It’s boring, I know, but I can’t say I’m all that crazy about Halloween. Costumes are too much work for me, and you really can’t go to a Halloween party as yourself unless you’re willing to be called, well, boring. But as far as this page goes, without a whole lot of meaningful tennis to analyze—as well as that familiar Friday unraveling going on in what should be the working part of my brain—it does seem like a good day for a grab bag of items: tricks, treats, what have you, from the tennis world and, mostly, beyond.
***
The Best Never
These words will now follow Elena Dementieva into eternity; they may even end up on her tombstone. Should she be in the Hall of Fame? Is she really the “best never”? We’ve got time to answer those questions. For the moment I’ll try to remember the Russian for the time when she did win big, at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. You can see the last game of her gold-medal-round win over Dinara Safina in the clip above. I’d forgotten all the points and the shots, but I remembered the screech she let out when it was over—Dementieva was temporarily overcome by joy and, even more, shock. As a Russian, the Olympics must have meant as much to her as any major could. So maybe in the future we should make sure we say “Olympic gold medalist” before we get to the “best player never to . . .” part. She was too good to be remembered for what she didn’t do.
***
Getting Better All the Time
I’ll announce it to the world as well: My own tennis season has come to an end. The indoors, in the form of a squash court, is calling. I’m beginning to recognize one advantage to limiting my play to the five or six warm months of the year: I am always getting better. I start by mis-hitting the ball off the frame each spring, but by end of summer I’ve returned to something resembling my best self on court. It’s the serve that comes back last. It takes me, or my muscles, a while to remember just how hard you can hit the ball with that shot. But by August I’ve got it again, and I remember one more thing: Life is so much easier with a first serve. Next spring the whole process will begin again from scratch. I’ll be bad to start yes, but then I’ll start getting better. The illusion of eternal improvement: What else can a tennis player hope for?
***
Dancing with the Devils in Philly
“Halloween? Have I ever had a good Halloween, what kind of question is that?” I asked, putting down my glass.
Mike repeated his question. “Just what I said: Have you ever had a good Halloween?”
“Well . . . there was that time when I wore a Jackie Mason mask to a frat party . . . actually, that was boring, no one had any idea who he was, and I couldn’t breathe under the thing. Um, let’s see, there was that time when we did all those [inaudible] over at Setliff’s house. That was pretty stupid.”
“Sounds exciting. Tignor, you’ve made the most of life, I can see that once again.”
“Wait, wait, was that Devil Dogs show on Halloween?”
“What, you ate a devil dog on Halloween once? That’s gonna be your highlight? I had a ding-dong on Groundhog’s Day 1988, so what?”
“No, idiot, the Devil Dogs, they’re a band. You’ve never heard of them? What am I doing here talking to someone like you, who’s never even heard of the Devil Dogs? Don’t talk to me about getting the most out of life ever again.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, what are they, another I’m so rich and sad indie band? Where did you see them?”
“Me and Jeff and Dave, I think, we drove to Philly in ’97 or somewhere around there. They were playing at this hole in the wall, I think it was a tradition they played this dump every Halloween. It was one of those times when you’re in the backseat on the Jersey turnpike and it’s starting to get dark and you’re going somewhere you don’t even want to really go—I mean, you know, Philly, I mean I like Philly, but still, it’s not like Hawaii. And you just start to feel totally lost, like where am I going and what am I doing?
“Like: ‘where’s my sandy beach?’”
“What are you talking about?”
“That Pretenders, song, music snob, ‘Mystery Achievement’: ‘Where’s my sandy beach?’ she sings. That’s my question I ask myself on the way to work every day: Where’s my [inaudible] sandy beach?”
“Yeah, that is good. It’s true, where is my sandy [inaudible] beach, anyway? So I’m in the back seat asking where’s my sandy beach and Jeff of course is blaring some Swedish death metal so we can’t even talk to each other and those massive Philly refineries are going by and I’m wondering where it all went wrong. You know what I mean?”
“Not really, but go ahead anyway.”
“We get to the club and it’s this tiny inky club, like much tinier than CBs, and the walls and the ceiling are completely black and it’s totally packed with these Philly kids in flannels and backwards Eagles hats and crazy Randall Cunningham masks, and I’m thinking we’re going to be killed in the mosh pit. It’s so dark, I can’t believe these bands, they go from one place like this to the next. They must live in darkness all the time, there’s no way I could live like that, like a rock and roller. Wouldn’t that be depressing?”
“Seems like it has its upsides.”
“Anyway, the opening band is terrible and the Eagles guys are screaming bloody murder at them from behind their Randall masks. They finally go off, hanging their heads, the crowd is booing and now I’m really thinking, ‘How did I end up here?’ Then the Devil Dogs, three Brooklyn goons, really—but geniuses, of course, stone cold geniuses in their own way—come on and start right in one of my favorite songs of theirs, ‘Once Around the Block.’ People are going berserk, bouncing off the walls, it’s like being in the California earthquake all over again. I put my head down and the sound went right through me.”
“Good Halloween, huh?”
“Great Halloween.”
***
Nasty, Again
My by-now-weekly nod to the glory that is Ilie Nastase
***
IPod Daydream
So you’re walking through Brooklyn Heights, the brownstone and prep school capital of the world. It’s one of those weird fall days when it’s gray and blustery, but it’s humid enough to make you sweat under your sweater. The air feels energizing. You pass lot of young people on bikes and pushing strollers, and on your IPod, “Campus,” by Vampire Weekend, has come up on on a random shuffle. It’s a college song if ever there was one. A kid with a crush on his professor, played out over an African beat. The guy even sings, “Walk to class, in front of you, spilled kefir, on your keffiyah.” You did go to college, but you don’t know what that means.
Then the song, which had been building, suddenly recedes and relaxes. The kid is settling into a daydream. He sings,
In the afternoon
You’re out on the stone and grass
And I’m sleeping on the balcony
After class
The guitars ping. The drums stop and start. He sings it again, more slowly, testing out the words. You realize this is how the song will end. You can’t understand why it sounds so perfect, or why, when you walk down into the subway for another day of work, you feel so good.
***
Have a good weekend.
