September 8, 2010 The Culture Diaries A Week in Culture: Jesse Moss, Filmmaker By Jesse Moss DAY ONE, Solomon Islands I’m on a flight from Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, to Brisbane, going home after a week long shoot for the World Health Organization. I’m finishing James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific, which my mother gave me just before I left. It’s a surprisingly good companion, and I return to it every night in my hotel room. On the nightstand next to me is an industrial sized can of Raid bug-spray that comes complimentary with every room in the hotel. They’ve just had elections here, and downstairs by the hotel pool, local pols are as plentiful as the bugs, drinking SolBeer and plotting the political future of the country. A storm came through the night before, and when I stepped out on my balcony in the morning, I could see, for the first time, an island in the distance. It’s Tulaghi. And the body of water that separates us is called Iron Bottom Sound. It’s the gravesite of a huge number of American and Japanese warships. My wife’s grandfather was in the First Marine Division when they fought here, on Guadalcanal, in 1943. So I feel a strange and distant personal connection to the place. Filming in the jungle, I see a man with a machete on a forty-foot pole. Jesus Christ. He’s cutting Betel Nut, and chewing it. He smiles at me, a mouthful of stained red teeth. I’m reminded of Michener’s Bloody Mary. I stand under the tree with my camera and pray a betel nut doesn’t fall on my head. Michener’s book was the basis for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, which I’ve never seen. I ask my colleague Elsie, a native islander, where Bali H’ai is and she gives me a blank look. I feel like a fool for asking. I stare at the map of the island chain in her office, hoping it will materialize magically, like Tulaghi, while a mechanic tries to repair our rental car. Later, while photographing the boat harbor in Honiara, I suppress a strong urge to book one-way passage on a local freighter to the remote islands of the Western Province. Read More
September 7, 2010 In Memoriam Frank Kermode (1919-2010) By Elisabeth Sifton The writer and critic Frank Kermode, who died last month at the age of 91, was, for the many colleagues and readers who loved and admired him in America and England, sui generis. Over more than sixty years, in more than fifty books and hundreds—no, thousands—of vigorous, elegant review articles, not to mention his classes and lectures, we came to know his never-failing equipoise; his stupendous literary, scholastic and philosophical learning; and a precision and lightness of touch that gave even his most difficult work an aura of grace. What was he up to? He was much more than a professor of literature, as his label described him, however high-minded and admirable that profession may be. For one thing, he disregarded the usual boundaries, teaching and writing about literature from the Renaissance to the present day—dramas, novels, histories, letters, scriptures, poetry. He analyzed the way criticism of various genres evolved, how readers and writers treated novelty or adhered to tradition; he instructed us on the many strategies developed for trying to understand what writers of this poem or that narrative meant to say—wie es eigentlich gemeint, to paraphrase the great Ranke. And he gave us unforced judgments on the greatest literary works ancient and modern, whose breathtaking splendors, which he clearly loved, he taught us to comprehend. Where did this amazing person come from? Who was he? In a fine memoir composed in his seventies, Not Entitled, Kermode wrote about his childhood in Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man, where his father was a grocery clerk and his mother a café waitress. It’s all there in his early years, of course, or a lot of it—the mother with no parents, no family, no past, but with a rich sense of language, both Manx and English, along with a practiced, lively social style that was deferential to strangers yet easy with them, to whom Frank owed, as he put it, not only his “early training in politeness and motiveless civility” but also the “association of gaiety with terror, giggling with desolation”; the father, well-liked, very hardworking, strong, hot-tempered yet anxious, whose characteristic “patient good humour” was eventually destroyed by “disappointment, hard labour and diabetes.” And then there was their oblique, many-layered awareness of England as a foreign governing power, and their attachment to the Anglican Church, which conveniently signaled that the Kermodes were not, in the Manx world, either low-born “dissenters” or, worse, Irish Catholic. These were parents who didn’t quite know what to do with their mysteriously gifted though clumsy and short-sighted son, except to complain about him (his father) or push him to try harder (his mother). If nothing else, they taught Frank “what it meant to work, however unseasonably, however against the grain.” Read More
September 6, 2010 On Sports Double Fault By Louisa Thomas There are doubles matches being played in the U.S. Open. By good players. A trophy will be awarded. And no one seems to care. On The New York Times tennis blog, Times Magazine editor Gerry Marzorati asked the art critic Michael Kimmelman why that is. Kimmelman suggested that tennis is “aspirational.” Many tennis fans—recreational doubles players themselves—are the kind of people who live in “modest homes and cook modest meals” but read Architectural Digest and study sous vide cuisine. They grew up dreaming of being the best, and the best play singles. “Doubles reminds them that they’re no longer young, that life can be disappointing, that not all dreams come true, and that not anything is possible,” Kimmelman wrote. “Well, maybe that’s a little too Dostoeyevskian, but you get the point.” Well. Of course tennis is aspirational; most sports are. But the “modest home” theory seems a little weak (especially considering the stratospheric prices of Open tickets!). I suspect that the real answer is simple: doubles is ridiculous. It’s fine to play—if you have four people, only one court, and bad knees. But let’s not pretend that it’s something more exalted. I’m told that true tennis fans love doubles. The intensity, the strategy, the quick