Keeping Parity Great: Breaking Down the Fourth Wall

Submitted by Christopher Keates on Wed, 2017-03-08 11:18

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Parity League

Today, we are going to peel back the veil and engage in some serious introspection. Parity is performance art that we all contribute to, but behind the characters and the jokes and the tropes and the memes and the nicknames and the gimmicks are real people with real emotions and real lives. Our audiences are blessed to be able to watch the elegant performances we put on every week, and our performers are blessed to be able to mingle with and interact with the audience. Audience and actor, seemlessly flowing from field to mezzanine, from heckler to the heckled, from stunning performance to stunned at the majesty unfolding before them.

Part of the fourth wall we are breaking down is the gimmick of parity. We do things on the field that are worth Parity Bucks (tm) and they purport to encompass our value. We are graded by the things we do, or don't do, or try and fail at doing. Perhaps in Parity Hadrian is our valedictorian, and Edwin the guy in the back of the class looking forward to a summer of remedial English? No, the gimmick is just a gimmick, the numbers just numbers, and flawed ones at that. The first to pick up the disk sees the most established, most difficult defense and has to make a difficult play to move the disk, but likely won't be involved in scoring if they do their job well. The clearing cut that makes space for the player who scores has value. Quiet, unassuming shut-down D that forces a handler to throw a difficult throw to a more advantageous match-up for the turnover is priceless.

Let's keep this in mind when we talk about numbers and stats and players and on-field contributions. I often joke about success and failure, but I want you all to know that all of Parity is a stage, and all of us are merely players. We all have our exits and our entrances, and each of us in time will play many parts.

OSCAR WORTHY

Teachable Moments: Our trouper, Maya Popovich. She's on D and beats a woman under to make a great D on the very edge of the field. She could have caught the disk but instead spiked it into the net. The sideline (correctly) yelled, "Catch your Ds!" Everyone laughs. Later, on a huck, Maya sprints to a disk heading for a score to Josee and leaps to make an easy full-handed attempt at the D, macking the disk! To be honest, she looked like she usually does when she's pulling down floaters for points, but for the fact that she didn't close her hand. The disk spins up into the air and floats into Josee's hand for the point. "Catch your Ds!" catcalls the sideline, and everyone laughs... but Maya. Later, in a very similar situation, Maya leaps for a D and catches it, before smiling at the sideline and shouting "I caught it this time you guys!"

Yes you did, Maya. Yes you did.

Not Quite A Lightpole: Justine subbed for Betty White and decided that she wanted to throw the disk out of the field with such height and angle that it knifed around the wires and into Alisha's hands for a point. This is kind of like that time she (almost) bent it around a lightpole for a score. While we all play chess, Justine plays three dimensional chess, 4 moves ahead. This was part of her 10A performance as a sub from our ageless wonder, our very own Dame Judi Dench.

No Hair All Flair: Andre put in a really thoughtful performance this week. He ran a Berkley, caught the disk up-line and then thought long and hard about his next move. Hadrian was striking! 1 stall... Hadrian still striking! 2 stall... Hadrian still striking! 3 stall... Hadrian has started to question if the disk is coming and slown down while his defender has accepted that the strike cut has been closed off. 4 stall... BOOM! Huck! A brief flash of surprise fills Hadrian's eyes before he steps back on the gas and chases down an almost-too-far-but-not-quiet huck that settles just within his reach, just inside the back line of the endzone.

A magical performance by Andre. The deliberate pause, the suspense-building, and the execution of the throw. Mmmmah!

Best Performance: The Oscar for Best Performance by a Parity Player this week goes to La-La-Land! Wait, that can't be right. The wrong award is in this letter! Can someone please get me the correct envelope?

That's better. The Oscar for Best Performance By a Parity Player this week goes to Alisha Zhao, who went off for 7G/5A/2AA/1D. That led the week in goals, tied for 3rd in assists, led for catches and was top 10 for completions. She also played 33 of the game's 40 points, showing that she has staying power. If people haven't been harassing her for autographs yet, they will be next week. I even have a hat for her to sign!

THE RAZZIES

Geofford's Jynx: Stealing a bit from Dr. Tran, apparently Geofford was praising Justine for never getting handblocked mere seconds before she got handblocked by Aleks Ostojic (who is really very good at that). It's almost enough to make me superstitious.

Buddy Comedy: I have it on good authority that Higgins routine this week was particularly slap-stick. He was diving and laying out everywhere to save some crazy throws thrown his way (and in some cases, not his way). It's too bad he couldn't do the same for his own throws: 9 thrown away, and 2 thrown drops. Perhaps Owen is Abbott to Higgons' Costello, Tango to his Cash, and without his partner he just can't perform the way he used to?

Getting Up On That Soap Box: Al Colantonio is a smaller man, but he boxed out Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood who is a much bigger man, and it was pretty funny. Then Edwin Wong did the same to me on a floater. Jessie was pretty disappointed in me, but everyone was pretty pleased with Edwin. In some ways I think that's maximizing happiness, so even I will call it a win.

