An interesting question, Dan, and one that provokes disagreement among our readers. From my in-box, there’s this: “Dude, you know that roller derby is now, in the ‘modern’ iteration, a big S&M, bondage themed lesbian fest? . . . At least that’s what it is down here in Baltimore.” But also this: “Mr. Potemra — yes, go and see a bout! It’s really a great time. And it’s great family fun. There’s nothing like seeing a great big skater with a name like ‘Princess Slaya’ signing autographs for a star-struck 8-year-old girl who wore her skates to the bout.”

You mentioned both irony and kitsch; maybe roller derby succeeds in working at different levels simultaneously? And, come to think of it, maybe it always did? Quite coincidentally, I was reading yesterday a Franciscan religious tract from 1951 — which is to say, from the era of non-ironic roller derby. The writer observes the decadent culture of his depraved era: “Many a modern newsstand is packed with chapters of crime, pages of passion, paragraphs of paganism, and lines of lust. Some newsstands are more accurately known as lewd stands. Week after week, month after month, the shelves of the devil’s busy printshop are emptied into the hands of American citizens.” Now, ignore the affected alliteration of the purple prose; focus on the fact that this writer was describing the 1950s. (And no, it’s not a parody written by a lapsed Catholic in the 1970s; it’s an authentic relic of the period.) What would that writer have made of the 1951 roller derby? If he considered the copies of Life and Photoplay on display at the street corner a grave threat to American innocence, then surely the hip-crunching spectacle of roller derby must have been even worse? And yet . . . there is in the memories of some of my e-mailers, who remember the old days of roller derby, a sense of its genuine innocence. It’s not out of the question that both perspectives are correct.