“A week before the fatal jump, the two women spent the night in his flat, Ms. Van Doren sharing his bed while Ms. Clottemans slept on a mattress or sofa. Ms. Clottemans would have had the opportunity of sabotaging the other woman’s parachutes, which were in the flat at the time, investigators say.”
–To avoid: formation skydiving with fellow members of a love triangle.

UPDATE: Here is a photo of the zucchini used by a Montana woman to fend off a bear attack.

Tuesday nights aren’t big for televised sports, and this Tuesday was even worse than usual. The Mets were in the process of blowing their game to a Broward County Pony League team dressed as the Florida Marlins, and that was tough for me to watch. The Yankees were… whatever, doesn’t matter, I wasn’t going to watch the Yankees. The fluorescent inertia of the World Series of Poker was on ESPN2, but it was not going to happen — I could almost smell the dense room full of sour hours-old breath, I couldn’t handle the featureless Felliniesque baby-men in their logo-emblazoned hats and microfiber golf shirts sussing each other out. College football (which I don’t like) had the night off. But there was football on ESPN, it turned out. LSD truck commercial “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” CMA highlight reel football, with close-ups of Bill Parcells’ curdled mayonnaise face. So not football, but also football.

Okay, so: there was pee-wee football, but then it was abruptly Bill Parcells and his Evil Manatee visage and then other successful coaches speaking with stern earnestness about toughness and improving young men. Explosions In The Sky in the background. Talk about leadership and inspiration, but also about toughness and also pee-wee football and camaraderie. John Madden — or someone in a Where The Wild Things Are mask, I don’t know — somehow too close to the camera, was there being positive and obvious in that endearing way he does. It was all moving very quickly now. More burnished, wealthy-looking coaches — some Ohio high school football godfather, the reasonable-seeming Saints coach Sean Payton, the lewd sausage known as Joe Namath. The production values were ESPN-high, but it was impossible to tell what was going on — the images skipped around and the narration didn’t explaining anything and the interviews all seemed to be about slightly different topics. A wash of well-lit faces: Brett Favre’s craggy squint and some words about something. University of Alabama coach Nick Saban on leadership, but then also about… sorry, was that Kenny Chesney just now? The country dude? Does Parcells really need to be that close to the camera, because it looks like someone threatening me with a weissewurst. Footage of high school football under the lights, now. How long ago did the commercial break start? Pulse racing. Tripping balls. Television off. What. Was. That.

So it turns out that the person I thought was either Kenny Chesney or the raincoat-clad goblin from Don’t Look Now was actually Kenny Chesney, and that the thing on ESPN was a rerun of an hour-long documentary Chesney made named The Boys of Fall, which premiered back in August and was being rerun because, I guess, the television public could conceivably wince itself to death were the World Series of Poker on both ESPNs at once. It is not a very good documentary, and is actually possibly even more fatuous than Chesney makes it sound in the AP story I linked to back there. “It’s no different if you’re playing football, if you’re on the road like I am, if you’re running a company — everybody’s got to work together if they want to achieve something that’s special.” That’s what Chesney said to the AP writer, and I guess that’s the message the film has. If that was a message or this was a film.

All of which is a kind of long way of revealing the not-so-surprising news that a semi-documentary tied in to a country song — the first single off Chesney’s most recent album was called, yes, “The Boys of Fall” — was about as illuminating and roughly as interesting as that description would lead you to expect. But in the way that The Boys of Fall tries to keep us from understanding football — all those layers of incoherent sentiment and dangerously pure certainty and unctuously sincere success-worship — it does serve a purpose. Two purposes, I guess: it got me to eat dinner really quickly and get the hell out of my apartment to meet a friend for a drink. Also, it revealed, again, just how little football’s most ardent proponents actually want to deal with football.

