Oh, Those Cunning Sumo Officials

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↵When there’s a huge upset in Sumo tournaments, rowdy Sumo fans chuck the plush, square-shaped cushions they sit on out into the crowd (as seen above) to celebrate the moment, a relatively disorderly and spontaneous activity for the ritualized theater of Sumo. Naturally, this being a highly ritualized and formal sport, the seat cushion-tossing bugs the pants off Sumo officials, who have come up with a brilliant plan to foil cushion-tossing fans at the bashos: ↵↵⇥The threat of injury to spectators means the JSA frowns on the practice. From next month’s Kyushu tournament, single square cushions will be replaced with a 1.25-meter wide rectangular version that seats two people and fits in the 1.35-m square boxes that surround the ring. Every box will contain two of the cushions, which will be tied together to further deter potential miscreants.↵↵Ingenious! Instead of giving spectators just one pillow to throw, they’re actually going to give them two, but make them bigger and heavier, too. But they’ll be tied together! Oh, well, that solves everything, then, as we all know the Japanese, for all their technological brilliance and scientific expertise in the areas of giant robot-building, haven’t figured out how to untie knots yet. They’ll have to outsource the initial knot-tying to India, but in this global economy of ours this kind of thing happens every day.↵