I’m re-reading American Gods and learning a lot more upon the latest read. I’m learning how to dissect and reverse engineer what real life experiences and situations writers put into stories; how the angry wails of a bard mirror talk radio. I’m learning about ways to be very subtle in my political and social jabs; how to cast a reflection of my experience into a story so that it may resemble a world that is instantly familiar and alien to the reader–as all fantasy and science fiction ought to be.
Gaiman does most of his commentary through the words and stories of Gods. He makes small comments, ones I can recognize given my travels from big city to small town and learning what matters to each society along the way. He often introduces small towns by talking about the signs at the entrance telling what sports star they are famous for or what state championship (even runner up) they hold. This is further evidence of America’s overlooked religion: Sports.
But sports is not a religion everywhere in America. It exists more fully formed in small towns like Maricopa, Arizona and Ames, Iowa where even the America’s political machine is forced to pause when the Cyclones take the court.
In my own life I see myself getting sucked up in the gears of that machine and I don’t quite know how to stop it. Sometimes I wonder if it is time to take a back seat and just be a dad and be a fan and not be involved anymore than that.
Some Thoughts:
- I was really excited to see my town’s 8u tackle football team because, finally, it would represent the whole of the place coming together under one banner without the political nonsense of dueling coaches and dueling programs and dueling high schools. Here’s the thing that makes me upset: We aren’t big enough with enough interested kids and talent to make a team at any age that can compete to be #1 in the state so long as we are broken into different teams managed by different egos and ideas of who is the big dog. It shouldn’t matter. It should be about the kids–not just the coach and the coaches kids. So, now a lot of that excitement is living under a cloud of disgust and anger knowing that the second team is coming together primarily because one guy wants to be in charge of that second team in order to make his son the star, and secondarily because a coach wants to build a pipeline to his high school. That second part I understand, but it remains detrimental to the town as a whole, because from a talent perspective we don’t have enough for two top teams. Without having a top team it is really tough for any athlete to be recognized and visited by scouts who might want to help a high schooler pay for college…