For obvious reasons. Football is an intricate, violent, brutishly graceful, surpassingly difficult and occasionally beautiful game, but it’s also a mile-high pile of lividly toxic semiotic waste and an all-too-easy outlet for the armchair belligerence and brain-dead sentimentality that have made possible our nation’s worst thinking. Watching Bill Parcells get misty during some shaping-young-men monologue that frankly don’t make no damn sense — both in terms of the words used and that it was coming from Parcells, one of the ur-assholes in all of sports — is ridiculous on its face. But the brutally sentimental bipolarity of football discourse conditions those of us at home to get dewy right along with him. Those brave young men, those modern gladiators, selflessly putting everything on the line so we can be moved by how moved we are at it all. The Tea Party’s crocodile tears about The Troops come from the same shallow well, and the same wish to be, simultaneously, the heroes and the heroes’ biggest fans.

It’s tough to argue that the NFL’s decision to appropriate both the sawed-off language and desperate, terrified sentimentality we get during wartime hasn’t worked like a fucking charm. There’s no comparing the human costs of war and an AFC West game, obviously. But the depleted discourses surrounding each reflect many of the same distortions back at each other, and match each other for deeply-felt incoherence and pissed-off stridency. What a call-in radio goof who calls Giants running back Brandon a pussy for not wanting to run inside and George W. Bush in Fuck-Saddam-We’re-Taking-Him-Out mode have in common is that they’re willing to talk extra-big and extra-certain about something 1) that they’re not nearly able or willing to do themselves and 2) of which they have no experience themselves. Strip the context and cost from the violence and there’s nothing left but dirt-cheap emotion and explosions in the sky.

Admittedly, though, from a football perspective, it is indeed frustrating that Brandon Jacobs doesn’t run inside. Jacobs is 6–4 and 260 pounds, and he is also really a lot better at running over defenders than he is at juking them out of their jocks. But while I guess William C. Rhoden of the New York Times deserves some credit for trying to understand Jacobs’s power-running issues rather than simply ripping him for it, it’s not surprising that Rhoden falls short in some Chesney-ish ways.

“Like most of us, Jacobs has run through his share of brick walls when told to do so,” Rhoden writes, in a sort of defense of the big back. To which the only response is “No, dude.” Yes, as adults we all do things we don’t want to do. But the walls we castigate Jacobs for not running through are different than ours — if Rhoden doesn’t want to write a column, he can half-ass it. (Tuesdays With Morrie super-creep Mitch Albom has been doing this since Reagan was president, and he won The Red Smith Award) Rhoden does, at least, acknowledge what makes Jacobs’ walls less inviting than a sports columnist’s — the epidemic of brain injuries in football, the pain of getting hit 25 times a game, the fact that if Jacobs runs the way talk-radio ghouls want him to (and the Giants need him to) he’ll shave lucrative years off a career that will, even in the best case scenario, be over by the time Obamacare begins in 2014. But Rhoden still can’t resist the comparison. It’s not its crass Palin parallel — “Like infantrymen in combat abroad, small business owners fight for what they believe in, tax-wise” — but the same point is being missed in the same vain way.

Football, because it’s a game and because it’s loaded with the violence and struggle we associate with things more serious than games, invites just this sort of unseriousness. (Politics, when covered as a sport, does the same thing.) Kenny Chesney made a movie about how he sees a football hero in himself — how football’s incoherent mythos explains the successful country star to himself. It doesn’t make sense, of course, but there’s no real way it could — it’s just Chesney talking to himself, recasting himself as a hero in a different epic, a guy who runs through walls instead of touring the sun belt.

More so than other pro sports, football has created a discourse that makes fans both the boss — Chesney’s guy “running a company,” idly pointing out walls that need running-through — and someone, per Chesney, “no different” than the man-in-the-arena hero despite our position outside the blast zone on a Ray Lewis tackle. Our own biggest fans, then, and our own worst enemies. But still, thankfully, not nearly as bad as Parcells. Because holy shit, that guy.