hands! The all-around quality of the game! So it may be that I’m discrediting myself. It may be that you will no longer take me seriously. To you serious people, I say: I’ve tried, I really have. I’m still trying. Yesterday, even though Rafael Nadal was playing and Andy Murray was down, I watched Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova, the Wimbledon champions, take on Barbora Zahlavova Strycova and Iveta Benesova. The match, won by King and Shvedova in a third-set tiebreak, was as good and thrilling as doubles gets. Watching the players demonstrate their shifting formations, deft adjustments, and quick reflexes was exciting, like watching President Obama swat a fly. But how many times do you really want to watch Obama swat a fly? What really bothers me about doubles, though, is not boredom. It’s more fundamental. The problem is that doubles is played by partners. Two people simply should not stand on the same side of the net. Part of the reason tennis is so compelling is that a player has to confront the fact that she’s out there by herself. A doubles player does not. Consider the Bryan brothers, the best doubles team playing, one of the best teams ever. One is left handed, one right; one is Bob and one is Mike. Otherwise, they pretty much share a life. The zygote did not fully split. They always have each other. They are never, ever alone. Playing singles, you cannot seek advice from a teammate or a coach; you cannot punch or taunt or chase your opponent. You can only hit the ball. Sometimes, your greatest competition is yourself. Tennis, to me, is Jelena Jankovic, shrieking in desperation as the wind whipped her ponytail and her shots. It’s Ana Ivanovic—talented, sweet, pretty, a former No. 1—chasing bad service tosses under pressure. It’s Rafael Nadal, touching his face and plucking his shirt, the tennis player’s way of crossing himself. Even when the stakes are nonexistence, the isolation can be hard. I like to play with the sun to my back, and not only because it’s easier to see the ball. I want to watch my shadow. It keeps me company. Overcoming loneliness can be the greatest challenge, and the most important one.
September 3, 2010 On Sports The Good Bully By Louisa Thomas James Blake doesn’t like to make it easy. Not even to cheer for him. One fears association with the odious J-Block, the fans who wear Blake T-shirts and chant Blake’s name and act like asses. It’s hard, too, to embrace a guy who shouts “my house,” as Blake did yesterday after defeating the Canadian Peter Polansky in the second round. Plus, he’s been canonized as an “inspirational figure,” honored on opening night in a ceremony called “Reach & Dream” for being a biracial kid from Yonkers who endured scoliosis, career-threatening injuries and illness, etc. It’s best to avoid athletes who are considered heroes. Still, I was pulling for him yesterday, and I’ll be pulling for him when he takes on the third seed, Novak Djokovic. Blake is a former top-five player, but he is old and aching, and he needed a wild card to play here. He’s one of the most stubborn players on the tour and one of the most fragile, and therefore one of the most interesting to watch. Blake’s flurry of forehand errors during the first-set tiebreak yesterday, including one total mishit, was self-doubt made manifest. He has a propensity to over-hit and to mope, “woe-is-meing around the court,” as commentator Pam Shriver put it during Wimbledon. As someone who over-hits and woe-is-mes around the court, I feel a certain kinship. And, as it happens, Blake once inspired me, though not because of his dramatic story. I first saw Blake play when he was a Harvard sophomore and I was a high school junior visiting the college. I had heard of Harvard’s dreadlocked wonder and wanted to see him for myself. There were a couple of highly-ranked juniors on my high school team, but I’d never watched any player like Blake. When the ball came off his racket, the laws of physics were suspended. At one point, his opponent hit a deep backhand, forcing Blake onto his back foot and out of position, and then unleashed a sharp cross-court forehand. Blake, who had been scrambling to regain his footing, reversed directions at the moment of content, broke into a flat sprint, and—impossibly!—reached the ball inside the service line of the adjacent court, where he ripped a forehand that sent the ball along a bending and dipping path. It seems silly now—Rafa Nadal hits that forehand practically every match—but I really thought I’d witnessed a miracle. All my efforts to be cool were abandoned. I was on my feet, shrieking, hopping, fluttering my hands. It was the most memorable moment of the weekend. I sometimes think that it was one of the most memorable moments of my teenage years. What has stuck with me even more vividly than incredibility of the shot was the way Blake looked up into stands after he hit it, a stupid grin on his face. It was clear that he wasn’t looking to the tiny crowd of parents and friends to ratify how awesome he was. Something special had just happened, and he wanted us to be a part of it. And we were. Blake went pro that summer. He had some early success, but after struggling with grief, illness, and injuries (including a broken neck, suffered when he collided with a net-post), he fell out of the top 200 and found himself playing Challenger matches, the minor leagues. Methodically he worked his way back, and then at the 2005 U.S. Open, he made it to the semis, where he lost to Andre Agassi in a fifth-set tiebreak, in what was one of the best U.S. Open matches ever played. Blake has always been able to take anyone to five sets, even now. At the Australian Open this year, he lost to last year’s U.S. Open champion, Juan Martin del Potro, in five. It’s a particular talent, losing matches so consistently in that way, and it’s not clear whether he wants to win too much or not enough. He plays an uncompromisingly aggressive, all-or-nothing style. “It’s almost like being a bully out there,” an espn3.com commentator described Blake’s game yesterday afternoon. “If he’s on, he’s a good bully.” I’m not totally sure what that means, but it sounds right. I have my own unjustifiable, sentimental theory for why Blake finds himself in so many epic matches: he plays to be remembered, to be part of something special, more than he plays to win.
