We are almost done, which means that the time when we can look back over this match and understand it has almost begun.
It has rushed by quickly, like the infancy of a second child, and there is no way to tell if we fully understood the significance of those first layers as they rushed by us, way back before Marquette rallied past Utah State, preserving the brackets of at least one of the people participating in today's Layer Tennis competition.
When this match started, Armin imagined that Mexican wrestling poses were acceptable analogues for typographical terms. Quickly, the two wrestlers became stand-ins for him and Sam. The two of them pummeled one another. Each man called his opponent small. There was a swift kick to the balls that rippled backwards through time. At various times, both Armin and Sam were reeling. They were bloodied but unbowed, like Rocky and Apollo Creed, or one of Michael Vick's dog and another one of Michael Vick's dogs. No, no. Scratch that thing about the dogs. It's in poor taste. They really should have a backspace on this thing.
Armin is now here with Layer #9, and it proves that even though the final layers demonstrate a maturity that sets aside the headlong enthusiasm of youth (see commentary on Layer #8 for an explanation), there is still considerably vitality at work. Armin could have taken Sam's move back into childhood as a sign of senescence. Think about it: who eats Jell-O, other than children and old people? But Armin has, in the presence of his opponent, been steadily developing a philosophical stance with regard to age. Here, the chid from the previous layer, who Armin definitively identifies as Discus, develops a second dependency, on Jell-O, to go along with his dependency on Photoshop. Lousy junkie. He gets into trouble (here, finally, we return to the violence of the early layers). He learns karate to ensure that he is never bested. But one day he is bested, and badly. Remember all the way back in Layer #3, when Armin imagined kicking Sam in the balls and leaving him rubbled in the lower right-hand corner? The pattern repeats here.
Armin kicked Sam. Sam gave the kicked man consequence, in history and in virility. The boy born from that kick, poor deformed Discus, grew up, got hooked on Jell-O, learned karate, and was kicked himself. Here is history's grip, never lessening. You can't erase what happened. There is no backspace on this thing.
Play by play commentary for this match is provided, as it happens, by Ben Greenman.
Tickets | Archive | Blog | The Crowd | HQ
Tomorrow we continue our series of live, experimental Layer Tennis Exhibitions with a motion graphics match between Matt Smithson and Daniel Oeffinger. As usual, the action starts at 2pm Chicago time. Check the time in your area. What is unusual is that the match won't finish until next Thursday. We'll be posting two layers per weekday. We've always wondered what would happen if we gave a couple artists a lot more time to do each volley and this week we'll find out. Commentary is by Jason Koxvold, who knows a little something about LYT and mo-graf. Jason's Match Preview has been posted and so has the coin-flip.
Naz and Sam Peeling Back the Layers on last Friday's amazing photographic and musical live Layer Tennis Match. No Tennis this week by the way, we'll be back live on the 19th
Layer 10 is up. And that's a wrap! Big thanks to Sam, Naz, Mark, and all the fans. No voting this week, but be sure to sign up for Season Tickets and be the first to get match info and learn how to play in our qualifying matches. Layer Tennis is taking a week off, we'll see you back here on March 19th for our fourth exhibition match.
The coin-flip and Match Preview are up for today's live Photographic Exhibition Match. We're almost set to go. Tweet your comments and include #lyt and then follow the chatter on our Crowd Page. And if you don't have 'em already, sign up for Free Season Tickets for news, contests and maybe even a chance for you to take the court this season.
Subscribe to the LT RSS feed.
Post your comments about the match to Twitter and include #lyt in the message and they'll show up right here on our Crowd Page. Plus you can follow the official LT Twitter feed.
© 1999-2010 Coudal Partners, Inc. All Rights Reserved | Privacy | | Clients | 
CP RSS Feed