The September 2016 issue of The Atlantic (page 20) has a vignette about "Canada's ax-hurling renaissance": Backyard Axe Throwing Leagues. Besides the obvious genetic attraction I experienced reading the article, I was struck by the League's founder's description of its mission: "to show people the power of being good to each other, using the axe as a tool to build community inspired by our backyard roots."
"The power of being good to each other." I'm a fan of that. Ditto for building community.
Reading further into the article, however, I noticed a theme in the monikers and terminology used by this community. Ax-hurler nicknames seemed to run along the lines of "Arm" and "Killface." The attraction of ax-hurling amounted to "murdering a wood target for an hour" for catharsis. Montreal's Rage Axe Throwing "promises a violently good time."
Be good to each other . . . by venting rage and murder. Strange.
Perhaps these contradictory descriptions arise from ax-hurling's origins in an inarticulate "primal man," honored in the League's oath: "Remember primal man / who only had his hands / who forged in fire and steel / the tools to kill his meal." "Primal man" here refers back to the inspiration for the oath, Conan the Barbarian.
God help us if our model for community is the golden age of Conan.
And, while I'm wondering on this phenomenon: What does "our backyard roots" mean?
~ emrys
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