When I was in graduate school several years ago, the introvert in me – and that would be 100 percent of me – was desperate for some quiet time.
You don’t get much in graduate school. It’s all group projects and collaboration (another overused word! noted for later topic) and covering for That Guy.
I found then that there was one place, one unlikely place, where I could enjoy near-complete silence: my dental hygienist’s chair.
I’d lay down on the vinyl, in that curiously comfortable decline, and we’d say nothing. I’d close my eyes. I knew when to close my mouth for that tube thing. She might ask if I had summer plans when we were done. Maybe.
I still don’t even know her name. I don’t need to. This is still one of my favorite things to do because there is no talking, and no one feels awkward about it.
I suspect that’s why so many of you cook, or write, or train, or paint: It’s not always a solo pursuit, but it’s quiet.
Desperate for basketball
There’s this Rush song. Maybe you know it. Oh, of course you know it. Everybody knows it – it’s Rush. It’s “Spirit of the Radio.”
And there’s a phrase in it that describes the majority of my basketball viewing, if you can call it that: it’s “a friendly voice, a companion unobtrusive.”
See, there’s quiet, and then there’s isolated. I can do the latter all too quickly.
With basketball, I can turn the volume on low to just barely hear some of the region’s TV announcers, all companions unobtrusive. I can watch it out of the corner of my eye as I exercise for excessive periods of time, something else done perhaps in the pursuit of quiet.
The NBA’s Summer League, while nothing like the NBA or especially college basketball*, would ostensibly fit the bill, yes? Turn the volume down to low. People moving about. No one talking to me, just in my vicinity, the voice just familiar enough.
Except.
ESPN, the Satan of sports broadcasting, took over the Summer League two or three years ago. Which means there is constant yapping. I mean, Dan Dakich. Would you shut that whole in the middle of your face? For a second?
I know the answer to this.
The NBA does a lot of things right, but man, I’m looking at cricket as an alternative. Cricket! In America! What is this country coming to?
*Wait until November, friends. I will try not to but probably still will bore you to death with Big East basketball. Sorry in advance.
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