Impressionable Youngster
Yesterday I celebrated another successful Authors@Google event, starring luminary sports writer Frank Deford. This is a man who's won more awards than I've ever even wanted, and written extensively and intelligently - nay, beautifully - on a subject that rarely even catches my interest (the notable exception is when the Seahawks make the Super Bowl. Never again, guys).
Luckily, this time I managed to avoid asking an embarrassing question, instead impressing Frank with my wily intuition by spotting him, lost and in rental car, in the labyrinth of Google's many parking lots. I went up and knocked on the window.
"Are you Frank?" I asked. There were 3 minutes until the event was supposed to start, and he was late, due to a delayed plane. I had picked him out by looking for the face most disconcerted by all it saw.
"How did you find me?" He seemed genuinely impressed. I decided that the day was going well.
As I mentioned, I'm not much one for sports chatter. I like to pretend that I'm knowledgeable when it suits me, but I doubt I've often fooled anyone. Hearing Frank Deford speak fluently about the intricate psychology of the sports world was an illuminating experience - it almost made me wish I knew a statistic or two to make myself sound well-spoken. But moreover, it reminded me how much I value (wisely or not) the perspective of a person fully immersed in their subject.
To me, sports are sports. I neither think them vapid nor fascinating, crude nor essential. Occasionally I might like to play pick-up soccer or ride my bike, but that is all peripheral. All of which is to say, any sport I participate is part of me - I am not making myself part of it.
What am I missing? I may never know. Certainly I don't believe that an intricate understanding of the sports world is worth more than an intricate knowledge of anything else - education, violin making, artificial intelligence. But as a person still seeking a place in the world, I'll take my intangible envy wherever I can get it.Publish Post
**If you're interested in Frank Deford, I encourage you to read his work, including his newest book The Entitled. He's a real sharp guy, a classic sort of human being, and his writing looks beyond individual games into the very morality of the sports realm.
He's a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, a commentator for NPR's Morning Edition, and a correspondent on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Among other things.
Luckily, this time I managed to avoid asking an embarrassing question, instead impressing Frank with my wily intuition by spotting him, lost and in rental car, in the labyrinth of Google's many parking lots. I went up and knocked on the window.
"Are you Frank?" I asked. There were 3 minutes until the event was supposed to start, and he was late, due to a delayed plane. I had picked him out by looking for the face most disconcerted by all it saw.
"How did you find me?" He seemed genuinely impressed. I decided that the day was going well.
As I mentioned, I'm not much one for sports chatter. I like to pretend that I'm knowledgeable when it suits me, but I doubt I've often fooled anyone. Hearing Frank Deford speak fluently about the intricate psychology of the sports world was an illuminating experience - it almost made me wish I knew a statistic or two to make myself sound well-spoken. But moreover, it reminded me how much I value (wisely or not) the perspective of a person fully immersed in their subject.
To me, sports are sports. I neither think them vapid nor fascinating, crude nor essential. Occasionally I might like to play pick-up soccer or ride my bike, but that is all peripheral. All of which is to say, any sport I participate is part of me - I am not making myself part of it.
What am I missing? I may never know. Certainly I don't believe that an intricate understanding of the sports world is worth more than an intricate knowledge of anything else - education, violin making, artificial intelligence. But as a person still seeking a place in the world, I'll take my intangible envy wherever I can get it.Publish Post
**If you're interested in Frank Deford, I encourage you to read his work, including his newest book The Entitled. He's a real sharp guy, a classic sort of human being, and his writing looks beyond individual games into the very morality of the sports realm.
He's a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, a commentator for NPR's Morning Edition, and a correspondent on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Among other things.
posted by Adrienne Celt at 2:53 PM
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