Ligotti and professional cycling...

[MadsPLP]

I seriously don't know where to put this, but "off topic" seems by far to be the most fitting subforum for this.

A friend of mine who is both an enthusiast of Ligotti and of professional cycling made this juxtaposition of 'Nobody is Anybody' with images from the Tour de France about the rivalry of Raymond Poulidor and Jacques Anquetil, two professional road racing cyclist whose rivalry signified different versions of France in the erly 1960'ies. The accompanying texts explain this a lot better than I do.

For some reason, I find this strangely compelling to watch and listen to.

Raymond Poulidor - Nobody is anybody (Thomas Ligotti) - YouTube

[BabylonFell]

I seem to remember an interview in which Thomas Ligotti mentioned that he considers golf a metaphor for human life because the golfers are doomed to play by themselves even if they are playing side by side. I know this is somewhat of a joke, but I have to think that Mr. Ligotti has little to no passion for professional cycling when making such comparison. The following comparison will appear to be slightly constructed to fit its purpose, and so it is. But since we're all waiting for the sun to set, let's waste some minutes on this thought experiment: If only one type of sport could serve as a metaphor for human life as perceived by Thomas Ligotti, professional cycling would take first prize.

I will focus on the Tour de France only in this example. The inhumane aspects of professional cycling have been softened over time, the sport has been streamlined and normalised. The Tour de France is more guilty of this than other races, but historically speaking there's no doubt that the French tour has been the most bizarre and inhumane sideshow in the carnival of cycling.

If there were ever a Great Old One of cycling, it would have been Henri Desgrange, founder and organiser of the Tour de France from 1903 until his death in 1940. But Desgrange was no Great Old One. He was no God. He was merely a man who had the opportunity to create and run a deranged theme park of cyclists. Which is exactly what he did. He, and only he, made the rules and pulled the strings. The Great Old Ones are characterized by a complete and utter indifference towards human life. Assuming this is true, they wouldn't have had much in common with Desgrange, really. He held a position of pure malevolence. He wanted to discover the exact amount of mental and physical torture he could impose on his human puppets. And when I he found out, he wanted to push them well beyond. Desgrange proclaimed on a number of occasions that he would not be happy with his creation until he had created an experience so gruesome that only one rider would be able to physically and mentally endure it. To achieve this objective, he implemented a number of arbitrary and nonsensical rules and additions to the game; he shunned any technological advancement that would benefit the riders (most notably lighter frames and variable gearing), tried to convince the riders that hydration would hinder their performances, planned ridiculously long stages and, of course, included a number of mountains to the route whose gravelled roads would have been deemed impossible to overcome by any well meaning observer.

Desgrange both succeeded and failed in reaching his goal. He would never create a game so gruelling that only one rider would make it to Paris, but the game would become so crippling that no human being would be able to endure it without relying heavily on a mixture of medications. And even potentially (and occasionally) lethal doses of drugs wouldn't prevent the game from being an unbearable nightmare for every participant (most of whom signed up for the sole purpose of providing the occasional meal for their families and all of whom were conditioned to overlook the unbearable reality of the creation in which they were caught). All of this is most famously expressed by the words of Octave Lapize and actions of René Pottier.

When Octave Lapize crested the summit of Col de Tourmalet in 1910 as the first rider to ever do so, he pulled over to the side of the road to face Desgrange and course director Geo Lefèvre and yelled: "Vous êtes des assassins!". They would add more mountains the following year.
René Pottier was known for his joyless, introvert nature. A condition that would turn into insanity and heavy depression during his participations. He won the Tour in 1906, went home, placed his bike in the garage and proceeded to hang himself from the hook that usually carried his bike.

More fitting than golf, no?

[gveranon]

The Passion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race
by Alfred Jarry