We are almost done, which means that the time when we can look back over this match and understand it has almost begun.
It has rushed by quickly, like the infancy of a second child, and there is no way to tell if we fully understood the significance of those first layers as they rushed by us, way back before Marquette rallied past Utah State, preserving the brackets of at least one of the people participating in today's Layer Tennis competition.
When this match started, Armin imagined that Mexican wrestling poses were acceptable analogues for typographical terms. Quickly, the two wrestlers became stand-ins for him and Sam. The two of them pummeled one another. Each man called his opponent small. There was a swift kick to the balls that rippled backwards through time. At various times, both Armin and Sam were reeling. They were bloodied but unbowed, like Rocky and Apollo Creed, or one of Michael Vick's dog and another one of Michael Vick's dogs. No, no. Scratch that thing about the dogs. It's in poor taste. They really should have a backspace on this thing.
Armin is now here with Layer #9, and it proves that even though the final layers demonstrate a maturity that sets aside the headlong enthusiasm of youth (see commentary on Layer #8 for an explanation), there is still considerably vitality at work. Armin could have taken Sam's move back into childhood as a sign of senescence. Think about it: who eats Jell-O, other than children and old people? But Armin has, in the presence of his opponent, been steadily developing a philosophical stance with regard to age. Here, the chid from the previous layer, who Armin definitively identifies as Discus, develops a second dependency, on Jell-O, to go along with his dependency on Photoshop. Lousy junkie. He gets into trouble (here, finally, we return to the violence of the early layers). He learns karate to ensure that he is never bested. But one day he is bested, and badly. Remember all the way back in Layer #3, when Armin imagined kicking Sam in the balls and leaving him rubbled in the lower right-hand corner? The pattern repeats here.
Armin kicked Sam. Sam gave the kicked man consequence, in history and in virility. The boy born from that kick, poor deformed Discus, grew up, got hooked on Jell-O, learned karate, and was kicked himself. Here is history's grip, never lessening. You can't erase what happened. There is no backspace on this thing.
Play by play commentary for this match is provided, as it happens, by Ben Greenman.
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Congratulations to Mig Reyes, Layer Tennis Season 3 Champion.
Thanks to all the players, commentators and fans who made Season Three of Layer Tennis a big success. And thanks to the crew at Goodby Silverstein & Partners and all the folks at Adobe Creative Suite for making it possible. Watch this space (or sign up for Season Tickets or follow us on Twitter) for news about some special exhibition matches being planned and about Season 4.
Cast your votes on The Championship Match. Both Finalists will receive invitations to play in the post-season tournament for Season Four.
Here's how the voting works. Decide who you'd like to declare as winner and then simply tweet their first name following a hash mark. Either #mig or #noper and, this is important, also include #lyt in that tweet. We'll leave the voting open all weekend and announce our Season Three Champion on Monday.
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