Wheel of Damocles

You may remember that a prediction was made: Lance Armstrong will be indicted on July 22, 2011.  Men and women of power are faced with the constant threat of exposure of the ruse of power.  They are only powerful because we grant them that power.

The legend of Damocles tells the story of a King's courtier and wannabe who tells the King how fortunate he is to live in such opulence. The King offers to trade places with Damocles, but leaves a sword, hanging by a single horse hair, dangling above Damocles' throne as reminder of precariousness of power.

I thought a wheel with a sword edge was a more appropriate image:

Can you name the players? Notice the Landis and Armstrong signatures next to each other on the flag/jersey?

When faced with the dangling sword of honest power, Damocles quickly abandoned his righteous throne and went back to what he did best: glad handing the powerful visitors and patrons (while raising money for cancer research).  I imagine Lance will do the same.

A vast empty space...the mind...the twilight of a career

Lance,

what

is

it

like?

   Escape...South America

Imagine it is your Sunday, 6:30 am, you've just woken up and, with a warm cup in your hand, you stand at the the sliding doorway staring out over the open yard and hills beyond.  The air is still, damp, only the birds are active. The light is low, golden, magical.

    Cassi Yost

This is the magic hour, or as Nestor Almendros notes, maybe only 25 minutes, between the time the sun sets/rises and when it is dark. Malick, of course, has used this technique in all of his films since working Almendros (who was going blind at the time!) on Days of Heaven, including Tree of Life, where there must be 300 magic hour shots, the result of which is a year or more's worth of suspended reality.  Which brings us back to Lance Armstrong, who has been in a suspended reality since hearing a grand jury had been convened about a year ago, and must be asking himself, right now, am I in a dream?

A reality?

A nightmare?

  

                      Oddly Enough                      (now that's watt I call a powermeter-GT represent)

We're all likely to find out soon, likely before this guy succeeds at doing the same thing.

Which brings us to the Wheel of Damocles (tm).  As I see it, LA has about 25 minutes or days or let's just call it July 22, 2011,  when he is indicted.  After all, it is, perhaps, the only news that could upstage this. I have my reasons. What are yours?