On The Week's Top Five

1. A New Format

There are some things happening in my professional life (announcement coming soon) that may alter the already limited amount of time I have to dedicate to this blog. Therefore, I am at least temporarily resorting to the tactic that every blog resorts to when it realizes that writing coherent and complete thoughts is a far more difficult proposition than they realized: I will resort to making lists.

2. Very Tough Love

This might be one of the best episodes of This American Life in the history of the show. And in a weird way, it reminded me of college athletics.

3. Amateurism: 

How did a story about a draconian drug court judge in Georgia remind me of the hypocrisies of college sports, so documented by Frontline and Real Sports in recent days? Well, in the midst of his reporting, there is a moment when Ira Glass is discussing whether the stringent policies such as those favored by this particular judge actually work, and he refers to studies that found that low-level offenders tend to respond to such punishments by rebelling against the system. Which, it would seem, is the inherent problem with the NCAA--the perception is that the institution and its member schools are making more money than they ever have while simultaneously locking down student-athletes under a system of labyrinthine and indecipherable rules developed to stem decades of misconduct. And so the natural instinct, for both athletes and institutions, is to rebel, to attempt to subvert the system rather than allow it any credence at all. The best thing the NCAA could do is give a little--find a way to offer athletes a small stipend (as Joe Paterno has been advocating since the 1970s), or to offer them some sort of deferred scholarship money upon their departure from school.

Of course, I don't expect them to do it unless they are forced to, but given the pending lawsuits and the rising ire of fans and media and the players themselves, perhaps we have finally reached the moment when they have no other choice but to acknowledge that pure amateurism is an unachievable ideal. 
 

4. Joel Kinnaman

I had no idea who this guy was until last night, when I watched the premiere of AMC's The Killing. Kinnman is from Stockholm--at first he reminded me of an incredibly suave and charismatic version of Gareth from BBC's The Office. Then he showed up in two scenes--one in which he interacted with the main character's teenaged son, and another in which he flirted with a pair of teenaged girls in order to forward his investigation--and I thought, There is no way this dude does not become a major film star. Until he stars in a failed comic-book adaptation and winds up acting in B movies alongside Billy Zane, I will adhere to this prediction. In the meantime, I highly recommend The Killing, though given my track record for recommending television shows in the past year (Rubicon, Terriers, Lights Out), I suspect it will last only one season.

5. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

You know those books you have on your shelf for years that everyone says you must read, and you keep thinking, I'll get to it eventually, and you watch a documentary based on this book, and you say, I'll get to it eventually, and you read an excellent book clearly inspired by this one, and then finally you start reading it, and you say to yourself, Why did it take me so long to read this? This is that book.

On the First Review

No link as of yet, but Booklist seems not to find Bigger Than the Game an entirely repulsive account: "...Weinreb does a fine job showing the symbiotic relationship between those athletes and the unfettered capitalism encouraged during the Reagan years."

Of course, reviews of one's work are entirely unpredicable and nerve-wracking. Some authors, in the interest of objectivity, promise to publish every review of their book, positive or negative, on their website. I feel no such compulsion. Especially if Joe Queenan somehow gets involved.

On New Discoveries

I've been dealing with some health issues (more annoying than serious), so my apologies for the sporadic posting around here. But if there is one advantage to being sick as a freelance employee, it's that it frees me to spend my days reading novels and watching films. Here's what I've discovered:

1. Charles Willeford. Willeford is most famous for writing a book called Miami Blues, which was made into a forgettable film starring a young and suave Alec Baldwin. This is a travesty, because Willeford is kind of a genius, if only for The Shark-Infested Custard, which (apropos of its inexplicable title) is one of the darkest and weirdest novels I've read in quite some time. Go, right now, and read the first two chapters; you'll either find it brilliant or perverse (or both). As I get older, I become more and more convinced that mystery novels and sportswriting have a great deal in common: There is a tremendous amount of chaff, but the best in each genre is as good as any writing being done, anywhere. Well, Willeford was essentially Elmore Leonard before Elmore Leonard existed. He died more than two decades ago, but anyone who can write lines like this: "Hank came into the living room, looking and smelling like a jai-alai player on his night off"...deserves a lasting legacy.

2. Between the Lines. I have no idea how a relatively plotless movie about an alternative newspaper in Boston ever got made--not to mention a movie about an alternative newspaper in Boston starring half a dozen recognizable and likeable actors in the infancy of their careers--but it sure is intriguing to watch, if only for a 12-year-old Jeff Goldblum.

3. A False Spring. Maybe you know Pat Jordan from his Deadspin antics, or his Times Magazine profiles, or maybe you don't know him at all. Either way, this book is a revelation; it's a book about Jordan's failed career as a minor-league pitcher, but it has as much to do with baseball as Friday Night Lights has to do with football. Jordan does not hold back; rarely does the narrator of a memoir portray himself as essentially an immature jerk, but still manage to craft an endearing narrative. I'm still not sure how he did it, but it's worth seeking out, even if, like me, you long ago stopped really caring about baseball.

On The Most Intriguing Book I've Read In Recent Months

"Without an independent press, composed of heroic voices, the collective becomes stupid and unreliable..."

"Anonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks, and lightweight mashups may seem trivial and harmless, but as a whole, this widespread practice of fragmentary, interpersonal communication has demeaned interpersonal interaction."

I could quote several more passages from Jaron Lanier's You Are Not A Gadget (and maybe, at some point, I will), but I implore you to read it instead; I am halfway through, and I find it is the kind of cogent and rational and humane and hyperknowledgeable treatise about a subject--the Internet, and specifically, the hive mentality of Web 2.0--that might actually be able to transcend the knee-jerk criticism and inhumanity generated the medium itself. I don't know if it will become a seminal text of this era--though Lanier's credentials as a computer scientist/programmer/thinker certainly give it added weight--but I hope it does, because I agree with pretty much everything he says. And just for having said that, I presume my entire life will be hacked and the comments section of this entry overrun by anonymous commenters calling me a Luddite Communist homosexual.