Salon Wanderlust | Cold war

- - - - - - - - - -
A L S O+T O D A Y
Are you a crystal vase?
By Joyce Millman
If you can answer these 20 questions, you've watched way too much of the Olympics
PLUS
By Cintra Wilson
The Christlike and redemptive powers of hockey
- - - - - - - - - -
T A B L E_T A L K
Women who travel solo give tips and swap stories in Table Talk's Wanderlust area

R E C E N T L Y
Plastered in Nagano
By Koya Ide
Olympics sponsors' ads are everywhere
(02/17/98)
Passionate and penniless in Paris
By Maxine Rose Schur
A magical memory
(02/13/98)
Retro burger
By Gary Kamiya
Our Olympics correspondent muses on women's hockey, Japanese English, the quest for tosto and other cross-cultural oddities
(02/12/98)
Stoned on ice
By Gary Kamiya
Curling heats up Nagano
(02/11/98)
Après moi, de luge
By Gary Kamiya
Getting a half-second high from the sport that gives a whole new meaning to the expression "balls out"
(02/10/98)

Browse the
Feature archives

cold war______
WHEN THE CZECH AND RUSSIAN
HOCKEY TEAMS FACE OFF, THERE'S
MORE AT STAKE THAN GOALS.

Jaromir Jagr of the Czech Republic, an NHL star, lies injured on the ice during during Monday's game against Russia.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BY GARY KAMIYA | NAGANO, Japan -- The Olympics are beginning to seriously kick my ass. Keeping up with this nonstop 17-ring circus is not only impossible, it's starting to seem like a monumentally stupid idea. Do I really need to know who won ice dancing, or curling, or even ladies' downhill skiing? It's all becoming a miasma of shuttle buses and giant video-on-demand screens and hordes of people streaming through train stations and sporting events I've never watched live before and probably never will again, all carried out to this hideous power-pop music that some retarded Official Olympic DJ decided to play incessantly at every hockey game and skiing event to pump up the synthetic emotion.
The hockey rock is the worst, but the numerous other Jingles of Nagano are beginning to run through my head day and night, driving me slowly mad. There's the sing-songy little pedestrians-may-go-now tune that goes off when one of the city's three-minute stoplights changes to green. There's the weird, slightly ominous aliens-stole-my-Casio number that shimmers out when the Shinkansen arrives at a station. And, of course, there's the Official Olympics Song, a kind-of-endearing, kind-of-treacly number that is accompanied by an official dance that people are still, to my amazement, doing with great innocent happiness. Maybe it isn't so surprising, considering that the Wave, apparently a new phenomenon here, has taken Nagano by storm.
The Japanese seem to be very big on nursery-rhyme aesthetics. There is a bizarre, 30-foot-high plasticene flowers-and-hidden-fairies sculpture in the central plaza of the Saku train station, which emits a strange FAO Schwartz tune every hour as the luridly colored fairies toodle on flowers. Nagano has an equally weird clock in its main square, complete with little Children's Fairyland birds that pop out and sing. It is another of the many mysteries of the place that the people with probably the most developed visual aesthetic sense in the world would be so drawn to this kitschy, Hello Kitty, Dr. Seuss-y stuff. Maybe they just need major doses of total silliness for some reason that escapes me.
The Olympics theme muzak is beginning to infect my sense of the Games themselves. I think this means it's time for me to go home.
Today, mirabile dictu, Cintra and I actually saw some skiing -- the end of the women's downhill (won by Katja Seizinger of Germany, although we didn't see her run) and the downhill part of the women's combined. (Seizinger, whom we saw race this time, turned in the fastest time there, too.) It was a glorious day and we had great seats -- we seized them, since nobody was there -- on the top row of the bleachers at the finish line. It was fun, I'm glad I did it, and there were certain things about the experience that TV simply doesn't catch, but I wouldn't rush out to pay $70 -- the face value of our tickets, although I paid a scalper $80 for one -- for the experience.
The most interesting thing about seeing a ski race, at least from where we were, is that you get a real sense of the topography of the mountain -- its ridges, its traverses, how steep the drop is, its folds. Downhill races are incredibly long -- they basically eat up a big old piece of mountain. As a non-skiing backpacker, it was amazing to look up at the mountain from the shuttle bus parking lot a mile away (from the bleachers, you could only see the lower part of the course, which was somewhat deflating) and realize that it would take hours on foot (assuming there was no snow) to go a distance that the skiers covered in a minute and a half.
The other major rush, of course, was just watching them slice their way across the glorious, blank white face of the mountain, specks moving with an outrageous, pell-mell precision. Their tiny progress down the mountain seemed at once arrogant and gentle. When human striving acquires a perfection of form, it imitates a natural process: One of the reasons we love to watch athletes is that they remind us of animals, and waves, and clouds.
N E X T+P A G E+| Prague Spring, with Zamboni

PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUG PENSINGER/ALLSPORT
Archived images are provided by Allsport Photography USA, Inc. all rights reserved, any redistribution, resale, re-print or other use is strictly prohibited without written consent from Allsport Photography USA, Inc. directly.


