In 1928 the Belgian poet Paul van Ostaijen wrote a…
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In 1928 the Belgian poet Paul van Ostaijen wrote a four-hundred-word grotesque about a football match in which the goalkeeper's head is knocked clean off — and the referee still disallows the goal
I've been rereading my favorite poet Paul van Ostaijen (Belgium, died 1928 at 32) during the World Cup and had forgotten this grotesque (I'll retell it, but you can find the original Dutch here https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_avo001avon02_01/_avo001avon02_01_0003.php?q=Waarachtige%20voetbalkamp#hl1 at the superb secondary literature collection of DBNL.)
A striker shoots and the ball takes the goalkeeper's head clean off his neck. The head comes to rest on the goal line. The body stays upright. In the confusion an attacker knocks the ball from the headless body straight into the net — and 10.000 voices cry «Foul!» The match is suspended. The player is booed off.
What I can't stop turning over is the logic of it: *why* is it a foul? Was it a foul because the head on the ground was not kicked in the net? What was Van Ostaijen trying to say with this tiny (a small 400 words) story?
#entertainment
source
I've been rereading my favorite poet Paul van Ostaijen (Belgium, died 1928 at 32) during the World Cup and had forgotten this grotesque (I'll retell it, but you can find the original Dutch here https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_avo001avon02_01/_avo001avon02_01_0003.php?q=Waarachtige%20voetbalkamp#hl1 at the superb secondary literature collection of DBNL.)
A striker shoots and the ball takes the goalkeeper's head clean off his neck. The head comes to rest on the goal line. The body stays upright. In the confusion an attacker knocks the ball from the headless body straight into the net — and 10.000 voices cry «Foul!» The match is suspended. The player is booed off.
What I can't stop turning over is the logic of it: *why* is it a foul? Was it a foul because the head on the ground was not kicked in the net? What was Van Ostaijen trying to say with this tiny (a small 400 words) story?
#entertainment
source
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