![]() ![]() That is, they are fantasies or anachronisms. HAMMER AND AXE LIGHT UP WORD CLOCK SERIESThere is a vague sense of Thor and his hammer about them, or bloody battles from some HBO series I have never seen-maybe about Vikings or medieval people. They power through, cause damage even if they do not stick with a satisfying chunk and handle-quiver. That is part of what makes them so apparently manly-purposely crude, in the same category of weapon as the cudgel, the mace, the barbed-wire ball bat. Most axes are not made to be used as weapons they are too big and slow. Evidently he stays in shape by hitting a wrecking ball with a sledgehammer and rolling uphill through logs. I think of ads for that new game show, hosted by The Rock, who says the odd, strenuous activities are based on his workout routines. That seems fair, in the age of useless macho. Why axes and why now? Umberto Eco would say it signifies something in the zeitgeist. Off to the left a family of four cheerfully threw their axes and spoke softly between rounds. The women were taller than me and, though powerful, stuck the axes more than their dates did, since they were not trying to kill it. The men were big men and made lumberjack jokes. One of the men set down a case of ice-cold Bud Light. Two couples came in and set up on the lane next to us. Later I realized he never even had us sign the waiver, so here I am with all my toes, like a sucker, instead of a multi-million dollar settlement. The idea, he said, was to get one complete rotation and make the blade strike the wood parallel to its grain, or it would not stick. He said customers usually took five throws to get the range. He demonstrated but failed to stick either with multiple throws, and he stepped over one so it did not hit his shin when it bounced off the wall and floor. Dude showed us the two sizes of axes-a 1.5-pound hatchet and a larger, three-pound, single-blade axe-and said we could throw with one or two hands. HAMMER AND AXE LIGHT UP WORD CLOCK HOW TOMost people miss, and axes clatter off walls, bounce around on the floor, and occasionally poke their blades through the fences.Īrticles on the web often say coaches in these businesses teach you how to throw safely, and then they watch over play. We all silently agreed on lane courtesy and stopped throwing when the neighbors retrieved their axes. I see no reports online of injuries in axe-throwing businesses, but the way tables and chairs were positioned, a sweaty hand could let an axe go on the backswing and clock somebody in the head.Ī section of chain-link fence separated our lane from our neighbors’. Repurposed furniture sat right behind the half-dozen “lanes,” which were shorter and narrower than I expected-maybe 12 feet long and five wide. Inside, two young guys manned the payment desk. An employee was in the parking lot putting splintered planks on a trailer to go to the dump. The cost was $35 per person for 1.5 hours. The one we went to was in a light-industrial area on the edge of town. Axe-throwing is marketed for corporate teambuilding, date nights, wedding-disappointment venues, and-since many are BYOB and most are indoors-as something to do with your buddies while you down a case of Bud Light. Some of these gross more than a million dollars a year, in part due to low-skill staff and no amenities other than plywood lanes, 2×6 wall targets, and a bathroom. Venues opened in Philadelphia and Chicago in 2016 and can be found now in dozens of locations in the United States and abroad. His franchise spun into the United States, where the easily-replicable idea was picked up by others. Throwing axes for fun and profit was the invention of a Toronto bartender and actor who started “the first commercial indoor arena” in 2011. Where the hell is a semiotician when you need one? The self-appointed critics of late-stage capitalism? My family received the gift of axe-throwing at Christmas, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee it was satisfying. ![]()
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