Salon Wanderlust | Ice follies

- - - - - - - - - -
T A B L E_T A L K
Riders share their experiences and thoughts on traveling by motorcycle in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk

R E C E N T L Y
Flying away
By Gary Kamiya
Triumph on the slopes -- and parties all night long
(02/19/98)
Scalpers, skiers and cultural schizophrenia
By Cintra Wilson
Our woman in Nagano checks out deluxe slopeside port-o-lets, "child hornet" snacks and other Olympic oddities
(02/19/98)
Cold war
By Gary Kamiya
The Czechs battle the Russians on ice
(02/18/98)
The Christlike and redemptive powers of ice hockey
By Cintra Wilson
Our second Salon correspondent in Nagano reflects on Olympic evolution, personality cults and Russian mafiosi
(02/18/98)
Plastered in Nagano
By Koya Ide
Olympics sponsors' ads are everywhere
(02/17/98)

Browse the
Feature archives

ICE FOLLIES _|_ page 2 of 2

The shuttle bus was concentration campish. Everyone was shoulder-to-shoulder and clearly suffering for the half hour it took to get to the White Ring in Nagano (a name that will probably be changed to the White Elephant when the Olympics are over and nobody knows what to do with an ice rink that holds 25,000 spectators). But it was a big, bright venue with great sight lines, and I couldn't believe I was there. It was like having bribed your way into backstage sports-world Valhalla.
I was especially infused with the delicious poison when they played Debbie Gibson's 1989 hit "Electric Youth" over the loudspeakers. Oh yeah. It set the tone to a T -- little girls backed by big money, contorted into flashy cash cows, complete with laser lights and synthesizers, rhinestones and television.
I was sitting next to some women in pin-covered sweat suits (the pins are another scary phenomenon: All the sponsor companies practically give them out at first, then people frenetically sell and trade them and they leap in value for the rest of the Games. An ugly little Coca-Cola jobby with Olympic rings on it, which was the kind of thing you'd leave in your empty paper cup a few days ago, is now worth $10 or more. People obsessively collect as many of the ghastly little things as their clothes will bear and wear them around like plate-mail). They were from Los Altos, Calif., and they "just loved figure-skating." They were hip to all the nuances, most notably the malignant political rivalry between the international judges, a Cold War whose tensions are made clear through time-warped and biased scoring. "Since Russia broke up into all those little parts and pieces, they all gang up on everybody else. They wouldn't even let there be a Canadian judge this year," clucked the woman next to me scornfully. As paranoid as that might seem, it was obvious that something was going on with the judges, because of the bafflingly low scores given to certain skaters who, it was clear from their faces on the big TV monitor overhead, were savvily prepared to get screwed. France's Surya Bonaly was one of the first of these.
Bonaly is a blazing star, but nobody can see her very clearly against the ice, I guess because she's so black. Bonaly, wearing some fabulous lapis-colored Bob Mackie-type garment made of glass beads, kicked such preposterous amounts of ass she raised the consciousness of the whole stadium. She is Josephine Baker, and should be dragged around topless on her skates by a snow leopard to Perez Prado rhumbas. Her energy is fantastic: She's sexy in a snazzy, retro kind of way. The judges hated her, and gave her marks barely above 5.0. The other clear case of political shoplifting by the judges involved the astonishing Lu Chen, who was like a beautiful Hong Kong movie star doing incredible stunts in a tight red dress, subtly emoting the whole time in a Ginger Rogers kind of way -- a small eye-roll, a little chiffon hip-flounce. She was irresistible, and still got treated like a red-headed stepchild compared to some truly forgettable Russian kippys who could have looked safer on a cereal box. Sophisticated sexual consciousness, even when adorably tempered and retro-lite, louses it all up for the judges, for some reason. They'll find any excuse to shut the girl down who looks comfortably female in the form. For example, some of the girls used great old music, burlesque-y brass numbers from the '30s with oboes and castinets. "Ooh, they'll take points off for that," said the woman next to me. "You can hear that record popping. Sounds like a dirty needle."
No such points were taken off the overwrought, totally digitally remastered, Spielbergian Happy Meal orchestrations accompanying good little girls like Tara Lipinski. Figure skating seems to embrace the ideology of the Grammy Awards: The biggest faceless corporate Uncle Toms are going to get the medals. Artists with personal style need not apply.
There were 28 girls in the program, most of whom were nervous and janky and fell down once or twice, then slunk off to joylessly watch their bad numbers roll up on the screen like people waiting for biopsy results. Nothing is more depressing than seeing a girl in a tiny dress fall on her ass really hard to a gluey George Winstonish New Age piano number. Everybody claps really hard at the end of such a program, because they know the girl wants to eat a bottle of pills.
OK. Tara and Michelle. Both extremely competent skaters. Both experts in exactly the kind of beauty pageant smiling and coloring-inside-the-lines rigid obeisance that the judges love. They both skate really well, particularly Michelle Kwan, who is very pretty and swanlike with her long, skinny arms. Both bore the fuck out of me, really.
Give me Oksana Baiul and her sloppy, drunken blubbering any day over these mechanized, kiss-ass, teen super-chicks. At least she had a soul, even if it was a little dirty.
SALON | Feb. 20, 1998


