Ozymandias

The nice lady in the kitchen tchotchke shop gave me a miniature ice tray that spells out RITZENHOFF. She got it from a german company of the same name that’s been making glassware since 1904, and she gave it to me for free because she liked my coat. Being the plucky researcher that I am, I hied me to a computer and started digging to see if my new toy came with a curiosity attached.

At the age of 27, sporting a fine physique (5’10”, 176 lbs, as a matter of official record) and no doubt an even finer handlebar mustache, Wilhelm Ritzenhoff traveled from the Ruhr to take part in his one and only Olympic Games. As a member of Germany’s athletic team, he acquitted himself reasonably well, if not exactly achieving crowd-rousing flag-hoisting glory,  in the standing long jump, three parts of the pentathlon, the men’s stone throw (!), and the 100 meters. At last his real moment of triumph came as part of an eightsome that beat the host nation, Greece, to win gold.

The sport that our new pal Wilhelm got to be king of the world at? Tug-of-war, ditched by the International Olympic Committee as an event fourteen years later. And the Games in which he tossed and leaped and ran and tugged? The 1906 summer games, demoted retroactively—with a small embarrassed cough—to non-Olympic status, and now parenthesized in lists and dubbed “Intercalated”.

I have no idea if he was part of that same family whose company now makes glass ‘collectibles’: I could find no other mention of him in any language that I had the wits to deploy (I was really hoping for a photograph of that mustache). He died in 1954 not far from where he was born, and I don’t think I want or need the details of how he made it through two world wars. But I pulled out a glass of my own last night and with a splash of whisky and a tiny rapidly-melting anagram of RITZENHOFF gave a toast to Wilhelm and his Olympic Gold Medal, because if that’s not sportsmanship I don’t know what is, and now I have the german word for tug-of-war.

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the content and capital letters of this post have been brought to you by the ever plucky ramona ranchera.

gas giants

some kids dream of winning an olympic gold. some have an oscar fantasy. occasionally, a little person may pine for a nobel prize. but not yours truly, as just a wee raynorling, i lusted after the gordon bennet international aëronautic cup, the trophy of the world’s oldest balloon race.

this article, an harrowing account of the first ever gordon bennet dirigible race (published in 1907) was responsible for igniting my aëronautic dreams, perhaps it will ignite yours as well.

here is another thing about the golden age of balloonery.

laufmaschine

the sissy in the bellhop uniform in this picture is riding his (appropriately named) dandy horse. it was a pedal-less predecessor of the modern day bicycle and (if you ask me) was the segway of the georgian era (in every way).

at anyrate: the crank arm broke off my road bike last night (in the middle of an intersection that had lots of babes in tank tops) and i had to scoot my way home via the dandy horse method. what an evening! mom made tuna casserole!

on halloween and how it factors into my nightmares

every year at midsummer, i throw a yard game decathlon party for family and friends. on account of a successful combination of hefeweizen, kansas city burnt ends, house music, and kubb for the 4th annual tournament (2008), my parents later informed me that it was one of the top five parties that they had ever attended. obviously, this made me curious about what else was on their list:

• one of them was some idiot’s ridiculously overplanned wedding reception that did not at all go according to plan.
• one was a party in greece that they were erroneously invited to because my dad was accidentally wearing the colours of the local football team.
• their number two party involved game 6 of the 1980 world series and several thousand old city carousers.

all and all, it was a pretty tame list so i was eager to hear what they chose as their number one. it turned out that it was a halloween party WHICH THEY THREW. now wait just a second, i thought, one can’t put one’s own party on the list of all-time best parties—it’s poor decorum.

not so, argued my parents. it was a marvelous party: trick-or-drinking, bobbing for apples, animatronic zombies, and outlandish costumes—my mom had dressed up as wonderwoman and my dad was sherlock holmes.

“still,” i said, “it sounds kinda lame.”

“no,” they said, “it was spectacular. in fact, it was so spectacular that it was—as near as we can calculate—the night that you were conceived.”

so now, not only am i acutely aware of the circumstance in which my dad planted the candy coated seed that would later become yours truly—but i have an unshakable mental image of he (wearing nothing but a deerstalker hat) and my mom (clad in a glittering tiara and a skimpy leotard) having freaky cosplay sex with the savage furor of pagan gods. this is how halloween factors into my nightmares.

gettin’ jiggy with ligatures

add this to the list of things that i never noticed about logos before: the sports illustrated logotype has a super-bitching ra ligature. is this a subtle nod to ra, the egyptian god of linebackers and the stanley cup? perhaps. but one thing is for certain, r & a are the initial letters of both m’name and m’blog and so, making this parallel dimension logo was more or less a requisite.

and guess who now has five posts using his sports tag?

incidentally, the sports illustrated font seems to be a modified version of impact. go figure.

like horseshoes but with dynamite

it is no sekrit that my favourite yard game is (the gotlandic) kubb. however, there is a new contender on the proverbial (back yard) playing field. the contender is called tejo and is the national sport of colombia »

Tejo is played by throwing a metal plate or disc weighing about 2 kg at a target (mecha). The mecha is a clay-filled box with gunpowder in its center, such that an explosion is produced when the disc strikes the center. Whoever makes the most mechas explode wins.

Tejo is a modern version of “Turmequé”, an ancient sport that was played over 500 years ago by the indigenous groups that lived in the regions of Cundinamarca and Boyacá.

i have observed a game of tejo being played and it is as awesome as it sounds—kind of like like playing horseshoes with TNT (the explosive compound, not the cable channel).

if you are interested, you can play virtual tejo on facebook. (photo credit)

there is a third option

i will be watching deep water tonight (not to be confused with deep impact which is a bruce willis movie where he and ben affleck drill for gold on mars). normally i would lob some predictable adjectives at you like profound and gripping and haunting. i’m not going to do that this time. i WILL tell you that it’s about a solo yacht race around the world, but i will also hint that it’s REALLY about so much more than that. this is a movie that will stay with you in the way that only the best book or movie or song can.

also: (if you can help it) don’t read up on the documentary (or the race that it documents) beforehand, there are some twisty turns that take place in it that are best experienced WITHOUT prior knowledge and the internet loves to spoil.

other doc recommendations: this one and this one.