Phantom Fields

Narrated 'deed' of an American cyber-writer whose 'claim' of sports-fancy regarding 'magic' treasure-cards draws out a 'chess' ideation of society Ego.

A sports-romance 'superstition' vignette/parable inspired by the 'Americana' themes of the legendary baseball-film Field of Dreams (Kevin Costner). Thanks so much for reading (and Happy Holidays!), 

----

====

I'd become a special fan of sports in the Western-world after moving to the United States from Algeria. My name's Amlan Satan, and I'm a comic book writer and specialized in fortune/capitalism tales and was writing about special 'Captain America' cyber-fanzine tales of blood-diamond 'rogue' terrorism-finance infiltrations before I decided to focus on a special 'theme' regarding post-9/11 era sports-chess IQ for pro-commerce/media spirits surrounding two sports-trade football 'treasure' cards and why they created antiterrorism rhetoric oriented 'patriotic' superstitions and fostered many to post Selfies on social-media to declare their 'unique' love of the cards (including myself!). Follow along!

When I was growing up, I used to collect baseball-cards only, and I was 'foreign' to football-cards and their special if not as celebratory market in the United States. In fact, I boasted a handful of really 'cool' American baseball-cards. I was also developing my love of chess and chess-play and when I got to college had decided to get a special baseball-figurine chess-set/board depicting the iconic Sox-Rivalry in American baseball! When I was learning to play chess, against myself, like a 'human prince' of intelligence-strategy model applications to capitalism-theories (mimicking the play of Fischer-Spassky during the Cold-War, ha!), I thought about the symmetry/diagonal 'magic' of chess and how it'd be applied to sportsmanship  (in general) and to the flowery of sports-IQ fielding (like baseball diamond shape competition motions, wow).

The two cards that generated so much social-media 'buzz' in the post-9/11 era were cool 'Strike-Force' Randall Cunningham post-Eagles career team-transfer 'magic' gems, pro-football spirits cards with the image of Cunningham's post-Eagles transfer to the aspiring Minnesota Vikings for a Super Bowl title that eluded the Eagles-celeb in Philadelphia! The 'Strike-Force' double-set cards are a 'red-edition' original print and a replica double silver-edition, both equally shiny. I myself own the 'original' (red-edition print) now! The Cunningham trade from the Eagles to the Vikings captured all the 'magic' of sports-market transfer-storytelling for late-career Super Bowl ambitions/titles in the United States but also (arguably) why the Vikings had failed in its 'storied-Americana' history to capture its own 'Lombardi' trophy. I began to think-back on the rich stories surrounding that iconic/celeb Viking-QB (Frank Tarkenton) who took 3 mightily aspiring squads to 3 Super Bowls...but lost each one! Randall Cunningham's trade to the Vikings, which generated the 'cool' 1999 Strike-Force (Upper Deck) 'double-set' remains a hallmark therefore to what makes Viking/American pro-football spirits so darn high (and superstitious!).

JOURNAL: Media-coverage of choreographed pro-athletics spirits reflects a Western media-chess investment in capitalism-IQ.

My son Damian likes to recreate some 'cool' Eagles-Vikings matchups on his Play-Station video-game box and thinks of that special 'magic' of the cool Strike-Force Cunningham-QB (Upper Deck) double-set 'treasure' (of which I own that 'original' red-print edition!) which stirs in him a 'fantasy' about potentially 'fantastic' rivalry stands between Philadelphia/Minnesota, two (arguably) iconic US-cities with their own unique place in American culture/storytelling (hmm).

DAMIAN: Eagles have me thinking that this game I'm synthesizing will be a nice 'trophy' of the Viking-lore for Xmas, dad.

So, these two 'Strike-Force' (Upper Deck) treasures began to stir in me some special ideations of sports-treasure/market 'superstitions' and moved me to write a very 'special' story about brothers, veterans of American war, returned home, each claiming one edition or the other (red/silver) and then 'warring' between each other in a drunken-stupor just to argue which edition (red/silver) is the superior one (hmm). In fact, they contended over the mysterious 'chance' that one edition (the one they boasted!) would create 'bad luck' while the other good! My cyber-fans love it (ha).

CRITIC: Mr. Satan 'spins' sportsmanship into a 'magic' mist of superstition-based chess-IQ for capitalism-brains; it's either good or bad (really) for American securities (ha).

I started to wonder if my story would come to life, and that's what this telling is all about, folks. Would those two 'Strike-Force' replica-treasures, the red/silver edition 'double-set' of sports-treasure 'magic' in the United States, really generate the post-9/11 era pro-capitalism spirits-linked 'superstitions' to warrant claims (or even 'dark' beliefs) that one edition might generate 'good' luck and the other 'bad' luck, and if so, what would fans/critics cite as the market-values surrounding how the double-treasures created 'storytime' for the 'chess' concepts of choreographed 'human' race expressions of dangerous mystery?

I decided to visit a cemetery and take photos and journal-notes about how I 'felt-inside' about holding my print-copy of the Strike-Force double-set, the 'original' red-print edition, in my hands, and if I started to get some kind of 'superstition'-feeling that the edition I possessed, in my hands, would bring me 'good' luck...and that the other edition (had I 'chose' to buy/keep that silver-edition print!) would (somehow/mysteriously) afford me 'bad' luck! I wondered suddenly, with goosebumps, if my red-edition print was somehow 'better' for my son (Damian) when he got older than the silver-edition replica print in the (Upper Deck) double-set (wow).

JOURNAL: Fortune for the Western man is about conceptions of confronted 'darkness' through chess-lenses of ambitions.

DAMIAN: Dad, check out my cool Cowboys-Indians diorama figurine-set, I got from school; reminds me of American chess!

ME: Yeah, you're correct, Damian; the development of Cowboys-Indians relations in America was a 'dark' chess-IQ (wow).

I decided to get Damian a special Peter Pan book and encouraged him to flip through the story/imagery and think about that deep 'quality' of human race ambition and daydreams about escape/conquest and why, when he'd inherit my 'original' red-edition print of that 'cool' Strike-Force Cunningham-QB team-transfer Super Bowl symbolic football-card, he'd be 'moved' to think fondly of the 'innocence' of Western-world fancy...and not the 'darkness' of ambition-complexity of youth-driven images of 'pure' capitalism (wow).

DAMIAN: Peter-Pan; everyone's heard of him, dad; thanks for this Xmas-gift; can't wait till you give me that Strike-Force card.

For this age of social-media choreography-linked magazine-culture 'chess-ideations' of capitalism-ambitions in the post-9/11 era, we might think of why media-world 'characters' (movie-stars, producers, documentarians, journalists, or even cyber-writers like me!) would re-present a Western/American 'sensibility' regarding the 'quality' of the Ego (wow).

DAMIAN: You're like a 'cyber-celebrity' dad with this Strike-Force 'superstition'-tale, but I know it'll bring me 'good' luck, dad!

I'm glad I wrote that story, for my fans/readers/Damian. However, I hope I taught my son the right 'values' behind the 'spiritual possession' of sports treasure. In fact, I hope the 'red-edition' print will (indeed!) bring him 'good' luck; after all, I played chess as a youngster, when I was his age, specifically to 'dream' of what makes our human race so 'incompletely'...diagonal (ha).

THE END

====

"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)