about a game between the new england patriots and the miami dolphins, and there's a player named kevin falk who gets tackled, and after the game he's asked about it because he's motionless on the ground for quite some time. quote: i wasn't out cold, but i was out, said falk. asked if he remembered lying on the ground, he said, no, i don't, i knew that, like, it wasn't normal. i didn't have that same normal feeling when i got up. i thought it was funny. that would be the simplest way to explain why i brought this story home and cut out the section in question and taped it to my wall. i thought it said something elemental about athletic delusion, the absurd and pitiful way players hide from the truth of their vocation, that they earn ungodly sums of money and acclaim for demolishing each other. i assumed the posture of ironic distance which is what americans do to avoid the corruption of our spiritual arrangements. ironic distance allows us to separate ourselves from the big, complicated, moral systems around us -- political, religious, familial -- to sit in judgment of others rather than our