The Champ

The Nathan's hot dog-eating contest is disgusting. It's a vile and wasteful and gluttonous display.

But it's also lovely. It shows us who we are: a people who are fascinated by displays of consumption and excess. A people of abundance. A people curious about the grotesque and carnivorous dimensions of a real, live spectacle.

In a nice New York Times story from Tuesday, the authors Michael Grynbaum and Mike Richard wrote:

“I think it represents actually, well, America — what New York is. It’s something you expect from a city like this.” That, on Tuesday, was from Benjamin Pronk, 19, a tourist from the Netherlands.... The contest combines tradition, competition, showmanship and excess; in essence, so much of what makes this city great.

Public rituals are not beautiful. There is often an ugliness--a crassness or cruelty to them. They are a celebration of us--they are democratic, populist.

But anytime you can get a good eyeful of yourself in the mirror, this has to be a good thing. You see your own genetic material--the cultural stock from which you are drawn. And if you don't like what you see, you better figure out how to deal with it--it is the Jungian shadow of the self.

I suppose this is why Coney Island was sooo good for me yesterday. I reveled in the America that I left behind when I came to the east coast so many years ago. I remembered the jingoistic displays of patriotic pride, the parade down main street, the worship of the flag, the militarism, and the unreal consumption of meat and sweets.

This is the America I left in search of "enlightenment." So far, I've yet to find enlightenment. But I have found that I enjoy a good spectacle.