Super Bowl Narrative

One of the strengths of sports like football is that it borrows the use of narrative from drama and fiction. There's a distinct plot line, an ebb and flow, involving various strong personalities, to the games. Such was the case last night.

I was watching the game at a bar in one part of town, then left to walk to the other side. As I walked through the city I heard shouts from apartment buildings during various dramatic portions of the contest between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles. People on the street, or doormen, would tell me the changing score as I passed, so that I sensed the progress of the narrative, though I wasn't watching it, because the entire quiet city was watching it. This must've been a little like how the ancient Athenians treated their great dramas, the whole populace wrapped up in the course of an art's events. In the case of last night, the football game was a kind of civic art.

I arrived back at my place as a collective groan of heartache seemed to emanate from buildings, from all of Philadelphia, as the Eagles lost the game.