You know where I am not a hero? In the field of not getting savagely out-picked by a fucking coin. Worse, a Canadian coin! All it knows of football is Flutie, Warren Moon and Rocket Ismail! This coin thinks the field is 110 yards long and is basically picking the Winnipeg Blue Bombers versus Hamilton Tiger-Cats game, and it is still beating my ass. Eventually, this is going to change; there’s presumably some law of probability stating as much but also, really, honestly, the coin has managed a push or a correct pick in more than two out of three games. I might be that bad at this, but there’s no way this doofy nub of foreign-ish currency is this good, right? Anyway, on with the humiliation ritual:

Week 2 (and overall): David Roth: 6–9–1 (12–17–3); Al Toonie The Lucky Canadian Two-Dollar Coin: 10–5–1 (19–10–3)

Sunday, September 26
• Atlanta Falcons (+4) at New Orleans Saints, 1pm — DR: New Orleans; ATTLCTDC: Atlanta
• San Francisco 49ers (-2.5) at Kansas City Chiefs, 1pm — DR: San Francisco; ATTLCTDC: San Francisco
• Detroit Lions (+11) at Minnesota Vikings, 1pm — DR: Detroit; ATTLCTDC: Minnesota
• Dallas Cowboys (+3) at Houston Texans, 1pm — DR: Houston; ATTLCTDC: Dallas
• Tennessee Titans (+3) at New York Giants, 1pm — Remember Kerry Collins? Wasn’t that whole thing hilarious, when he was a starting NFL quarterback? Hold on, I’m getting some news… DR: New Jersey G; ATTLCTDC: Tennessee
• Buffalo Bills (+14.5) at New England Patriots, 1pm — DR: New England; ATTLCTDC: Buffalo
• Cleveland Browns (+10.5) at Baltimore Ravens, 1pm — DR: Baltimore; ATTLCTDC: Cleveland
• Pittsburgh Steelers (-2.5) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 1pm — DR: Pittsburgh; ATTLCTDC: Pittsburgh
• Cincinnati Bengals (-3) at Carolina Panthers, 4:05pm — DR: Cincinnati; ATTLCTDC: Cincinnati
• Washington Redskins (-3.5) at St. Louis Rams, 4:05pm — DR: Washington; ATTLCTDC: St. Louis
• Philadelphia Eagles (-3) at Jacksonville Jaguars, 4:05pm — DR: Philadelphia; ATTLCTDC: Jacksonville
• Indianapolis Colts (-5.5) at Denver Broncos, 4:15pm — DR: Indianapolis; ATTLCTDC: Denver
• San Diego Chargers (-5.5) at Seattle Seahawks, 4:15pm — DR: San Diego; ATTLCTDC: San Diego
• Oakland Raiders (+4.5) at Arizona Cardinals, 4:15pm — Worst game of the week by, um, the length of Al Davis’s life as represented in miles. DR: Oakland; ATTLCTDC: Arizona
• New York Jets (+2) at Miami Dolphins, 8:20pm — DR: New Jersey J; ATTLCTDC: New Jersey J

Monday, September 27
• Green Bay Packers (-3) at Chicago Bears, 8:30pm — DR: Green Bay; ATTLCTDC: Green Bay

David Roth is a writer from New Jersey who lives in New York. He co-writes the Wall Street Journal’s Daily Fix, contributes to the sports blog Can’t Stop the Bleeding and has his own little website. His favorite Van Halen song is “Hot For Teacher.”

Photo by Jason Poulton, from Flickr.

Yes, indeed, that was a truly bizarre episode of Stephen Colbert, Congressional immigration expert.

“When a whale carcass washes ashore in California and investigators find 400 pounds of plastic in its stomach, we lament. How terrible, we say. What a tragedy. But do we believe a hardworking mother of three who doesn’t hike the freeway every Saturday picking up windblown plastic bags is a whale-killer? Of course she isn’t. Well, maybe she is.”

What is the very best way to make a rap beat? Is it to play lower-register, minor-key piano chords over a throbbing baseline? Maybe accenting same with some tinkling high notes? Yes. It is. (At least, this is the best way to make a rap beat that I will probably have a hard time not liking. And I can never figure out why more rap producers don’t seem to be concerned with this question.) Harlem rapper Black Rob, who had a big hit ten years ago for Bad Boy Records with the song “Whoa,” but whose particularly grimy style never seemed to fit in well with the label’s 21st century glitz, and who ended up serving four years in prison for grand larceny, getting out just this past May, employs it to good effect on his new song. Rob has a new album, Game Tested & Street Approved, coming in March, apparently.

