#miscellaneouslinks

An Atlantic writer bemoans the end of the serve and volley game in professional tennis. If you've been watching tennis recently, you'll recognize this summation of the game as it's played today:

"The end result is tennis as we currently know it: the occasional change-of-pace and/or desperation net rush, increasingly quaint amid long, grinding rallies that, ironically, can be just as dull and metronomic as the big serve shootouts they usurped. Heavy topspin shot. Heavy topspin return. Much grunting. Both players working to gain a marginal advantage, until someone uncorks a winner/error down the line or crosscourt."

The picture above is from an HBO documentary about the McEnroe / Borg rivalry. It's title - not the most original thing you've ever heard: Fire and Ice. Also worth bemoaning is the recent dearth of headbands.

James Gleick (author of the recent The Information) gives a calm, non-apocalyptic lecture on the future of books (audio). A welcome relief from the shrillness with which this topic is usually discussed, by whichever camp. Definitely worth a listen.

"At the risk of being a biblionecrophiliac again, let me say that a dead-tree book is an example of "peak technology," a tool ideally suited to its task. The book is like a hammer. Hammers can be tweaked and buried, but it will never go obsolete."

"Most people have always been too busy for books. And still, here we are. Lately, this conversation has seemed to be all about the internet, and digital media. Personally, I'm a more or less happy citizen of the cyberspace. I'm not much for Facebook but sometimes I do twitter. I admit my tweets are not serving the cause of literature. They're not even serving the cause of my next book. Literature is shapely and meditative. Cyberspace is formless and noisy. Literature is slow. Cyberspace operates at light speed. Books stand alone. Cyberspace is all about the connectedness. Cyberspace is hyperspace, where information is concerned. So, let me get out the crystal ball. Here's what's going to happen henceforth. Books will survive. I promise. You can take it to the bank. Books have a strange quality...

Meanwhile, even big authors are running for the escape hatches.

The website won a Webby last week, and I think it deserves it. What better way to waste one's time than making ridiculous, ridiculously inventive objects.

Letters of Note is a blog I keep going back to. Here's a letter from director Michael Powell to his biggest fan, Martin Scorsese, congratulating him on his Goodfellas script. What it must have meant to Scorsese we can only imagine. Another post there not long ago: Mark Twain to Walt Whitman, on Whitman's birthday.

This interview with David Foster Wallace was making the rounds a couple of weeks ago. The anxieties are all familiar if you're of a certain generation, or if you're a reader of Wallace. The voice of a generation tag always sounds overblown, but was there anyone else who could write about those anxieties and make as many people say That's exactly how I feel? I think Jonathan Franzen is doing his best to take up the mantle. I don't know exactly what's lacking there. It's not sincerity, I don't think. 

My new favorite literature blog, not least for its decidedly anti-Franzen stance, is Scott Esposito's Conversational Reading. Esposito takes a pretty global view and - a man after my own heart - he makes a lot of lists and does geeky things like photographic size comparisons between big books (see below). Highly recommended.

(Oh, and in case you're wondering, looking at the Nádas book pictured below, yes, Susan Sontag has already gotten there and dashed off a superlative for it: “The greatest novel written in our time, and one of the great books of the century.”)

Paul Graham's short essay on how we're producing ever more addictive products and have to go to great lengths to pull ourselves away.

An article from the Atlantic about the design of the plastic coffee cup lid. A commenter sums up my feeling perfectly: "This is one of the reasons I enjoy the Atlantic so much - interesting articles I want to read about subjects I wasn't aware I was interested in."

Zadie Smith and Jerry Saltz on Christian Marclay's twenty-four-hour film, The Clock. I'd really like to see this.

Though I've yet to post my first real tweet (I know how precious they are), I've been browsing those of the rich and famous this week. The most interesting ones so far have been the koans of Karl Lagerfeld. I don't know if he's the one writing them or not - maybe these are things he's said in interviews and an assistant (having committed them to memory) is intermittently tweeting them, but it's actually pretty good stuff sometimes. You'll recognize the always now tone if you've watched the documentary about him. Here are a few examples...

"Designers must be both conscious and unconscious at the same time. Clear thinking at the wrong moment can stifle inspiration and talent."

"Fashion does not have to prove that it is serious. It is the proof that intelligent frivolity can be something creative and positive."

"The most important thing is to do things, not to have done them."

"Nonchalance in couture is very important, because couture without nonchalance is just the drag queen attitude of women of an era past."

Full-time blogger Andrew Sullivan on social network / gadget addiction. It feels like it's getting to be a real thing, doesn't it?

"I understand the desire to check your email, stocks, Facebook wall, OKCupid or Grindr message in those moments when you simply have to walk or sit on a train or scarf some lunchtime Chipotle. But when you are actually among people you know, the act of glancing down at your mobile device is simply bad manners. It states absolutely that your current interaction is not as important or as interesting as any number of online connections. It's rude. And it misses the point."

A tumblr worth probing lustfully into: Bad Romance Novels. Some samples of what you'll find there...

Cupping her, he dipped his finger into her private well. “Temperature good.” He smiled. - “Tell Me Lies” - Claudia Dain

The light in his eyes, the softness and lambent heat couldn’t be anything less than love, even though neither of them had ever spoken the word aloud. She lifted her hands, touched his chest, his flat, hard belly, the velvet-sheathed steel that proclaimed him male. - “Unwitting Accomplice” - Tina Vasilos

There was deft tenderness as he plundered the welcoming void of her, the taste of mint and passion and growing abandon. - “From This Day Onward” - Elizabeth Kary

He captured her lips and she poured desire back into him, still wanting, still needing, deep in her throbbing, cavernous core. - “A Lady’s Secret” - Jo Beverley