Spectatorship

Dionne Brand in a piece in Brick: a literary journal (Winter 2005, Number 76) writes of women and boxing, women in the ring and in the crowds. In a set of remarks following the description of an outburst from the stands, she reminds us all that "there is a difference between cunning and deceit". It is worth pausing there to register the remark and wonder at what point there is skill in lying and what that point might be.

She goes on to comment on the aesthetic of the sport:

Fight crowds [...] They have a deep and unparalleled appreciation of the grace and cleverness -- the endurance and innovation and imagination -- of boxers, of their virtuosity, and of the way they play with chaos. A good match is as multi-directional and contrapuntal as, say, John Coltrane and Rasheed Ali playing "Venus." It requires that kind of physical and lyrical virtuosity, that liminal combination of improvisation and composition.

Reprise towards the end of the piece almost as a peroration:

[...] boxer invariably beats fighter. Why? Because it's hard to arrive at the nexus of improvisation and composition.

And the great skill in lying is in the moment of truth telling that reveals the fib. True deceit involves no cunning just as virtuosity invisible is not virtuosity.

Can one have an opponent without an audience?


And so for day 69
21.02.2007