The Four Of Cups – “Please, Sir, can I have no more.”
Four of Cups: Weariness, disgust, aversion, imaginary vexations, as if the wine of this world had caused satiety only; another wine, as if a fairy gift, is now offered the wastrel, but he sees no consolation therein. This is also a card of blended pleasure. Contrarieties.
Four Of Cups
I'm constantly amazed by the card my iPad Tarot App spits up for me when I finally find the nerve to update this new Arsenal blog of mine. (By the way – in the event that you're a Gunner who has clicked on a link to this post from a trusted Twitter source – don't fret: you haven't accidentally stumbled on some vacuously whimsical Dark Arts weblog!)
Despite a carefully considered warning from the fantastically talented @arse2mouse – I have decided to plough on (rewardless) with the crazy idea of allowing a Tarot deck to dictate my invinciblog subject matter… Like sex, it was slightly daunting at first. But now I'm getting the hang of it, and starting to have fun with the new positions I'm presented. (Perhaps this blog would be more aptly called Crouching Gooner, Hidden Tarot!)
Apparently good sex involves a fair amount of extra-sensory perception. 😉 Knowing when to put this there – without being asked; when to slow down, speed up, or just keep very, very still. (Come to think of it: a successful footballing attack is similar… perhaps Poldi and Giroud need to get jiggy with each other?)
There seems to be an inordinate amount of synchronicity between me and my Tarot. Which is surprising, considering I'm a flesh-and-blood, die-hard Gooner, and my Tarot App is a digitized version of a glorified set of playing cards. Or maybe Alistair Crowley is directing proceedings from some satanic ethereal realm. I read somewhere that he was a big Arsenal fan. Probably on Wikipedia. So it must be true.
Hopefully you'll see what I mean as I introduce the Four Of Cups:
“Weariness…”
If there's one thing that the transfer season is guaranteed to make you feel, it's weary. The continual onslaught of vague conjecture and outright lying, with the occasional fact thrown in just to confuse matters, (and all in less than 140 characters!) causes a sensory overload that eventually leads to fried brain and fried emotions. It had me searching Google for “DIY Twitterectomy”…
In the Tarot card image above you'll observe there are 3 cups on the ground before a young Arsene Wenger. A distinctly Terry Gilliam-ish heavenly forearm is offering him a fourth, but, arms crossed, he's having none of it. Could Podolski, Giroud and Cazorla be in those cups? If so – who's in the fourth? Surely not that 17 year old Macedonian goalie? We'll never know. One thing for sure, though: our piggy bank's full.
Hopefully we find something sweet to spend it on in January. To cement our position at the top of the league table.
“..disgust…”
Sunday was a fantastic day. Beating Liverpool at Anfield is always a good day. But having two of our three new signings open our goal-scoring account, after two 0-0 draws, whilst keeping a third consecutive clean sheet for the first time in Peter Hill-Woods lifetime – that makes it a day to remember. All the transfer season weariness was washed away by the sheer joy on the faces of Podolski and Carzola. A goal for Giroud (who had a couple of decent chances) would have been too good to be true. A fairy tale.
After the final whistle blew, I should have gone out and got drunk. Or laid. Or one, then the other.
Instead I decided to watch Southampton take on the Death Star. Which was all perfectly fine. Right up until the moment Penis Over Brain duffed his penalty. Southampton, newly promoted, beating the league giants. Glorious.
And then the impossible happened. A POB hat-trick. Alex Ferguson triple-tasking: bouncing up and down, red nose shining, jaws masticating. Only one word comes to mind. (Thankyou, Tarot).
Disgust.
“…aversion, imaginary fixations…”
I must say – I'm not too fond of the endless post-mortems that accompany being a football fan. Everything is analysed, dissected – with borderline psychopathic obsession: a million forensic experts appear (especially on Twitter) to tell you what happened, why it happened, why it'll (never) happen again, and why Wenger/Money/Almunia are to blame. I'm as guilty as the next person. In fact, I suppose that's what I'm doing right now.
It reminds me of the definition of a professor: “Someone who studies more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.”
I wish things were different, that I was the one donning the Red and White of Arsenal – throwing myself on the line, week in week out, doing my gladiatorial footballing best – then speeding home to the wife, putting my feet up and watching Downton Abbey. (Or whatever it is our players do when they're not playing).
But I'm not. I'm a supporter, and a supporter's job is never done. The game might be over, but there's our opponent's misery to revel in, our owners to curse, our tactics to criticise and our sooth to say. Like poor FBI interns listening in to a brazillion inane phone calls in the hope of snagging a terrorist, we scour the Twitterverse, the blogs, the mainstream media for that jewel, that tool that will scratch the unreachable itch.
It's human nature. The search for meaning. Our fanaticism makes us borderline crazy. We're riding the tiger and we can't get off. Monkey mind. For example: I don't want to think about the traitor who shoved a dagger into my heart by rejecting my beloved Club. (And me, with it). But here I go again…
I wish I could remember the real truth. Perhaps I should tattoo it all over me like that guy in Memento. That what's done is done. This is all there is. The rest is fantasy.
You win some, you lose some. It all gets ironed out in the Great Wash. The peaks and valleys that have us flying and sighing, eventually look like Kansas in the rear-view mirror.
Apparently the Four Of Cups is a “card of blended pleasure. Contrarities…”
Much like being a Gooner.
—
I'd like to give a quick shout out to the amazing Arsenal community for their support and encouragement in this new endeavour. Particularly @arse2mouse, @hamburgooner, @PoznanInMyPants, @goonerdave66, @thedanielcowan, @Yogis_Warrior, @MrSpruce1 and the countless other Gooners who have given me such amazing feedback. I'm so glad I support this club!
Follow Batmandela and Invinciblog onTwitter: @AFC_Invincibles
2 responses to “The Four Of Cups – “Please, Sir, can I have no more.””
Leave a Reply
GnL says: Just keeps getting better and better BM
[…] What amazed me was the fact that I drew the Four Of Cups at the beginning of the season. The transfer window had, as usual, done its damndest to suck the life out of me. It all seemed so frantic and hopeless. We'd beaten Liverpool, but we'd lost van Persie. We were holding out for one last great (fourth) signing, but it turned out to be some 19-year-old goalkeeper whose name I still don't know. You can read that blog here. […]
Leave a Reply
Just keeps getting better and better BM
[…] What amazed me was the fact that I drew the Four Of Cups at the beginning of the season. The transfer window had, as usual, done its damndest to suck the life out of me. It all seemed so frantic and hopeless. We'd beaten Liverpool, but we'd lost van Persie. We were holding out for one last great (fourth) signing, but it turned out to be some 19-year-old goalkeeper whose name I still don't know. You can read that blog here. […]