"Minh walked under a gray sky, sorrow biting at his throat. He stepped into a banana grove and tore off three of the fruits and ate, tossing the peels in the water as he and Thu had done in a better world.
He imagined his brother burning--he often did-- Thu's body in the flame, dreadful pain outside, going up his nostrils and in. And then as a monkey holds two branches for an instant, lets go of the first and clings to the new one, he was no longer the body, but the fire."
The ACC is on fire my friends, and I don't say this just because I'm a Carolina fan and the Heels are having a tough go of it. Okay, maybe that has something to do with it, but that does not change the fact that this mighty basketball conference is now nothing but flames performing alchemy on human flesh.
Think about it. Only two ACC teams have winning records against the top 25, and lowly Virginia started the season 3-0, gave Wahoos flashbacks of Junior Burrough, and had the whole conference remembering the days when the league was nine levels of Hell and not just one pile of shit. One pile. Twelve flies. Nothing distinguishable. Waiting to be burned. Perhaps already feeling the heat.
And guess who has the match. . . .
I'm a UNC fan. I view Duke and Carolina as a royal joust. Yes, one looks to knock his opponent off his horse, but one does have to look his foil in the eye and salute before charging. There are rules. Rewards. And consequences.
Maryland is into some cloak and dagger shit.
They hide in bushes and wear the shadows like a Green Beret.
Bay of Pigs.
You never see their faces. You only find ransom notes waiting in your children's beds: "I curse your Mother's womb for having bred you, so I'm preventing you from doing the same. F#$% Jon Scheyer!"
They thrive on scorched earth campaigns and throw bottles at human skulls like planes into buildings.
They're ninjas, not samurai. Desperate. Dangerous. And useful at times when morality disappears, hiding in their turtle shells as if they were the Ho Chi Minh Trail, as if their darkness offered truth.
And, God, damn them for being the only ones with the testicular fortitude not to wilt in front of the Devil, as blue as he is, himself. They drive a hard bargain. They're terrible to root for, like losing one's soul to the tide: grain by grain, and they probably enjoy the fact that I compared them to everything from terrorists to Communists to assassins to the CIA's biggest screw-ups. In fact, they're probably flipping cars over right now in celebration.
Does anyone understand what it means to be from Maryland? Or is that why we fear the turtle--its haunting, enigmatic grin that only comes out of its shell when the whole world is upside down, and the fact that all of us share a lust for the sound of crashing glass and wailing sirens, a fascination that comes not from sympathy but some place stranger and, perhaps, more revealing. At some point, don't we all give into extremes?
He imagined his brother burning--he often did-- Thu's body in the flame, dreadful pain outside, going up his nostrils and in. And then as a monkey holds two branches for an instant, lets go of the first and clings to the new one, he was no longer the body, but the fire."
Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke
The ACC is on fire my friends, and I don't say this just because I'm a Carolina fan and the Heels are having a tough go of it. Okay, maybe that has something to do with it, but that does not change the fact that this mighty basketball conference is now nothing but flames performing alchemy on human flesh.
Think about it. Only two ACC teams have winning records against the top 25, and lowly Virginia started the season 3-0, gave Wahoos flashbacks of Junior Burrough, and had the whole conference remembering the days when the league was nine levels of Hell and not just one pile of shit. One pile. Twelve flies. Nothing distinguishable. Waiting to be burned. Perhaps already feeling the heat.
And guess who has the match. . . .
I'm a UNC fan. I view Duke and Carolina as a royal joust. Yes, one looks to knock his opponent off his horse, but one does have to look his foil in the eye and salute before charging. There are rules. Rewards. And consequences.
Maryland is into some cloak and dagger shit.
They hide in bushes and wear the shadows like a Green Beret.
Bay of Pigs.
You never see their faces. You only find ransom notes waiting in your children's beds: "I curse your Mother's womb for having bred you, so I'm preventing you from doing the same. F#$% Jon Scheyer!"
They thrive on scorched earth campaigns and throw bottles at human skulls like planes into buildings.
They're ninjas, not samurai. Desperate. Dangerous. And useful at times when morality disappears, hiding in their turtle shells as if they were the Ho Chi Minh Trail, as if their darkness offered truth.
And, God, damn them for being the only ones with the testicular fortitude not to wilt in front of the Devil, as blue as he is, himself. They drive a hard bargain. They're terrible to root for, like losing one's soul to the tide: grain by grain, and they probably enjoy the fact that I compared them to everything from terrorists to Communists to assassins to the CIA's biggest screw-ups. In fact, they're probably flipping cars over right now in celebration.
Does anyone understand what it means to be from Maryland? Or is that why we fear the turtle--its haunting, enigmatic grin that only comes out of its shell when the whole world is upside down, and the fact that all of us share a lust for the sound of crashing glass and wailing sirens, a fascination that comes not from sympathy but some place stranger and, perhaps, more revealing. At some point, don't we all give into extremes?