you know, i often feel kind of guilty for being a football fan. sometimes it's a spectacle of pain, and there's delay after delay in the game as they deal with the knee injuries and concussions. but the violence is also a necessary condition for the beauty. i hated to see the saints lose yesterday, and i'm rooting for the city of new orleans. but the saints lost on one of the most intense and beautiful football plays i have ever seen: marshawn lynch of the seahawks running through, over, around virtually every player on the defense, breaking eight or nine tackles. you can't have this in ballet or something; it has to be improvised on the spot to deal with the real extremely volatile situation; and it can only arise in the context wherein everybody is trying to stop, smack, crunch the runner. it's like jazz music in which your body is at stake.