Hard on the heels of a rare Roger Federer loss and apparently timed for the run-up to this year's US Open, the latest item on the David Foster Wallace watch is the cover story in tomorrow's New York Times Play magazine. In it, he extols the beauty of pure athleticism and describes, as the title of the article suggests, the occasional moments of metaphysical transcendence that occur while watching Roger Federer play tennis. DFW refers to this experience as having a "Federer Moment" such as occurred during one particular point in the fourth set of last year's US Open:

...given Agassi’s position and world-class quickness, Federer had to send that ball down a two-inch pipe of space in order to pass him, which he did, moving backwards, with no setup time and none of his weight behind the shot. It was impossible. It was like something out of "The Matrix." I don’t know what-all sounds were involved, but my spouse says she hurried in and there was popcorn all over the couch and I was down on one knee and my eyeballs looked like novelty-shop eyeballs.

Anyone who watches sports has seen moments like this. Some of us who participate in sports have experienced first-hand moments that are roughly analogous--utterly physical moments, unencumbered an uninhibited by any mental processing other than sheer emotional joy and awe. These are rare moments, but they are one of the chief reasons that we watch and play sports.

There's a lot more in this article, including a brief history of the development of tennis in the modern era (Lendl was the first true power-baseliner, not Borg or Conners), the weirdness of Wimbledon (whose image is relentlessly burnished to the point of losing its sheen), the superiority of watching live tennis ("TV tennis is to live tennis pretty much as video porn is to the felt reality of human love"). But mostly Wallace tries to explain the beauty and power of Federer and his play. "Tries" to explain because there is at least some aspect of his play that can't be described by words.

Posted by ksmoker at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dave O'Brien, while calling the England-Portugal World Cup quarterfinal match commented on the 79% market-share viewership in England for their previous World Cup match. Color commentator Marcelo Balboa, without apparent irony, said that "this is where US soccer is trying to get to...where we need to grow as a sport."

Soccer fan though I am, this naïve and quixotic comment had me doing a spit-take with my Ovaltine.

Posted by ksmoker at 7:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kottke notes the New Yorker report on the early exit from the World Cup by the US and ponders what the US soccer team might be like if current NBA players like Allen Iverson had grown up playing soccer instead of basketball.

The US might actually live up to their 5th-place FIFA ranking.

Posted by ksmoker at 7:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So the US fails to advance to the second round of the World Cup. Perhaps a repeat of their exciting 2002 run was too much to ask, but I still can't help feeling bitter disappointment at their early exit.

They had a tough group. They got screwed over by the referees. Whatever.

Basically, only half the team showed up. The two players who showed so much promise in 2002 failed rise to the occassion. Landon Donovan and Damarcus Beasley were sluggish and disoriented. Bruce Arena deserves a huge chunk of the blame, though. His choice to go with Brian McBride as the lone striker was bizarre. McBride put forth a yeoman effort, but he's no speedster and the his hard work to win balls in the air was wasted due to the lack of support. I just heard the statistic of the tournament for the US team: 4 shots on goal in all of their 1st round games combined.

Oh, and can I tell you how awful the ESPN/ABC announcers are? Marcelo Balboa drives me nuts and Dave O'Brian means well, but he's just not knowledgable about the game. Adrian Healy and Tommy Smyth are the announcers to listen to. Them or the guys on Telemundo.

Posted by ksmoker at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This year I'm getting a jump on planning for the RIJF by sifting through most of the acts on the RIJF website and entering them into my calendar. This has thrown a major prioritization problem into sharp relief. Not only do I have a couple of major milestones for a work project landing during jazz fest week, but the 2006 World Cup happens to open on the same day as the festival.

I had planned on recording the World Cup games anyway, but the problem is going to be finding viewing time. Not that I care all that much about Poland vs. Ecuador, but still, I'm in a bit of a panic. And then what if the Sabres advance to the Stanley Cup semifinals?

Oh yeah, plus, I have my family to think about.

Posted by ksmoker at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)