'The Last Cigarette' and 'Hard Knocks': a confession
How to quit the addiction of football (hint: don't)
HARK!
I hear…a whistle signifying "overblown analogy"...
After discovering Italo Svevo, I am now completely comfortable swearing off football–after the preseason.
Those who have the pleasure of discovering Svevo can thank James Joyce; Ettore Schmitz, writing under the pen name Italo Svevo (literally "Italus the Swabian" reflecting his Italian and Serbian upbringing in Trieste), self-published the novels A Life and As a Man Grows Older as a young man in the 1890s, then grew discouraged and gave us his literary dreams, focusing on a business career. When his travels to England necessitated a better grasp of the English language, he hired as a tutor an Irishman struggling to pay bills while launching his own writing career.
After Joyce shared stories that would be published as The Dubliners, Schmitz with apparent shyness shared the two novels he wrote decades previous; Joyce encouraged Schmitz to return to writing, which led to the return of Italo Svevo, who in 1923 published at his own expense Confessions of Zeno. Or, as another translator titled it, Zeno’s Conscience.
While much more must be written of Svevo, here we focus on The Last Cigarette, as he calls the first portion of Confessions of Zeno.
The narrator, Zeno Cosini, here writes of the first and domineering love of his life: smoking.
And, what really drives his life, Zeno’s nearly non-stop pledges to quit.
The comical ways he rationalizes not quitting is most hilariously painted in a stay at a sanatorium; spurred on by the prospect of having to actually work, as the trusted old Olivi who saw to his affairs was planning to quit, and the notion that his own young son deserves to be raised by a “calm and balanced” father who has control over his habit, Zeno quite voluntarily checks in to a facility where medical professionals vow to block any attempt he can make to smoke for several weeks. “Suddenly I discovered I had smoked my last cigarette; and it was not yet midnight but eleven o’clock, an impossible hour for a last cigarette.”
Within a few hours, he bribes his way to a pack–and makes his escape.
Returning home, he is comforted by the news that Olivi changed his mind and will not leave the firm.
“As I fell asleep I thought about what a good thing it is I had left the sanatorium, for now I could cure myself slowly at my leisure. My son, sleeping peacefully next door, was certainly not likely to begin either criticizing me or imitating me for a very long time. There was absolutely no hurry.”
In my nearly six decades, I have puffed as many cigarettes as Zeno–and his creator–inhaled on an average afternoon.
But I have a habit as deeply-rooted and comforting: football.
And to think–I didn’t even realize I had this addiction for years!
One of the great things about being married is the opportunity to learn all sorts of things about yourself. For instance, when I was a newlywed and working in social services with people suffering from a variety of problems, I told my wife how lucky I was not to have any dependencies.
When I asked what her disbelieving chuckle and eye roll meant, she informed me:
“You’re addicted to football.”
Just to prove her wrong, I quit watching football. Like I really needed to watch grown men batter each other in the name of stupid end zone dances, with those idiot announcers spewing cliches (“You just can’t turn over the ball and expect to win!” and demanding to educate me on the cover-two and zone blocking–all in the name of beer and insurance commercials.
Not for me, thank you!
My first attempt–completely voluntary–lasted perhaps a half, or as long as Zeno’s sanatorium stay.
Likewise, my wife’s reaction to that and subsequent last football game failures echoed Mrs. Cosini: When Zeno flees the sanatorium and ends up back at his door in the middle of the night, “my wife made the empty street ring with her laughter…”
Reading Svevo, I understand that the important thing is not to succeed at quitting, but to think about it.
As such, my absolutely last football game will be Aug. 28, when the Detroit Lions–much more on them–visit Pittsburgh, where my addiction took root a half-century ago. That is the last game of the NFL’s preseason, which many so-called fans only casually glance at, if not completely ignore.
For me, preseason–when, we are reminded repeatedly by the bozos with microphones, “It doesn’t matter who wins”--is the best part of the season. Surely, I feel this way in large part because my appetite for football action has been unfairly starved for months; but I also love the newness of the preseason, when unknown rookies battle to make the team.
This brings us to Hard Knocks, the HBO show that brilliantly takes a behind-the-scenes look at one team each training camp season. The show started in 2001, unfailingly mixing macho “battles of the trenches” with tear-to-your-eye moments.
This year’s show began Tuesday night, with cameras and microphones trained on the hapless Lions, coming off another horrible season.
But Hard Knocks makes them look like champions in the making!
Pass the Vince Lombardi Trophy off to them immediately!
Dan Campbell, the young head coach, gets plenty of time as he emotionally preaches (even if his words are as old as Lombardi), pleading with his team to understand he’s only making them beat each other’s brains in because he loves them so dearly.
He proves it, more or less, by matching their up-downs; this is a variation of the dreaded burpees.
Yet making Campbell’s orations sound like a greeting card is Jamaal Williams, a talented running back who, gathering the team for the de rigueur post-practice huddle, bounces back and forth from fury to frustration, climbing to operatic heights.
"When you tired, think of last year and think of that (expletive) record! Every time I get tired or I think I can't go no more, I think of that (expletive) record! Last year wasn't it! That ain't us! We can make it! Have some heart! I get emotional about this, I'm 'bout to cry cause I care about ya'll.” And he does, he cries, he cries!
Sure, it’s fun to see the stud rookie Aidan Hutchinson–picked second in the draft–following in the razz-the-rook tradition of introducing himself to the team, sheepishly giving his signing bonus (“twenty-three million”) and, after a horrible first attempt…crushes it, getting his teammates howling and dancing along to Michael Jackson’s 1983 hit Billie Jean.
But way better was the back and forth between two assistant coaches, one from the offense and one from the defense, who trash-talk their way through a scrimmage; we’re used to coaches ripping up players–but to see them do it to each other is unique and hilarious! Watch them go at it here.
While the Hall of Fame Game (Raiders smashing the Jaguars) officially kicked off the preseason, Tuesday’s Hard Knocks got me revved up for tonight’s action, when the Giants-Patriots and Titans-Ravens knock helmets; sucker that I am, I bought the NFL+ package to watch all the preseason games.
That’s very important, as, clearly, this is...The Last P
reseason.
(That howling in the background isn’t a coyote–it’s my wife, laughing a la Signora Cosini.)