Parody

...At that very moment, 2,000 miles to the_west as the web-footed warbler flies, a hulking figure sank his firm and rocklike incisors into the ear of the reigning champion of heavyweight boxing...

...The mind is jarred by such contrasts-between the gentility of my Long Island milieu and the manly gore of boxing's shameful fury...

...ROSENBLATT: The other night I watched as a wood thrush flicked his erth graceful precision at a passing mirmcw mite moonlight's graceful glimmer across a Southampton inlet...

...And yet my thoughts are drawn again and again to such opposites because 1 am an essayist of quiet sensitivity, and the mirage of cunning contrasts serves to fog the essential vaporousness of my runaway proseAnd yet my words flow on, burbling with boring eloquence, rippling over your ears like a dulcet song of genteel soundlessness, and 1 sense you nodding at my commentary with sweet self-approval- We are worthy, you and I-and having dozed through the roundtable discussion on telecom reform we can finish our hour of edification with my own humble offering, secure in the knowledge that we shall both forget everything I say the second it passes - through our ears, and all that will be left wiU be the polite aroma of civilized discourse...

...But Evander Holyfield, who is the alleged subject of this tergiversation will have to cock his head leftward to hear the effervescence of my observations, as his right lobe languishes in its sad diminution- Yet, upon reflec" tion,'who are we to cast blame on Michael Tys°n, the man, once champion "ho says he "snapped" in the midst of that confrontation, presumably upon realizing that his name lacked the mellifluous grace of his opponent's, EV^ito-I myself have snapped under similar circumstances, weighted down by the vulgarization of discourse, the guilt that subsumes aU of us associatid w^li the American colossus, and during fund-raising weeks- On such occasiong r have snapped off the heads of asparagus with vigor sufficient to endanger my dental work...

...And above us all< Evander and Mike- you and I' Gergen and Shields and Gigot, the wood thrush soars in winged testamynI to the truth that this, even this, this too, like every other commentary I deliver, shall pass-LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: July 3, 1997...

...Copyright 1997 MacNeil/Lehrer Productions The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer July 1, 1997, Tuesday, Tues day 85 Transcript #5849 LEHRER: And now we go to our essayist Roger Rosenblatt, who has been meditating on the deeper meanings of the Tyson-Holyfield boxing match and its aftermath...

...For there is a beast in all of us, a rage at the impersonality of postindustrial society...