- - - - - - - - - - T A B L E_T A L K Riders share their experiences and thoughts on traveling by motorcycle in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Flying away By Gary Kamiya Triumph on the slopes -- and parties all night long (02/19/98) Scalpers, skiers and cultural schizophrenia By Cintra Wilson Our woman in Nagano checks out deluxe slopeside port-o-lets, "child hornet" snacks and other Olympic oddities (02/19/98) Cold war By Gary Kamiya The Czechs battle the Russians on ice (02/18/98) The Christlike and redemptive powers of ice hockey By Cintra Wilson Our second Salon correspondent in Nagano reflects on Olympic evolution, personality cults and Russian mafiosi (02/18/98) Plastered in Nagano By Koya Ide Olympics sponsors' ads are everywhere (02/17/98) Browse the Feature archives		ICE FOLLIES _\|_ page 2 of 2 The shuttle bus was concentration campish. Everyone was shoulder-to-shoulder and clearly suffering for the half hour it took to get to the White Ring in Nagano (a name that will probably be changed to the White Elephant when the Olympics are over and nobody knows what to do with an ice rink that holds 25,000 spectators). But it was a big, bright venue with great sight lines, and I couldn't believe I was there. It was like having bribed your way into backstage sports-world Valhalla. I was especially infused with the delicious poison when they played Debbie Gibson's 1989 hit "Electric Youth" over the loudspeakers. Oh yeah. It set the tone to a T -- little girls backed by big money, contorted into flashy cash cows, complete with laser lights and synthesizers, rhinestones and television. I was sitting next to some women in pin-covered sweat suits (the pins are another scary phenomenon: All the sponsor companies practically give them out at first, then people frenetically sell and trade them and they leap in value for the rest of the Games. An ugly little Coca-Cola jobby with Olympic rings on it, which was the kind of thing you'd leave in your empty paper cup a few days ago, is now worth $10 or more. People obsessively collect as many of the ghastly little things as their clothes will bear and wear them around like plate-mail). They were from Los Altos, Calif., and they "just loved figure-skating." They were hip to all the nuances, most notably the malignant political rivalry between the international judges, a Cold War whose tensions are made clear through time-warped and biased scoring. "Since Russia broke up into all those little parts and pieces, they all gang up on everybody else. They wouldn't even let there be a Canadian judge this year," clucked the woman next to me scornfully. As paranoid as that might seem, it was obvious that something was going on with the judges, because of the bafflingly low scores given to certain skaters who, it was clear from their faces on the big TV monitor overhead, were savvily prepared to get screwed. France's Surya Bonaly was one of the first of these. Bonaly is a blazing star, but nobody can see her very clearly against the ice, I guess because she's so black. Bonaly, wearing some fabulous lapis-colored Bob Mackie-type garment made of glass beads, kicked such preposterous amounts of ass she raised the consciousness of the whole stadium. She is Josephine Baker, and should be dragged around topless on her skates by a snow leopard to Perez Prado rhumbas. Her energy is fantastic: She's sexy in a snazzy, retro kind of way. The judges hated her, and gave her marks barely above 5.0. The other clear case of political shoplifting by the judges involved the astonishing Lu Chen, who was like a beautiful Hong Kong movie star doing incredible stunts in a tight red dress, subtly emoting the whole time in a Ginger Rogers kind of way -- a small eye-roll, a little chiffon hip-flounce. She was irresistible, and still got treated like a red-headed stepchild compared to some truly forgettable Russian kippys who could have looked safer on a cereal box. Sophisticated sexual consciousness, even when adorably tempered and retro-lite, louses it all up for the judges, for some reason. They'll find any excuse to shut the girl down who looks comfortably female in the form. For example, some of the girls used great old music, burlesque-y brass numbers from the '30s with oboes and castinets. "Ooh, they'll take points off for that," said the woman next to me. "You can hear that record popping. Sounds like a dirty needle." No such points were taken off the overwrought, totally digitally remastered, Spielbergian Happy Meal orchestrations accompanying good little girls like Tara Lipinski. Figure skating seems to embrace the ideology of the Grammy Awards: The biggest faceless corporate Uncle Toms are going to get the medals. Artists with personal style need not apply. There were 28 girls in the program, most of whom were nervous and janky and fell down once or twice, then slunk off to joylessly watch their bad numbers roll up on the screen like people waiting for biopsy results. Nothing is more depressing than seeing a girl in a tiny dress fall on her ass really hard to a gluey George Winstonish New Age piano number. Everybody claps really hard at the end of such a program, because they know the girl wants to eat a bottle of pills. OK. Tara and Michelle. Both extremely competent skaters. Both experts in exactly the kind of beauty pageant smiling and coloring-inside-the-lines rigid obeisance that the judges love. They both skate really well, particularly Michelle Kwan, who is very pretty and swanlike with her long, skinny arms. Both bore the fuck out of me, really. Give me Oksana Baiul and her sloppy, drunken blubbering any day over these mechanized, kiss-ass, teen super-chicks. At least she had a soul, even if it was a little dirty. SALON \| Feb. 20, 1998