obligatory super bowl post
By no means am I a die-hard Giants fan, but last night was a special. However, we must get past the obvious, media-hyped historical and personal storylines to get to the real meat. Yeah, the thwarting of a perfect season was awesome and monumental and would make anyone with the slightest underdogian tendencies smile in that Edward Norton-esque “I wanted to destroy something beautiful” kind of way. And the coming of age of a kid who has lived his whole life in the darkest shadows of both his father and his brother has to make you fuzzy inside. Little Brother makes a name for himself, not only in his family but in a city that wished he were dead just months before.
Those reasons for loving last night’s game are all well and good but there was something much deeper going on in the Arizona desert. It was a battle of empires, a colossal fight for retribution between two hegemonic metropolises with stakes at the acme of all stakes. Boston had beaten the Yankees, beaten them handily, doling out a pride-crippling defeat that repercussed throughout the psyches of all citizens of both cities. Had the Giants lost last night, it would have declared New York subjugated by Boston, with the hardware to prove it. While Steve Tisch was holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy, he said that it was for the city of New York, knowing full-well the gravity of the occurrence that had just taken place. He knew that this was about more that an oblong ball, a strikingly handsome (dare I say near-perfect) quarterback, and a scrappy, wild-card team. This Super Bowl was about stating to the entire, God-fearing union of the United States of America that New York will always trump Boston. Do not be fooled, these games that men play are fought for more than titles, more than trophies, more than new Cadillacs - they are a public microcosm of an eternal struggle for dominance between two kingdoms and their loyal subjects. God Bless New York.
