The Run of Play is a blog about
the wonder and terror of soccer.
We left the window open during a match in October 2007 and a strange wind blew into the room.
Now we walk the forgotten byways of football with a lonely tread, searching for the beautiful, the bewildering, the haunting, and the absurd.
Can you hire someone to interpret these in some sort of pomo Art in America style? This is crazy. I mean, I like the idea that he’s preparing himself to be ‘eaten’ (sent off, humiliated at a key moment) by putting red, red ketchup on himself (inviting the card through his hilarious slap-happy antics), but there’s an American undertone here (hot dog wrapped in the R W and B, classic Duke strut) I can’t crack…
Richard, your exegesis is brilliant, and all I can add to it is that the ramped-up American imagery suggested a certain unreflective, idyllic consumerism that, alongside the hot dog’s willing dousing of itself with condiments, evoked what I have always felt to be Drogba’s eagerness to be swallowed up by—even feed himself to—the machine of commercial popularity. His eagerness is, of course, self-defeating by its very nature, but it’s utterly unconscious of being so, a quality that I thought was reflected in the tongue-out deliberateness of the hot dog and the flashy, slightly hammy proto-funk jazz soundtrack.
Also, “Far East of the Blues” is very likely where he’ll wind up playing next season.
I hesitated for long time before I put this up, because I don’t want the “Inner Lives” concept to become satirical or excessively allegorical. They work best when there’s something ineffable about them. But in this case, a hot dog that wanted to be eaten so badly that it covered itself with ketchup, thus acting so creepily that no one could ever find it appetizing, seemed too right to pass up.
I too had to prevent myself from practicing some drive-by hermeneutics on your other offerings, but this one was too good to pass up!
Drive-by Hermeutics would be an excellent name for a massively self-conscious indie band.
Not sure that they would need a countertenor, though.
slt mon fant didier drogba si tu m’enttend je t’emppris vien a mon secours je’aimerais un jour devenir joueur profesionnel comme toi j’aimerais te demander si tu pourais m’aider j’ai 14 ans je suis du burkina faso aide moi j’attend ta reponse