Today i struggled with a rather badly written report which needed all of my recently lost (due to a bad bout of general flu) and rediscovered concentration power. The report starts by acknowledging an obviously important question, a question which seems well thought out, and seems answerable, if some proper time is spent on it. Unfortunately, time was short for the researchers, and they, in the first two paragraphs, equate that important question with a much less important question. I would have been happy if they answered at least that question, but they equate that question to something else - and then reproduce some information from another website, and don't even answer the third set of questions.
now, having been made to read, one terrible question worse than the other, listed over and over again and more paraphrased (interesting, but known) information irrelevant to any question, just about makes me head to some solace in some kind of inspired perfection, to remind me, as they say, that "This thing can be done."*
Reading David Foster Wallace write about Federer works fine for me,
"It’s the finals of the 2005 U.S. Open, Federer serving to Andre Agassi early in the fourth set. There’s a medium-long exchange of groundstrokes, one with the distinctive butterfly shape of today’s power-baseline game, Federer and Agassi yanking each other from side to side, each trying to set up the baseline winner...until suddenly Agassi hits a hard heavy cross-court backhand that pulls Federer way out wide to his ad (=left) side, and Federer gets to it but slices the stretch backhand short, a couple feet past the service line, which of course is the sort of thing Agassi dines out on, and as Federer’s scrambling to reverse and get back to center, Agassi’s moving in to take the short ball on the rise, and he smacks it hard right back into the same ad corner, trying to wrong-foot Federer, which in fact he does — Federer’s still near the corner but running toward the centerline, and the ball’s heading to a point behind him now, where he just was, and there’s no time to turn his body around, and Agassi’s following the shot in to the net at an angle from the backhand side...and what Federer now does is somehow instantly reverse thrust and sort of skip backward three or four steps, impossibly fast, to hit a forehand out of his backhand corner, all his weight moving backward, and the forehand is a topspin screamer down the line past Agassi at net, who lunges for it but the ball’s past him, and it flies straight down the sideline and lands exactly in the deuce corner of Agassi’s side, a winner — Federer’s still dancing backward as it lands. 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. "
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* Source for the quote:
In the ninth Test match ever played, the visiting Australians were bowled out for just 63 on a damp Oval pitch in August 1882. England managed 101 in reply, and when the Australians (angered by a disputed runout) made 122 to set the hosts 85 runs to win, the match was considered over. But fast bowler Fred Spofforth summoned up what would become the famous Aussie neversay- die spirit – "This thing can be done," he said – and plundered 7/44 to spur his side to a 7-run win. A hush fell over the ground as England’s first home defeat (and to a colony!) sank in, and it didn't take long for a number of mock obituaries to appear in the press, mourning the death of English cricket, whose “body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. When England next toured Down Under, their captain (Ivo Bligh) promised to “regain the ashes”, and when he was presented with a small terracotta urn containing the ashes of a bail, the legend was born.
2 comments:
I love David Foster Wallace on sport. I'm reading "Infinite Jest" at the moment, which is, in part, an exploration of the "truth" in sport. Also, his essay "how Tracy Austen broke my heat", on sports biographies - how they should be amazing and full of insight into the human condition, but are, in fact incredibly banal - is brilliant too.
I think I got hooked on to Wallace when I read his graduation speech at Kenyon College, which is available online, but allow me to quote the starting paragraphs, further below.
How are you finding Infinite Jest? I am afraid, I suddenly ran out of time and coudn't read it... perhaps I should stick with the essays till I find way out of my banal busy-ness. Will look up the one you mention.
"There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"
If at this moment, you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.
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