something about "Paper Lion" by George Plimpton

George Plimpton was an American journalist and writer. Paper Lion describes his experience in 1963 joining the training camp of the Detroit Lions, a National Football League team. Plimpton, 36 years old at the time and not an athlete, tried out to be the team's third-string quarterback. Paper Lion expands on a two-part piece Plimpton wrote for Sports Illustrated in September 1964.

The book, published in 1966, is a widely read example of Plimpton's "participatory journalism." It followed up on a similar project, Out of My League, in which Plimpton participated in an American professional baseball all-star exhibition game. These books attempt to ask, How would the average man do in competition with professional athletes?

What comes off to me, though, is one guy who, for reasons probably having a lot to do with class, spends a lot of time among people he cannot relate to. And the prose is a language time capsule.

Overall, Paper Lion was fine. But I think the book would have worked just as well at half the length.

Note: Plimpton is the tall guy in the photo. Paper Lion was made into a movie, released in 1968 as a sports comedy, starring Alan Alda as Plimpton. Have not seen it.

The Animals perform "The House of the Rising Sun"

  -The Animals

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one
My mother was a tailor
Sewed my new blue jeans
My father was a gamblin' man
Down in New Orleans
Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and trunk
And the only time he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk
Oh mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun
Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train
I'm goin' back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain
Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one