Road Trip!

Very shortly I shall be off on a road trip to Savannah with an odd assortment of people who obsessively drink beer and play with frisbees. I have packed an assortment of snacks, fuzzy blankets, cookies and fruitish things, in addition to a small number of books in case of emergency:

1. The Book of Five Rings, which was written more than 350 years ago by Miyamoto Musashi, focuses on the technical and spiritual elements of confrontational skills, which may or may not come in handy on an Ultimate Frisbee field. Useful chapters include: "On the Teaching of Having a Position Without a Position", "The Body of the Short Armed Monkey", "Stabbing the Face", "Advantage in Dueling", "Infection", "Crushing", and "Beating the Grass to Scare the Snakes", among other helpful hints.

2. The Age of the Gladiators, which was written by Rupert Matthews, details the development of the "savagery and spectacle" in the ancient blood-soaked arenas of Rome. Surprisingly, these games originated as spectacles that were part of funeral celebrations. In addition to sword fights, they also flooded arenas to stage mock naval battles, held wild animal fights that included everything from elephants to crocodiles, and organized chariot races. However, the ancient Romans were not sophisticated enough to think of flinging discs at each others' faces.

3. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami tells the story of a future society where the fascist government pits high school classmates against each other in a literal fight to the death with an assortment of weapons and other tools. There are machine guns, hand grenades, knives, poison, bows and arrows-- but again no frisbees.


Regardless, these are all great reading for anyone participating in a sporting event!