Chipper Jones pops the ball. It looks like it’s going to be your garden-variety line drive. But Tulowitzki’s on it, rushing to second base before you can comprehend that he’s about to make the thirteenth unassisted triple play in baseball history. It’s that great leap of the arms to Edgar Renteria that gets me, flying forward like the dangling entrails of a muskrat punctured by an interstate semi. A balletic burst, the flicker of tendrils, just to get that improvised third out. It all goes down in a blink. It’s an Aristotlean plot structure unfolding in seconds. Renteria knows it. He stops in his tracks and Tulowitzki is simply too fast, too ambitious, too in the moment to not seize the nanosecond.
Month / April 2007
Roundup (David Lean’s Brief Encounter Version)
- China Miéville wants more opinionated children’s literature. (via Sarah)
- Kate Bollock talks with Lydia Davis. (via Maud)
- Linked elsewhere but worth your time: Chabon’s rewriting adventures.
- Wait a sec. Henry Alford wrote a somewhat funny piece? (via Bookninja)
- Francine Prose on Jim Crace.
- Apparently, the only way translators can get any acknowledgment or respect is when they spill their love lives to journalists.
- Marvel goes literary.
- Cutting the life out of literary culture.
- Paul Di Filippo on the Jamie Bishop memorial service.
An Old “American Idol” Episode from 1985
Years later, there’s little in the way of vocal improvement (in fact, there is a marked decline), and there’s a troubling reliance upon stage presence of dancers.
At the same show, you can look no further than this guy for lessons on how to sign and perform at the old Wembley Stadium.
We Can End This Destructive Conflict and Bring Order to the Galaxy
And I Thought Pirates Were Welcome Near Pittsburgh
Smoking Gun: “A Pennsylvania woman claims that her teaching career has been derailed by college administrators who unfairly disciplined her over a MySpace photo that shows her wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic cup. In a federal lawsuit, Stacy Snyder charges that Millersville University brass accused her of promoting underage drinking after they discovered her MySpace photo, which was captioned ‘Drunken Pirate.'” (via MeFi)