I really enjoyed this Constantine. Fascinating about the indoor pool being held inside an NFL stadium and even more mind blowing was this line, "you can be the third-fastest swimmer in the world and not even make the Olympics." Wow!
I've never thought about swimming deeply, even though my little country of South Africa has delivered champions. I find sport overhyped as an intentional distraction for fake politics, but the "fans with colorful painted faces who look like they’ve just been told their dog is dead" don't stop me from ironically realising that it can also be used positively, to bring people together.
I can't imagine watching a swim meet unless I was supporting a child, but I'm a sucker for understanding human spirit. Consequently, 'The Swimmers' and 'The Deepest Breath' are on my watch list.
It was nice having Annette Benning and Jodie Foster together for 'Nyad'. 'The Deep' bioipic was more about floating but I do backstroke for Icelandic movies. 'My Octopus Teacher', one of my favourites, was 'underwater swimming'. More indirectly, 'cause there's only brief swimming in between getting hot and talking, 'Smoke Sauna Sisterhood' is a gem of meaningfulness.
I would do the audiobook of all the substackers I follow if I had an income.
I hear you, Mike. That was always Chomsky's line -- sports serve to not just deflect attention from things that matter but also to cultivate irrational support for home teams that can then be transferred to jingoist support for war, propaganda, etc.
Thanks for that list of recommendations. I need to check some of them out. Octopus Teacher was fascinating. You don't encounter people with that degree of obsession often. I just saw the Nyad movie recently too. I actually swam with her briefly a few months after she finished that Cuba swim. She was doing a fundraiser for Hurricane Sandy relief in NYC that involved swimming in a 48 hour consecutive swim in a temporary pool in midtown Manhattan. It was a spectacle. I was lucky to get invited as one of the swimmers who swam in the lane next to her as support for a portion of it.
If you're into gutsy open water swimmers, you should check out Swimming to Antarctica by Lynne Cox. Wild story.
Also highly recommend John Cheever's short story The Swimmer. Surreal tale that was made in the 60s into a movie with Burt Lancaster
Your swimming story sounds wilder than Antarctica, 'cause memories count more than strangers.
I've only data for one hour, and then its a long 10 days offline (which I hope to turn into a productivity), but note that I have opened https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1964/07/18/the-swimmer for reading later. Thanks for the recommendation.
I really enjoyed this Constantine. Fascinating about the indoor pool being held inside an NFL stadium and even more mind blowing was this line, "you can be the third-fastest swimmer in the world and not even make the Olympics." Wow!
Thanks, Thales. It's especially rough for them when there's only tenths or even only hundredths of a second differentiating third from first
So cool! I can barely breathe above water. 💧
Ha, I need to remember this one...
I've never thought about swimming deeply, even though my little country of South Africa has delivered champions. I find sport overhyped as an intentional distraction for fake politics, but the "fans with colorful painted faces who look like they’ve just been told their dog is dead" don't stop me from ironically realising that it can also be used positively, to bring people together.
I can't imagine watching a swim meet unless I was supporting a child, but I'm a sucker for understanding human spirit. Consequently, 'The Swimmers' and 'The Deepest Breath' are on my watch list.
It was nice having Annette Benning and Jodie Foster together for 'Nyad'. 'The Deep' bioipic was more about floating but I do backstroke for Icelandic movies. 'My Octopus Teacher', one of my favourites, was 'underwater swimming'. More indirectly, 'cause there's only brief swimming in between getting hot and talking, 'Smoke Sauna Sisterhood' is a gem of meaningfulness.
I would do the audiobook of all the substackers I follow if I had an income.
PS: https://youtu.be/OaZSJkoMFIE
I hear you, Mike. That was always Chomsky's line -- sports serve to not just deflect attention from things that matter but also to cultivate irrational support for home teams that can then be transferred to jingoist support for war, propaganda, etc.
Thanks for that list of recommendations. I need to check some of them out. Octopus Teacher was fascinating. You don't encounter people with that degree of obsession often. I just saw the Nyad movie recently too. I actually swam with her briefly a few months after she finished that Cuba swim. She was doing a fundraiser for Hurricane Sandy relief in NYC that involved swimming in a 48 hour consecutive swim in a temporary pool in midtown Manhattan. It was a spectacle. I was lucky to get invited as one of the swimmers who swam in the lane next to her as support for a portion of it.
If you're into gutsy open water swimmers, you should check out Swimming to Antarctica by Lynne Cox. Wild story.
Also highly recommend John Cheever's short story The Swimmer. Surreal tale that was made in the 60s into a movie with Burt Lancaster
Your swimming story sounds wilder than Antarctica, 'cause memories count more than strangers.
I've only data for one hour, and then its a long 10 days offline (which I hope to turn into a productivity), but note that I have opened https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1964/07/18/the-swimmer for reading later. Thanks for the recommendation.
Excellent short story, and would be a visually effective short movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTRojK8udSo
It’s okay. It’s 2024. Someone will give me a medal for being slow.