Here is a short essay by Justin Taylor that is about being confused by “a general trend in contemporary indy- and small-press lit-land that insists on modesty to the point of self-abasement, encourages people to get awestruck at the drop of a hat, and rewards the expression of self-doubt rather than self-confidence.” This is maybe a thing, but also it seems bizarre to me! For one thing, has he been on the Internet, which spends most of its time hammering down any nail that stands out? I also do not see a woman even conceiving of such a critique. They know what happens if a woman dares to be mistaken for bragging on the Internet. Or, you know, for just being on the Internet, Tumblin’ some cat photos. Something similar happens to braggy men too! But usually the hubbub, it just gets them more unwarranted attention.

In these troubled times, when even the most patriotic among us are questioning our place in the world and whether the promise of American exceptionalism will still be enough to help us meet the challenges of the future, it is good to know that there’s still an area in which we not only succeed, but excel. I’m gonna go celebrate with a couple of cheeseburgers and a few Cokes.

It was a real meeting of the minds, apparently: yesterday, professional opinion-havers Sally Quinn and Deborah Tannen “met for a morning summit at Georgetown waterfront restaurant Sequoia to discuss the state of women.” You simply must read this whole thing. It will make you feel terrible, these 20 notable quotables from their conversation. It is like a guide to the retrograde. They may be in the Taliban. Here, sample just one, from Ms. Quinn! “At the beginning of the feminist movement, it was women taking power back and it was really heady stuff… then it got out of control, as all revolutions do. They got militant… there was a period there where it was embarrassing to get pregnant.” Oh and also Ms. Tannen decides that Sarah Palin’s “femininity contributes to why many people don’t take her seriously.” Oh yes, that’s it: nail on the head, sister. (This makes me want to take some nails through the head.)

The always-magical World of Interiors October issue has wended its way to America at last, and? “US Vogue editor Anna Wintour now has a second Long Island bolthole,” promises the table of contents. (It would be a coverline of course but that magazine doesn’t have words on its cover, which, can you imagine that in America?) That particular rurality is generally described as Bellport, Long Island, except it’s decidedly in Shirley. (“I just import the people I want…. I don’t mind the town. It’s white trash, of course, but I don’t care,” Wintour famously-and humorously!-once said.) But! However! And! So this guide to ANNA WINTOUR’S RURAL RETREAT is “written” by Anna Wintour herself, except it’s “as she explains to Sally Singer.” And it’s awesome.

Singer (a genius) at last left Vogue to run T back in June, a job that had been vacant since April. And though it’s hard to tell when this bit of Wintour-narration took place-the magazine photos were either taken toward the later half of this summer or possibly last summer, as Wintour’s cortaderia selloana is already high, and also depending on how late in the year Wintour’s rather spectacular wisteria continues to flower-it’s easy to imagine Wintour doing this favor for both her “interiors wizard” (who also did Vogue’s lobby) and for the Condé UK publication even while advising Singer on her career move (or, less likely, one guesses, Singer plotting the move on her own). All that intrigue aside, it’s the text that’s most delicious.

It begins:

It was perhaps eight years ago that a neighbor’s change of fortune resulted in my good luck. The property that adjoins my 1820 Long Island summerhouse (WoI March 2006) came up for sale when its owner left in a hurry. It had an 1834 farmhouse, with loads of additions and 12 poky bedrooms. It had a perplexing reception room with difficult, though grand, proportions. It had lawns that tumbled down toward a beautiful-to-the-eye, toxic-to-everything-else river. It had nearly 25 acres of difficult trees in deer-infested woods. It was, as we say at Vogue, challenging.

Delightful!

It goes on: “The crew dream up all sorts of surprises for me. There was once an enormous wooden water wheel in the driveway; to this day, I am not sure what it was doing there.”

Legendary! Love it.

What’s most striking is that as enjoyable as this all is, it’s the least interesting thing in the whole magazine! What you really want to see are the pictures from Aynhoe Park, in Oxfordshire, which the owner has stuffed with 4500 plaster casts, many deaccessioned from the Met and from the V&A.;

Best magazine ever.