September 3, 2010 Ask The Paris Review Pathologically Shy; Loving The Possessed By Lorin Stein Any reading material for a pathologically shy 33-year-old woman? Who misses sex and fucking and making love and all that? Who even misses blowjobs. Who hasn’t gone out with a man in ages? How do people even talk to each other anymore? I’ve forgotten. —November Whisky Gosh, poor you. Shyness can be so hard. The first book I would read, if I wanted to reconstruct the language of sex and romance, is Mary Gaitskill’s novel Veronica. Or really any of her books. You always get the feeling (at least I do) that Gaitskill is asking herself a question very much like yours. Asking and answering. For similar reasons you might also try Elizabeth Bowen, for example The Heat of the Day. Neither book is cheerful, exactly, but I think they might speak to your condition. Take heart! Read More
September 2, 2010 The Culture Diaries A Week in Culture: Radhika Jones, Part 2 By Radhika Jones This is the second installment of Jones’ culture diary. Click here to read part 1. DAY FOUR Morning I put in some book requests, per last night’s TLS: Tom McCarthy’s new book C, which is out September 7, and his first novel, Remainder, which I meant to read after the great piece Zadie Smith wrote in the New York Review of Books a couple of years ago, “Two Paths for the Novel,” about McCarthy and Joseph O’Neill. Meetings and a quick edit eat up much of the morning. Lunch with a favorite literary agent—one of those agents who turns out to represent all the writers you’re hearing great things about. We fill each other in on what we’ve been reading. I make a mental note to pack Rosecrans Baldwin’s You Lost Me There in the vacation bag. Afternoon Gilbert sends me a 5 P.M. pick-me-up, in the form of the YouTube video for Cee Lo’s hilarious single “F–k You.” I love the typography! Thanks, Gilbert. I start working on my book review, which is to say, I write a sentence that may or may not be the lede. Trailer break! The Social Network. I am bizarrely excited to see this movie, which stars Jesse Eisenberg and his hoodie. And now onward to the trailer for the fake Twitter movie, which looks even more awesome. In the NYT, I read a piece on the Shakespeare Quarterly opening up its traditional peer review system to open review online. As a former (recovering?) academic, I like this idea. Remainder arrives. I check out the Literary Saloon, which leads me to New York‘s twenty most anticipated books of the season, and to a piece about Barnes and Noble, also in New York, by Andrew Rice. Paris Review alert! One of NY Mag‘s most anticipated fiction books is Danielle Evans’ Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. We published Danielle’s first short story, “Virgins” (issue 182), which went on to be selected for Best American Short Stories. And Andrew Rice had a great piece of nonfiction, “The Book of Wilson,” from his travels in Uganda, in issue 177. I also read “Dear Prudence” on Slate. This is the only advice column I ever read. I’m not exactly sure why—I’m not sure why I read it, and I’m not sure why it’s the only one I read. And I don’t have time to puzzle it out, so it’ll be one of the many things in life I just chalk up to mystery appeal. Evening Bhangra class. A few years ago (actually, about six years ago, yikes), my friend Sailaja and I started taking bhangra classes. We had no dance background, and I have the flexibility of a No. 2 pencil. But our teacher, Ambika, is brilliant, and after a year or so we had become, as Sailaja put it, not great bhangra dancers but passable bhangra students. Which we thought was pretty impressive! Home and slightly wired from exercise, so Max and I pop in the third episode of Foyle’s War. Bedtime (re)reading: an essay on pain from Atul Gawande‘s book Complications. Read More