in the league. I suppose that all leagues need their bullies, their high class hitters in their tailored uniforms and luxury club house. The Yankees create conflict, drama, suspense, romance, comedy, pathos in a continuous narrative of wins and losses, mostly wins, highly charged in a mediatic circus that runs 24/7 during the baseball season. Even when the Yankees lose and get eliminated, the media will make a bigger deal out of that than the fact that Tigers are going back to the World Series. In other words, even when they lose, they are a bigger story than the team that beats them. No matter how they play, they always get coverage from the national media, and they are the object of speculation and analysis, interviews and opinions, and the highlights always feature both their triumphs and their failures, making no distinction between either. When one of their players is injured, dates a movie star, hits for the cycle, or makes an ad for underarm deodorant, it’s national news. One gets a little tired of always hearing about the Yankees, who is playing well, who is going to disappear, who they are going to buy next. Today the Yankees were eliminated by the Tigers, but no one was interviewing the Tigers, they were listening to the Yankees manager talk about the loss. The Yankees are a good team, they should win, so it’s surprising when they collapse. I guess that’s why they play the games because you never know how they might turn out on any given day. The Yankees are supposed to be the heroes of the narrative, the knights that always slay the dragon, that always overcome the opposition. They always occupy the head of the table, get fed first, always get the girl, always ride off into the sunset at the end of the season. All of the rest of the players in the league are just a bunch of also-rans that carry the Yankees bags and act as patsies and victims for the heroic men in pinstripes. The problem with these expectations and hyper-narratives is that they don’t always jive with reality because in the end the Yankees are just men, fallible, weak, tragic, just like all the rest and deserve no more respect than any other team or player in the leagues. I imagine, though, the media is pissed because they won’t make as much money off of a non-Yankees World Series because now the New York area won’t tune in to see Detroit and St. Louis. The commentators will continue to discuss the Yankee “collapse” and wring as much blood out of that stone as they can even while the season goes on without their heroes.