St. wrote:
> "Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote in message
> news:3fbc3e34$1@news.povray.org...
> 
>   <snip commentary>
> 
>    Jim, you're a boxing fan? I've always loved the sport of boxing. It
> was my Grandad (Dad) that got me into it when I was around seven years
> old and Cassius Clay was trumpeting his wares before slipping through
> the ropes to prove he had the skill and nouse about *his* fighting
> stature. I think it was the fight labelled "The Rumble in the Jungle"
> that my Dad woke me up for, very late at night, so as to not wake my
> sister... ;)  This went on with many of Clays fights, and then
> eventually, Ali's.

Boxing always fascinated me though I very much grew up in a culture that 
tried to ignore it, fearing its feral, outlaw nature.  I always watched 
any title fights that were luckily televised.  It was a furtive sort of 
hidden interest.  I think I always was subject to its metaphorical power.

I think I discovered "On Boxing" by JCO years ago actually while 
browsing in a bookstore.  I was familiar with her as an author though 
I'd read only a few of her things.  When they call her work 
"unflinching" they mean it.  When you read her stories you definitely 
flinch.  She grew up relatively close to me in North American terms, in 
the same Great Lakes Basin landscape on the American side of the border 
that I was intimate with on the Canadian side.  She famously attended a 
one room school house.  Well I went to a two room school house and had I 
been Oates' age it would have been one room. ( I think she's about a 
dozen years older than me. )  She taught in small colleges in the Great 
Lakes region just like the one I went to. Her stories recreate that time 
and place, well, unflinchingly.  The thought of this slightly-built 
feminist writing on the subject of boxing was too much for me to resist.

There is a pub a block away from me here called "The Telephone Bar" 
http://www.telebar.com/
It features three large red English telephone boxes set into its store 
front.  It's the pub I always go to.  So I took my copy of "On Boxing" 
there one holiday afternoon and sipped English beer and read the thing 
in a single sitting.  If JCO could treat the subject so lovingly, I 
learned to feel less guilty about watching it and more appreciative of 
its nuances.  She made me very aware of the mental side of it.  The 
feint within feint within feint.

So I very much enjoy watching it now, for its science and its savagery. 
  But it is an existential involvement.  I am not really conversant with 
the sport; don't really know its history.  Ron did the tracing I'd 
sometimes considered doing but never really dared to.  I thought he 
pulled it off wonderfully.


> 
>    As for the IRTC 'Decay' round - well, I'm not voting or commenting
> this time because again, I really can't comment on the excellence that

I did the voting but then screwed up my login/password so my votes were 
rejected.  I'll have to work in the comments I made about "Champ No 
More" some other way.

> I see. I also didn't enter myself because I've recently gone through a
> very traumatic experience that I wish never to be repeated. It's just

I am grieved to hear that.  You've been missed.  I hope traumatic 
doesn't mean tragic.

> 
> 
>  Thanks for that, she's a good writer.
> 

I think she's the real McCoy.

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