THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF AMERICAN FOOTBALL AS ENTHUSIASTICALLY EXPLAINED BY BILLY MULLANEY
"The Agony and the Ecstasy of American Football as Enthusiastically Explained by Billy Mullaney" is an improvised dialogue where I frantically attempt explaining the interconnected and often abstruse rules and culture of American football to a new guest for every performance, who asks questions and drinks wine on the couch.
Perhaps less about football and more about the aesthetics of languages and knowledges, TAATEOAFAEEBBM is my latest dispatch from ongoing research into gushing as a contemporary mode of verbal address. The intensity emerges from a strain to verbally convey physical action despite a density of technical jargon, often at odds with the speaker's high levels of enthusiasm. I do this with no visual aides in order to emphasize the absurdity of the text, and indicate to the audience (and guest) that the goal is not primarily to reach a full understanding let alone enjoyment of the sport.
I approach this task as a probably-always-already-failed attempt at bellowing across cultural divides, certainly between so-called American football and conventional football, between US and non-US mass media consumption contexts, and also across an ironically-seemingly-universal divide between "arts people" and "sports people". I also make guac for everyone.
Perhaps less about football and more about the aesthetics of languages and knowledges, TAATEOAFAEEBBM is my latest dispatch from ongoing research into gushing as a contemporary mode of verbal address. The intensity emerges from a strain to verbally convey physical action despite a density of technical jargon, often at odds with the speaker's high levels of enthusiasm. I do this with no visual aides in order to emphasize the absurdity of the text, and indicate to the audience (and guest) that the goal is not primarily to reach a full understanding let alone enjoyment of the sport.
I approach this task as a probably-always-already-failed attempt at bellowing across cultural divides, certainly between so-called American football and conventional football, between US and non-US mass media consumption contexts, and also across an ironically-seemingly-universal divide between "arts people" and "sports people". I also make guac for everyone.
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Announcement from TILT's "Autumn Salon Spectacular" series, 2025