the grief-therapy call: the bug-eyed native under the high-tech
These can’t-miss intervals make superstitious natives out of us all, Hallie. The professional football player’s maybe the worst superstitious native of all the sports. That’s why all the high-tech padding and garish Lycra and complex play-terminology. [...] Because the bug-eyed native’s lurking just under the surface, we know.
Context
Orin's contribution is the athletic body's atavism: the can't-miss interval makes "superstitious natives out of us all," and the more high-tech the sport the worse it is, "all the high-tech padding and garish Lycra and complex play-terminology" a "self-reassuring display" pasted over the "bug-eyed native" the streak calls up. The professional body, for all its engineering, reverts to spear-rattling propitiation the moment it can't miss — the primitive is the substrate the sport's technology never actually buries.