for just two hundred dollars a year

[walkingshadow]

remember back in march of 2005 when i read david foster wallace's essay on tennis in a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again, and after posting excerpts of his fascinating portraits of macenroe, agassi, courier, et al., i said i dearly wanted to know what he would have to say about roger federer? i just found a piece he wrote back in august for "play" magazine in the new york times, entitled federer as religious experience, and it is *almost* as awed and rapturous and effusive as i myself feel when i watch him play:

And there's that familiar little second of shocked silence from the New York crowd before it erupts, and John McEnroe with his color man's headset on TV says (mostly to himself, it sounds like), "How do you hit a winner from that position?" And he's right: given Agassi's position and world-class quickness, Federer had to send that ball down a two-inch pipe of space in order to pass him, which he did, moving backwards, with no setup time and none of his weight behind the shot. It was impossible. It was like something out of "The Matrix." I don't know what-all sounds were involved, but my spouse says she hurried in and there was popcorn all over the couch and I was down on one knee and my eyeballs looked like novelty-shop eyeballs.

i found the article on the del.icio.us main page. social bookmarking is AWESOME. i think everyone will be on internet in the future.

Comments

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

I found that piece on Federer the week it was published, and had to print it out for posterity. Tennis! Yay!

What was the book with Wallace's other essays? I might have to try to find a copy.

[walkingshadow.livejournal.com]

i feel like i should print out that article and hand out copies to people. THIS IS WHY, i would tell them.

a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again (http://www.amazon.com/Supposedly-Fun-Thing-Never-Again/dp/0316925284/sr=8-1/qid=1165677364/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-3758451-7992957?ie=UTF8&s=books) is a collection of his essays, and they're on topics including 1) growing up in the midwest and playing competitive juniors tennis, 2) television, 3) david lynch, 4) the men's pro tennis tour (abovementioned), 5) a caribbean cruise (the title essay, which clocks in at around a hundred pages with 137 footnotes), etc. in the past i've compared him to dave eggers, in approach if not in style: the introspective young white literary male endlessly and obsessively analyzing the world, himself, his relationship to that world, how others relate to that world and thus to him, etc., etc., ad infinitum, but that is not necessarily a *bad* thing, and i recommend him! i've certainly enjoyed what i've read of his, though i keep forgetting to round up a copy of infinite jest.

in short: tennis!! :D

[sarahq.livejournal.com]

Thanks for mentioning this article! Though I know little of tennis, I know it's captivating to watch, and have always wondered why it gets short shrift on television. I enjoyed Wallace's writing style so much that I stopped by the Borders this weekend and picked up A Supposedly Fun Thing and am enjoying it greatly.

(He's got a second set of essays out, but it was in hardback and thus a bit above my usual book budget.)

[walkingshadow.livejournal.com]

i think it gets short shrift on television because americans in general do not know or care about tennis—especially in comparison to the obsessive and rabid devotion to, in turn, baseball, football, and basketball, and especially now that top american players are thin on the ground and the rivalries (e.g. sampras-agassi) have all dried up. that said, the networks do faithfully air the second weekend (semi-final and final rounds) of the grand slam tournaments (and since 2001, the women's final of the U.S. open has been played and aired live in prime time), and on slow sundays may even pick up another major final (key biscayne, indian wells, etc.); and ESPN/ESPN2 or USA etc. always has coverage of the entire tournament—which, in their defense, is an awful lot of tennis to give over programming time to. so it's there to watch, but i don't think it'll ever get the kind of support the other big three do.

but i will always watch it! and try to rope the people around me into watching it as well! i love it, and i love no player more than roger federer. wallace's essay really is no exaggeration of anything. i'm glad you like a supposedly fun thing! i found some of the essays dense going (e.g. the one on television), but very rewarding. and i adore footnotes. :) i keep meaning to check out his new essays, or his novel infinite jest, but i've yet to manage it.