If I could watch the Olympics from a hammock slung

Summer Anthem: This strikes me as a fun choice for this crowd, since we too are painfully earnest at times, especially when we search for light in the darkness of insanity, and also when our spirits get so downhearted through troubled times. No, we don’t find anything funny about peace, love and understanding, but this tune sure is catchy.

Summer Anthem: Somewhat lighter (but still, don’t all these happy songs have a deliciously melancholy strain underlying them?) from power pop group Zumpano (New Pornographers’ fans will recognize the voice and song stylings of A.C. Newman) the Party Rages On. The 1990s look better and better in retrospect.

I’m just so into the Olympics lately. I have nothing original to say, but here are my stray observations: they’ve renamed the sport Phelpswimming but that was last week and I’m bored with him now, the Jamaicans are so good at running fast, and Shelly Ann Fraser is adorable! she has braces!, I really like synchronized diving because they are doing the exact same movements AT THE SAME TIME which doesn’t seem like an intuitive idea, beach volleyball is the boringest and they play so much of it, also boring? equestrian events whose boringness is tempered only by the crazy top-hats worn by the competitors. I’ve been tearing up at the following: all the (relatively) older women who’ve been so successful this year, the marathon, the video of the marathon swimmer from South Africa who is an amputee, all the hugging, that time that woman tripped over the hurdle, that time that the Americans fumbled the baton pass during relays twice, pretty much any tear-jerker human interest story they throw at me. I’m not upset about any of the stuff that people are always upset at every four years: the completely nationalist coverage of the events, the disproportionate focus on the glamour events or events where Americans might succeed, that gymnastics training is absurd and cruel and unhealthy. Mostly I just can’t get over how satisfying it is to watch arduous and intense – and often inspiring or unprecedented – athleticism from the comfort of a decidedly stationary position, sinking into the couch, maybe with a beer on hand, or at least some chips. Exertion is so delightful to watch from a vantage of complete relaxation. If I could watch the Olympics from a hammock slung between palm trees in the Caribbean, that’d be ideal. (These awes nytimes.com slideshows will have to do.)