{"id":7419,"date":"2010-11-04T15:30:50","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T19:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=7419"},"modified":"2018-12-10T15:51:52","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T20:51:52","slug":"hustle-and-flow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/04\/hustle-and-flow\/","title":{"rendered":"Hustle and Flow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Will,<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s often said that a loss hurts more than a victory can heal. As a rule, it might be true, but it didn\u2019t seem so on Monday night. After fifty-six years of waiting, the Giants finally won the World Series, and San Francisco set itself on fire.<\/p>\n<p>Lee pitched a hell of a game. Hats off to him\u2014he is the beau ideal, I\u2019ll give you that. But give me the weird one; give me Tim Lincecum. At rest, slouchy and loose, wearing a grimy, graying cap, he looks like a teenager cupping a spliff in his hand. But then he begins. The torque\u2014the spring\u2014the splits\u2014the snap! His coaches call his motion \u201cflow.\u201d He did not dominate the Rangers so much as confound them. Mighty hitters were reduced to awkward little jerks of the bat. Remarkably, he may not even be the Giants\u2019 best pitcher\u2014Matt Cain threw more than twenty-one scoreless innings in the postseason\u2014but he\u2019s the best to watch.<\/p>\n<p>I nearly missed it all. As it happens, when the game began, I was at Lincoln Center. The tickets had been purchased long ago, back when it looked like the Giants might not even make the playoffs. The Dresden Staatskappelle was playing Beethoven\u2019s Piano Concerto No. 4. I think it was nice, but I wasn\u2019t really playing attention. Instead, I was sitting in the back row, pressing refresh on my Blackberry. One scoreless inning, two\u2026 <em>Ah! Perfido<\/em> was next on the program. <em>Ah, Perfido<\/em>?! I bolted and headed to the nearest bar.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m very fond of these Giants. They came upon me by surprise. Then again, not totally. The Giants were my dad\u2019s team growing up. He used to tell me about Willie Mays, who played with power and with passion and who smiled. He had a pigeon-toed gait, bowlegs, long arms, and a barrel chest. A strange specimen. A Giant!<br \/>\nIt\u2019s been a pleasure watching the World Series with you, Will. Better luck next year!<\/p>\n<p>Louisa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Will, It\u2019s often said that a loss hurts more than a victory can heal. As a rule, it might be true, but it didn\u2019t seem so on Monday night. After fifty-six years of waiting, the Giants finally won the World Series, and San Francisco set itself on fire. Lee pitched a hell of a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[931],"tags":[375,1260,1258,1175,1174,1117,1259,1116],"class_list":["post-7419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-sports","tag-baseball","tag-beethoven","tag-matt-cain","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-texas-rangers","tag-tim-lincecum","tag-willie-mays","tag-world-series"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hustle and Flow by Louisa Thomas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"November 4, 2010 \u2013 Dear Will, It\u2019s often said that a loss hurts more than a victory can heal. As a rule, it might be true, but it didn\u2019t seem so on Monday night. 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