Beyond The Western Door: The Oldest Sport

For humans, the oldest and strongest sport is fear, and the oldest and strongest fear is Sports of the Unknown. That is, the sports that you don’t know you are playing. Ancient practices. Like lying, and epic fantasy, grifting and childlike wonderment. The queasy realization that you have been playing a sport unwittingly this whole time unites us across time. The most ancient sport of all, the one you don’t know you are playing. Smelling salts were invented in the 13th century. You thought you were rescuing your family from a burning building, but it was actually just a bunch of sport for a whole other class of people, peering at you.

We go Beyond the Western Door again, opening and closing the rat king of doors at the end of 2022, we hear echos of the cockroach essay at the bottom of a soggy dungeon, of a cute grifter lost in a sea of molten diamonds, of the many middle places we can become trapped in, and the ways we can be with you, everywhere.