- - - - - - - - - - A L S O+T O D A Y Are you a crystal vase? By Joyce Millman If you can answer these 20 questions, you've watched way too much of the Olympics PLUS By Cintra Wilson The Christlike and redemptive powers of hockey - - - - - - - - - - T A B L E_T A L K Women who travel solo give tips and swap stories in Table Talk's Wanderlust area R E C E N T L Y Plastered in Nagano By Koya Ide Olympics sponsors' ads are everywhere (02/17/98) Passionate and penniless in Paris By Maxine Rose Schur A magical memory (02/13/98) Retro burger By Gary Kamiya Our Olympics correspondent muses on women's hockey, Japanese English, the quest for tosto and other cross-cultural oddities (02/12/98) Stoned on ice By Gary Kamiya Curling heats up Nagano (02/11/98) Après moi, de luge By Gary Kamiya Getting a half-second high from the sport that gives a whole new meaning to the expression "balls out" (02/10/98) Browse the Feature archives		cold war______ WHEN THE CZECH AND RUSSIAN HOCKEY TEAMS FACE OFF, THERE'S MORE AT STAKE THAN GOALS. Jaromir Jagr of the Czech Republic, an NHL star, lies injured on the ice during during Monday's game against Russia. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY GARY KAMIYA \| NAGANO, Japan -- The Olympics are beginning to seriously kick my ass. Keeping up with this nonstop 17-ring circus is not only impossible, it's starting to seem like a monumentally stupid idea. Do I really need to know who won ice dancing, or curling, or even ladies' downhill skiing? It's all becoming a miasma of shuttle buses and giant video-on-demand screens and hordes of people streaming through train stations and sporting events I've never watched live before and probably never will again, all carried out to this hideous power-pop music that some retarded Official Olympic DJ decided to play incessantly at every hockey game and skiing event to pump up the synthetic emotion. The hockey rock is the worst, but the numerous other Jingles of Nagano are beginning to run through my head day and night, driving me slowly mad. There's the sing-songy little pedestrians-may-go-now tune that goes off when one of the city's three-minute stoplights changes to green. There's the weird, slightly ominous aliens-stole-my-Casio number that shimmers out when the Shinkansen arrives at a station. And, of course, there's the Official Olympics Song, a kind-of-endearing, kind-of-treacly number that is accompanied by an official dance that people are still, to my amazement, doing with great innocent happiness. Maybe it isn't so surprising, considering that the Wave, apparently a new phenomenon here, has taken Nagano by storm. The Japanese seem to be very big on nursery-rhyme aesthetics. There is a bizarre, 30-foot-high plasticene flowers-and-hidden-fairies sculpture in the central plaza of the Saku train station, which emits a strange FAO Schwartz tune every hour as the luridly colored fairies toodle on flowers. Nagano has an equally weird clock in its main square, complete with little Children's Fairyland birds that pop out and sing. It is another of the many mysteries of the place that the people with probably the most developed visual aesthetic sense in the world would be so drawn to this kitschy, Hello Kitty, Dr. Seuss-y stuff. Maybe they just need major doses of total silliness for some reason that escapes me. The Olympics theme muzak is beginning to infect my sense of the Games themselves. I think this means it's time for me to go home. Today, mirabile dictu, Cintra and I actually saw some skiing -- the end of the women's downhill (won by Katja Seizinger of Germany, although we didn't see her run) and the downhill part of the women's combined. (Seizinger, whom we saw race this time, turned in the fastest time there, too.) It was a glorious day and we had great seats -- we seized them, since nobody was there -- on the top row of the bleachers at the finish line. It was fun, I'm glad I did it, and there were certain things about the experience that TV simply doesn't catch, but I wouldn't rush out to pay $70 -- the face value of our tickets, although I paid a scalper $80 for one -- for the experience. The most interesting thing about seeing a ski race, at least from where we were, is that you get a real sense of the topography of the mountain -- its ridges, its traverses, how steep the drop is, its folds. Downhill races are incredibly long -- they basically eat up a big old piece of mountain. As a non-skiing backpacker, it was amazing to look up at the mountain from the shuttle bus parking lot a mile away (from the bleachers, you could only see the lower part of the course, which was somewhat deflating) and realize that it would take hours on foot (assuming there was no snow) to go a distance that the skiers covered in a minute and a half. The other major rush, of course, was just watching them slice their way across the glorious, blank white face of the mountain, specks moving with an outrageous, pell-mell precision. Their tiny progress down the mountain seemed at once arrogant and gentle. When human striving acquires a perfection of form, it imitates a natural process: One of the reasons we love to watch athletes is that they remind us of animals, and waves, and clouds. N E X T+P A G E+\| Prague Spring, with Zamboni PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUG PENSINGER/ALLSPORT Archived images are provided by Allsport Photography USA, Inc. all rights reserved, any redistribution, resale, re-print or other use is strictly prohibited without written consent from Allsport Photography USA, Inc. directly.