constant crises

one of the those strange things that you can only ponder after 11pm on a weekday, but i wonder why i never got into sportswriting. or sports writing. when i was a freshman in college, i was deadset on taking some time to figure out what program i wanted to major in. my first quarter i took math, ihum (humanities course), econ 1, and a class called 'the jet engine' because it sounded fucking sweet. a pretty good start to "being open-minded about my major," yeah? yet somewhere along the line, i swerved sharply technical and ended up with a degree in computer systems engineering. it's true, i did enjoy a large amount of the CSE coursework (notably computer architecture, digital design, and the HCI business), but i don't think i've ever gotten over that feeling that maybe i just fell into CSE because it was "easy". not easy in a logistical sense, but easy in a personal and mental sense. i just finished reading a beautiful old piece by gay talese called 'The Silent Season of a Hero' in this collection The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. originally printed in esquire, the magazine piece is a short peep into the world of joe dimaggio, post-baseball, including his love for marilyn monroe. it's very subtle and it's a great bit about a famously-private man, showing so much with a careful frugality of words. emotions evoked: admiration and jealousy (of talese) at the same time. and i guess i don't have much more to say beyond, "i sort of wish i had written something so good that it had that kind of impact on someone else." and why couldn't i have gotten into writing about sports? after all, do any of these sportswriters love the games more than i do? probably not. did they learn how to conjugate verbs better than me? probably not. i'm not disappointed by the path i chose, but i just wonder why these thoughts never crossed my mind when i was 17 and spending 30 hours a week reading about, watching, and playing sports. strange, isn't it...

i finished up the book high fidelity while i was on the plane last night. it's actually rather remarkable that i had never read the novel, considering how i've had many people (who know me pretty well) over the years tell me how much i would enjoy nick hornby's work. so high fidelity was number two on my list of hornby novels, the first being about a boy. first of all, i'll start by saying that the movie version of high fidelity, starring john cusack, has absolutely no chance at providing an accurate reproduction of the novel. there's just too much introspective and masculine mumbling to properly transfer to the hollywood visual medium. the reason that's important is that the book is great, while the movie is, depending on who you ask, good or garbage. i never really put much stock in comments like, "he writes men/women very well," but somehow i found myself saying that while i read high fidelity. hornby has a frank and honest male voice, filled with all of its truthful inadequacies and asshole qualities. it's the kind of narrative that i would hear in my own head if i was, er, more of a jerk and much more bitter. he's not complicated, but he's so perfectly expressive. which brings me to why i find people like nick hornby amazing. whenever i jot something on paper (or in this case: bits), i find it hard to transfer pure honesty and self-reflection into writing. people like nick hornby humble me because i can read what he writes and find myself saying, "man, his writing is exactly how i would feel there." it's inspiring, and maybe that's why i'm gonna start writing here more often again. promise. oh, one more note: when i got to the end of the novel, i finally saw a picture of hornby and was shocked to see a very plain-looking bald english man. not sure what i was expecting, but that wasn't it. i guess i expected someone who knew me so well to share SOMETHING in common with me. ah well...

i'll occasionally link to my friends' blogs, but i almost never outright TELL people, "go read this stuff." i think will's new blog is probably worth your time though, so you should go take a look. it's not really a blog, as much as it will be insightful glimpses into his trek through south america. the short background is that, having finished two years teaching in the new york public school system, will decided to take, oh, at least a half year to travel all of those countries to the south, accompanied by his backpack. i'm excited for him and proud that he has the balls to go travel in such a way. he's much braver than i am, in countless ways. so far, he's taken a 30-hour bus ride from atlanta, georgia to el paso, texas, before jumping (not literally) the border into mexico. so set your bookmarks, rss readers, or whatever. it should be at least interesting. oh yeah, and he doesn't know spanish. be safe, will. and write often.