The Muse's Corner
By the Philosopher of Arena Football, Paul Celmer
As astute readers of last week's column know, my Week 10 interaction with the Muse enabled me to predict Dutton screaming forth from the dungeon of his despair and leading the Colorado Crush to a vicious annihilation of the Nashville "drunk-faced" Kats.
Or did she?
Could it simply of been just luck that the game turned out the way she had predicted? For just how predictable is our world, after all?
I sat on the concrete steps on the stoop of the Raleigh Train station, idly picking at peeling flecks of the cheap blue paint. As the flecks fell amidst the dirt and ground glass that coated the sidewalk, I could not stop myself from noticing that some of the paint flecks fell on the blue side, while others fell on the white side. Was there a pattern to this? If three paint flecks fell on the blue side, then usually one would fall on the white side to break the pattern. But then, did this mean that there was some pattern to when the first pattern was to be broken?
I continued in this fashion as the sun sank into the wine-dark clouds, and the great canopy of stars wheeled overhead. Still, I wondered. Just when I thought I had found a pattern, something would happen to break the pattern. But then later still, a new pattern would form. I knew from my training in the Maths that it was highly improbable that there be say 30 paint flecks falling on the blue side in a row. But what force enforced this rule? Is there any way at all to know for sure which side the paint fleck would fall upon?
These musings caused me to question the entire enterprise of prognostication. Will the Crush win in week 11? How about the Soul? Or any of them? Who can say. I mean truly, who can know this without it first happening? Sure, one can look at trends, injuries, stats, home field factors, and on and on. But truly, there is still know way to know for sure. Betting the little pieces of paper called money is one thing, but would you bet your life on the outcome of a game? With this yawning crack growing in the epistemological foundations of my mind, I went back into the train station to seek solace from the Muse.
I descended the time-worn stairs into the cellar. I entered the bathroom. And there was the last pay toilet in Raleigh, if not the entire state, and perhaps in the entire country for all I knew. I inserted the required quarter and turned the rust encrusted handle. Suddenly the left wall of the bathroom slid away to reveal the Muse standing, glaring at me with a regal stare. She sang thus:
"The slightest pertubation
Can tip fate to odd gyration.
Consider dance intermingling
of hyperbolic equations jingling:
Will Hamilton juke and twist again
His way to endzone bliss?
Or will he be crushed by a DS
in the Destroyer Abyss?
Will Johnson's expected unexpected pass
Rush the energy of squared light times mass?
Will Hefflin be halted
In his quest to arrest
Some body at the goal-line vaulted?
Will the ball that rolls and falls
On the outstretched fingertips of Samuels
Find safety in his embrace--
or be lost beyond padded AFL walls?
Each play is a butterfly wing
Whose silent sweep
Can cause a point-storm to sing.
So foster the marriage of complexity with simplicity
If you with to give birth to everlasting Beauty."
As usual, I left the train station with more questions than answers. And so should you.
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