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Posted on May 4th, 2007 by Nicole.
Categories: History & Politics, Coming Events.
As many of you are no doubt aware, this weekend will bring two much-awaited bouts: “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. “Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya for the junior middleweight championship and Segolène Royal vs. Nicholas Sarkozy for the French Presidency. Both of these competitions have garnered unusual amounts of attention – the fight between Mayweather and De La Hoya has been anticipated by HBO in a real life Rocky-style 4-part documentary of the two fighters preparing for the showdown; Sports Illustrated has put the two contenders on its cover with the over-hyped caption “The Fight to Save Boxing.”
In France, sports has taken a backseat as the country awaits the results of an election that is likely to change the face of French politics – or, to put it another way, in a time-honored French tradition, politics has become its most popular sport.
The opponents: Segolène Royal, the sauve, crisply articulated Socialist, first woman to have a shot at the French presidency, who unnerves some of her Leftist compariots with tough-on-crime talk and annoys others with her occasionally schoolmarmy tone and Nicholas Sarkozy, the outspoken, slickly ambitious, American-styled economic liberal, reviled by the Left and especially in the “banlieue,” the suburban housing projects where his incendiary remarks are said to have fanned the flames of the 2005 riots.
Regardless of what you think of the candidates, round #2 (Le Débat) is worth watching, and I urge you to take a look at the outtakes on the TF1 site (the television station that broadcast the debate). Even if you don’t understand French, you’ll be able to read the fight language: Royal’s fast and deftly delivered jab, Sarko’s grumbling uppercut.
Let’s face it, these debates are fun to score. The French judges began yesterday, as we might expect, with a sartorial analysis: “In this kind of debate,” notes a journalist for the newspaper Libération, “clothing functions as a kind of armor” and “both candidates chose well.” Le Monde observes that Ségo and Sarko both wore navy blue, “the color of stature.” The artistic director for the fashion designer Sonia Rykiel assesses Royal’s outfit, remarking that “She’s dropped her school-mistress-recently-escaped-from-a-boarding-school look” for something “more studied” and “martial.” And that’s just for the clothes!
Mayweather-De La Hoya will air on Saturday, HBO PayPerView at 9p.m. ET/ 6 p.m. PT (For commentary and background, sure to get you interested, check out No Mas’s coverage. The French Presidential Election will take place on Sunday.
Posted on March 8th, 2007 by Nicole.
Categories: Media & Entertainment, Consumer Products, Arts & Literature, Sports & Health, Humor & Pop Culture.
Their slogan is “The Thrill of Victory and the Ecstasy of Defeat” - how can they not be interesting? The guys over at No Mas have created a very unique sports blog, one that treats sports as a prism for culture at large. As their title indicates, they are boxing-obsessed, and they have a strong retro bent, but in general they seem to be interested in just about any competitive activity that exists outside of the mainstream ESPN penumbra, and any place where sports intersects with the worlds of art or politics or style. From the racist overtones of the J.R. Richard tragedy, to the actual football game at the heart of Frederick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes, to the day in 1958 that Cuban rebels kidnapped Formula One legend Juan Manuel Fangio in Havana, No Mas is presenting on a daily basis an alternative sports history unlike anything else on the internet today.
Founded by former Details editor, Chris Isenberg, No Mas began as an apparel company, one that continues to thrive with a line of t-shirts and gear celebrating the athlete as outsider, outlaw, fallen angel - a.k.a, the ecstatically defeated. Check out this recent interview with C.I. on InquiringMind - and check out some of their product at turntablelab.com.
