More like the face that lunched a thousand chips!
is this supposed to be a man who portrays a picture of health?
Toward a Kahnsideration of Coach's FaceEsteemed Colleagues,
Though I am forced to draw only from my poor talents, I hazard to say that for Coach there is no distinction between physical fitness and mental fitness. This is what is being conveyed by Coach's face, which only gives us the appearance behind the reality. Does Coach look like he has entertained one chip too many or does he portray a picture of health? If so, we would have to reflect on supporting reasons; if not, we'd have to do the same in opposition. This is the cunning of Coach's teachings, that either in support or opposition to his face, we are forced to reflect on its health, and that this activity is itself a mark of health in ourselves. However, as a first step toward considering these questions, we require a very special sensory and intellectual modality – the capacity to 'see' or better still, to 'read,' which, showing precocity in comparison to his forbears, is a skill Coach was able to perform at the tender age of sixteen and one half.
Coach is often misunderstood. Sure, it's easy to read Coach's face like a reverse
Bildungsroman, in which the protagonist of a novel moves not toward higher and higher awareness of knowledge, but rather to lower and lower levels of ignorance – like a box squat out of which none will stand from an ever-sinking seat. But this would be a careless ‘reading,’ of Coach's face, for he is no ordinary dolt, he's singularly unique. His face reads like that possessed by an uncommon man who happens to be one of the world's top three bearers of commoner sense. Why, consider that by the age of seven, Coach began to construct full sentences, the contents of which were often interpreted as gibberish, but actually served to test the comprehension of lesser minds. "How can he be so
stupido?" thought a young and dissapointed Coach about his special ed. gym instructor, slipping into his thoughts the memory of a word from the old country often expressed at him by his uncle Angelo during family gatherings.
But it is precisely to disabuse others of their cognitive shortcomings that Coach prefers to use a simple vocabulary, though simplicity ought not be seen as lacking complexity. Coach is a multifaceted man, plumpingly so. This is a man who unraveled the mysteries of fourth-grade mathematics while only in junior college! Go ahead and ask him the rules for the operation of fractions and you will be edified to learn that two sets of one-half rep does not only not equal one rep, but also that the multiplier effect produces only one-fourth of hypertrophic efficacy (expressed in the critical literature as a one-quarter Basile or
.25B
kqs).
Dear Gentlemen, I have tried to offer a "reading" of the external contours of Coach's robust face. But as to plumb the depths of what resides behind its appearance, that I must pass over in silence.
With humility,
Kahn