You will first notice, of course, that the Australians have decided to wear Crocs to the biggest and most meaningless spectacle of the decade. Questionable decision there. The Aussie flag bearer also brought along the nation's "colonial nonsense" flag whilst a few of his team members waved mini versions of the far superior green and yellow boxing kangaroo flag. Otherwise, collectively, they looked kind of like the Watercube.
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There are several other observations that I'll make about the opening ceremony (the "walk of nations" part), which I just spent a considerable part of Friday evening watching:
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1) Narrating China's rise to superpower status was Bob Costas, whose thinly veiled disdain for the costumes of inferior nations was highly entertaining. When out walked the Czech delegation--whose sartorial stylings were admittedly Crocs-level bad--Costas' remarks reminded me of Greg Marmalard introducing "Sydney, Clayton, Jugless, and Mohammet" to Pinto back at the Omega House rush party at Faber College.
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2) China put on a hell of a show, but it might have been too good, you know what I mean? They cared a little too much, like the boyfriend that tries too hard and gets dumped for the emotionally distant asshole. When the U.S. hosted the Olympics in '96, we were like, "all of our major cities are busy so--here--you can put your gay little games in Atlanta. They're not doing anything, right?" That's the sort of post-Cold-War superpower arrogance for which Mike Pemulis feels truly wistful and to which China hasn't caught on yet.
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3) Most "talented" team: Sweden, easy, but with Mexico as a surprising second.
Couple of points and/or complaints here though:
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a. NBC's commercial breaks lopped off time from the delegations of Norway and Iceland, who you could see from the quick, post-commercial cutaway shots had some serious talent. This thing was filmed twelve hours before--you can't cut to commercial and then return to where the broadcast was exactly when you left? Makes no sense to me.
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b. Germany's and England's* teams were very disappointing. Brazil had some cuties, as did Italy. As did Australia, despite the outfits. Canada had a lot of white people. I knew they were mostly white; didn't know they were all white. Reminded me of that Coldplay concert I went to with Blackout** back in '06.
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c. The cameras didn't really focus on US talent that much since they were mostly panning over guys like Kobe, LeBron, Phelps etc. They caught Jennie Finch on camera for a minute, but she just doesn't really do it for me, though our President might disagree.
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4) Speaking of the President, did anyone else notice how, whenever they caught him on camera, he kept bouncing his knee up and down, slouching back in his seat, clearly bored and impatient? At one point, he had one of those mini American flags in his right hand, and he kept hitting it against his bouncing knee as he looked at his watch. Laura also had her usual vacant stare going in full force. I don't know who handed W. that little flag, but it was clearly a burden by national delegation #186 when it was near midnight. He can't just throw it on the ground like a bag of peanuts at the ballgame, you know?
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Though wouldn't it have been neat if at one point during the ceremony he thought "fuck this little flag!" and tossed it to the ground right as cameras were panning to him? Our pundits would be talking about it for days--that small inanimate piece of cloth, dye, and wood.
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5) Saychelles, Maldives, two Congos, Surinam--you know what? I don't give a shit. Let's lump these all into a big "minor nations" grab bag delegation and move on. With the exception of:
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6) Monaco, who looked very opulent in their blue sports coats and Hermes ties. "They may not win any medals, but the property values stay high regardless" chimes in Costas.
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7) I thought the U.S. delegation looked smashing in their Polo sport coats, white pants, and derbies. Apparently, we're branding ourselves as a superpower among superpowers, and we're going to be the evil preppy superpower. Billy Zabka in a school with three bullies. Real, specialized multipolority. Also impressed that, unlike every other nation, we didn't feel the need to wave little stick flags around, opting just for the one big one. As if to say, "you nerds know what our flag looks like, now check out my blazer, bitch."
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I also liked how in that central post-walk gathering section, all the foreign athletes came up to get photos with visibly annoyed American basketball players.
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Which leads to my final point:
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8) The flag-bearers of Germany, Russia, Argentina, and even China itself are all basketball players living and working in the United States***, including one very conspicous Asian who plays for my hometown Houston Rockets. So say what you want about imperial ebb, our broken financial system, or a post-American world, we're still the rockstars of the world, even if we have to borrow money to buy our rockstar heroin****.
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*Old joke: what do you call an attractive woman in London? Punchline: a tourist. ROFL?
**Checking in: Blackout
***Nowitski, Kirilenko, Ginobili, and Yao
****A metaphor for cheap credit. Did you get it? Maybe you thought I meant oil. Maybe I shouldn't have explained it.
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