Rivendell, and Such ...

I'm feeling like it's somewhere near the end of The Lord of the Rings.  The Shire is safe, as are all the little folk of the world.  Rivendell endures.  A great evil has been smote.  Rent asunder.  Vanquished, as much as evil truly can be vanquished.  And an age of peace and decency and goodness has descended onto the Middle Earth.

I feel this way, of course, because the Huskies of the University of Connecticut managed to kick the asses of John Calipari and his Kentucky Wildcats up one side of the court and down the other on their way to a fourth National Championship.  Proof, I suppose, of a benevolent larger power.

There was an old notion about the Americans in Vietnam.  They came, they blew up a bunch of shit, and then they left.  And the jungle closed behind them as if they'd never been there.  Ditto the French.  Ditto the Chinese.  Etcetera.  With most of Kentucky's freshmen just passing through the obligatory year in college on their way to the NBA, years from now it will have been as if that whole Kentucky team never happened.

Two words in closing:  Shabazz Napier.

Great name.  Sometimes you watch a basketball game and you just have the sense that one guy is operating on a level one notch above the others.  This was the case with Mr. Napier last night.  Particularly in traffic.  God bless the man -- it was a joy to watch.  Even though he's only six feet tall it will be interesting to see how he does in the pros.

There's a great line in A Midsummer's Sex Comedy where the designated hottie -- played by Julie Hagerty, maybe, back when she was hot in a thinking man's sort of way -- beats the college professor at chess.  "You," he says in defeat, "have a keen grasp of spacial dynamics."

Ditto my man Shabazz.