Ben Greenman's Layer 2 Commentary

Suck My Discus

It’s on. Sam Potts has taken the Mexican wrestling motif from Armin Vit’s serve and returned it with (and to) Ancient Greece.

Now, instead of wrestling, we have discus, and there are several things that need to be said about that. Chief among them is that the discus requires only one participant, while wrestling requires two. So what kind of gamesmanship is this? Is Potts saying that Vit doesn't even rate inclusion in his visual metaphor? A closer look reveals even greater levels of cruelty. In his caption, Potts shows that he has not done away with Vit so much as crushed him into a tiny flat disc. Yes, that's right: the caption reads "How to Throw a Small Man a Very Very Long Way," and the fifth of the illustrated scenes finds the discus transforming into that man. It Vit that small man? Will Potts throw him a very, very long way? Has Potts intentionally changed the color scheme to make it reminiscent of a krater, the kind of Greek vase you're thinking of if, like me, you know next to nothing about Greek vases? We shall see.

It is also useful to know that of all the track and field sports, discus has proven especially resistant to modernity. What I mean by that is that the modern discus record stands at 74.08 meters, as it has since 1986. Can you think of another contest of this sort where the human musculature has not advanced (with the help of training or steroids or whatever) for more than two decades? I cannot. I read this as Potts saying to Vit, "You and your novelty will be powerless against my strong fundamentals." To shift the sports metaphor a bit, it's like watching Tim Duncan taser Nate Robinson. How will Vit respond? The world waits and watches.

Play by play commentary for this match is provided, as it happens, by Ben Greenman.

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