Turning into Entertainment Weekly over here! We have some belated photos from Andrew’s TW party during the US Open, sent in by D-Wiz.
You have to love this first one of chieftain Pete with his bevy of Tribe beauties. People mingled in fine Tribal style to talk about Young, Djokovic, and the Williamses, and the couch was definitely a popular hotspot, especially for those who had had the fortitude to spend the day at the Open and come straight out to the party.
This one shows our wonderful host Andrew (you've seen his photo before, but he's in black, in the middle) and some more of the merry gang. Clearly, this was taken during the book-signing portion of the evening, since I see Andrew is holding a copy of Breaking Back and I can only assume that the two ladies holding books without dustjackets are awaiting their turn.
I think I will let this turn into a massive guessing game, so I will say no more except to remind you to send me your news and photos! I occasionally see news announced in the OT posts; why not send it to me and see it in its full glory? Perhaps illustrated with a photo?
As long as we’re reminiscing about the Open, I want to go back to something else. Remember how Serena Williams was told by the umpire to put her notebook away during one of her matches? In the blip of coverage about this, prominent mention was made of a player so crazy about reading that once upon a time he kept reading a novel, not just little notes, during the changeovers. Some of you may remember this match from 1993: Jim Courier, in the ATP World Championship round-robin match against Andrei Medvedev.
I had two main thoughts when I read this: 1) Hey, there’s my soulmate, and 2) I have to read this book! Since the second thought was clearly the more actionable, I decided to blog it this week.
The novel in question was Armistead Maupin’s Maybe the Moon, we think. Courier wouldn’t read and tell, but that’s what the TV camera showed. (For all we know, he had a copy of the Constitution bound in there.) I got the book from the library and had no idea what I was really going to write about—the joy of reading? a book review? a retrospective on Jim Courier’s much-overlooked career, which incidentally included two Davis Cups? —but after I finished the book and turned the light off, I fell asleep under a blanket of overwhelming guilt.
It would be patently ridiculous to psychoanalyze Jim Courier based on him reading this book during one match in his long career, just as it would be ridiculous to psychoanalyze Serena Williams in terms of the Harry Potter series (tempting though it is to say that she sees Justine Henin as She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named). But I obviously couldn’t help reading this book with Courier and other athletes (and celebrities) in mind.
Maybe the Moon is about a struggling dwarf actress, Cady Roth, who is doubly trapped in people’s perceptions as a freak and as the actress who did the movement for an elf in a huge hit movie (think R2D2 or E.T.). She can’t get work, she can barely make rent, her relationships are fraught with fears and defense mechanisms and anger—yet she’s no more screwed up than any of her ‘normal’-sized friends. I guess I would call the novel a screwball comedy-tragedy; it’s very cleverly written, and laden with pop-culture references.
I’ll rip off the band-aid quickly to expose my guilt here, which is simply over having opinions, much less judgments, about any athlete I don’t know. I imagine that for journalists like Pete, who follow players over the course of their careers and talk with them after great wins and crushing losses, it’s much easier to make assessments, which is why I always enjoy reading their articles. Still, to quote/paraphrase Hugh Laurie in this week's TV Guide, "All public personae are fictional these days."
If Courier ever felt trapped (and I don’t pretend to know if he did or not) in his image as the baseball-backhanded redheaded American, this book would certainly have spoken to him. All I will conclude is that he has good taste in literature.
At another point in the same match, Courier reportedly said, “You know what's going through my head? I wonder if NAFTA passed.” A post on the trade agreement in question next week.
-Heidi
P.S. Kidding.
P.P.S. Though I wonder what Pete would say to me if I weren’t.
P.P.P...S. Enjoy watching the Davis Cup, all you lucky, lucky people with the Tennis Channel.