Inflategate 2.0: The league briefly had a few GMs worried! Player salaries were wrong for a few days. Everyone who thought Hadrian was a 1.2 million dollar man take note! He is only a 1.07 million dollar man. Also, congrats to Hadrian for being the first to break 1 million Parity Bucks in the second session. Spend them wisely.

STATS

Goals: Alisha obviously led the league, and Ashlin wasn't far behind with 6 of her own. But Chris Tran, Tom Newman, Kevin Hughes and Kevin Barford all put up 5 in notable performances. An Tran had a really solid game with 4 goals, which was 40% of her catches. Ashlin Kelly is still far out in front of the rest of the league with 26, but Parity newcomer Marcus is in the top 5, Aggy is 6th (much improved over last session) and Kevin Barford seems to be finding his roll with the Owens on the Lumleysexuals, because he's solidly in 3rd.

Dimes: Justine Price (as a sub) dropped 1 dime, or 10 assists. Jessie Robinson put up 7/10ths of a dime, and Michael O'Hare, Alisha and Brent Burton put up 1/2 of a dime. Ryan Mussell had a remarkable 4 assist game with few throw aways, which was 50% of his completions. Craig Anderson had 4 on zero throw aways. Matthew "Skynes" Schijns had zero goals and 3 assists, which is remarkable when he spends so much time in the end zone. Sina is pacing the league with 20, but Justine is next in line for that crown, and also next in line for that crown as a sub (her 2 game sub-performance is tied for 3rd overall)!

D-Fence: Pacing the league for D's, Al Colonnier and Jonathan Pindur with 5 and 4 respectively. Maya had 3, but as we know should have had 4. Proulx had 3 which I assume were all bids. An also had 2, in a game where she was obviously puttin' in work! Seb Belanger is leading the league in this category which defies logic, but the numbers don't lie (about the fact that he has 10).

Drops: Newman had 2 this week, but I'll assume it's because someone threw him laser flick-blades at his chest that he couldn't catch, as a means of exacting revenge. Krys Kudakiewicz had 2, Wing had 2, and KQ inexplicably had 2 which is a very off game for her. Current league leader overall, Bisang, with Pindur and Rachel close on his heels!

Throwaways: Higgins with 9/2 for 11 is far and away the worst of the week, with the next closest person having 7 (Trevor Ryan with 6/1 for 7). Justine and Al fought for reckless supremacy on 99 Problems but came out tied with 5. Amos and Aleks had 4 and 6 respectively, for a total of 10 between them.

Masterful Performances:

Alisha Zhao's 7/5/2/1 is a truly standout performance.
Andrea Proulx went 2/3/2/3/2, one goal shy of a triple/triple.
Kindha put up 1/1/3/0 in a quiet seeming performance (by the numbers) that included several bids to save errant bail passes, while often picking the disk up to make that difficult first pass.
Tom Newman went 5/1/1/1 which is a bit strange for him because he's a handler.
Will Leckie showed up with a 4/2/1 week.
Owen had a sneaky 0/3/5/1 performance on 20 throws, with Owen 2.0 went 2/1/4/1.
Dr. Tran's 6/2/3/2 night is one of the best he's ever had.
Rob Tyson went 2/0/5/0 for a very deliberate but effective disk moving game.
Josee Guibord, in addition to mentoring Maya in the need for catching D's, also found time for a 2/3/3/0 night.
Maya was a remarkable 2/1/2/3(4) on only 7 catches.
Meagan Doyle's 3/0/3/2 performance came on constantly, relentless under-cuts.
Wynne went for a balanced 2/2/1/1.
Geofford managed to find time to go for 2/1/3/2, probably between breaths as he spent most of the game heckling.
Darlene went for 1/1/2/1 on all of 8 catches and 10 throws.
Julia Laforge has an interesting stat-line making 25 completions and no throw aways but only 9 catches, which tells me she was often the first to pick up the disk and move it against a set D, which is a difficult and thankless job.
Nina Ramic had a 2/1/1/1 game, getting on the score board in every major flashy column.

Special thanks for help with the narratives goes out to Al, Justine, Jessie and Chris Tran whose rhymes I stole from another thread.

Laura Chambers ...

Wed, 2017-03-08 14:21

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I'm taking a ladder...

I'm taking a ladder and climbing over your fourth wall to say that the real winners were 99 problems and Katy Parity for heading to the bar after the game. We sat at two tables: one where we discussed taxes and the other where we discussed appropriate use of the peach and eggplant emojis. You can discuss amongst yourselves who sat at which table.

Justine Price

Wed, 2017-03-08 15:38

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The Oscar goes to....

I hope peeps have clicked on Keates' link for Alisha. Above and beyond, once again, Keates. (Peach and eggplant emojis to you for another stellar post.)

And as it's International Women's Day, it's great to see Alisha represent by kicking ass and taking numbers. Parity numbers.

Alisha Zhao

Wed, 2017-03-08 15:59

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