"This will be the very last book you ever read. Because after you read this book, you will know how to be a pro athlete. And pro athletes don't need books. Or strong family bonds. Or any of that stupid crap."

I took a break last week from reading the Library of America horror anthology, out of the need to finish something. If I go more than a few days without finishing a book I start getting itchy, so I picked up a book I'd wanted to read for a while—it's a pretend handbook for the modern professional athlete, one of a weird little wave of fake authoritative books from a few years ago (Daily Show's America the Book, the works of John Hodgman, McSweeney's Comedy By the Numbers). The author, Drew Magary, is my favorite online columnist, a profane and prolific writer for Deadspin.

The book is pretty funny, though because it was less profane it was less funny than most of his Deadspin columns—but it made me very happy to have the job I have, and not the job most local-level sportswriters wish they had, covering pro sports. It's funny to me that the image most people have of athletes are overpaid, under-educated jocks who love to waste money and break the law. The kids I work with genuinely like their sports, for the most part, and they aren't getting paid, and they're often so dedicated to practice and work that it reminds me of how much I loved writing when I was in high school, so much that I'd lock myself in my room, before I'd ever heard of deadlines or writer's block.

Those were nice days; these are nice days too, but it's nice to live with a constant reminder of how much easier it was to be obsessive in a good way, back when I was 16.

Labels: Generalness, quote of the week

"He could live in 'Europe,' as he had been in the habit of living, on the product of these flourishing New York leases, and all the better since, that of the second structure, the mere number in its long row, having within a twelvemonth fallen in, renovation at a high advance had proved beautifully possible."

Still in the thick of that horror anthology from Library of America I mentioned last week—just wanted to include this random sentence from Henry James to say, "I'm really really glad I'm not writing at the turn of the century." I can barely wrap my brain around that sentence, just one glaring tangled mess in a 40-page forest of indecipherability. Yes, Hemingway may have been too far in the other direction, but…man. God bless the progression of the ages.

Labels: quote of the week

"In her deep, dark eyes smouldered the light of fires that would never flame."

Yowie. The Chopin story is in a collection published by the Library of America that I bought myself for Christmas, called American Fantastic Tales. It's a two-volume, 1400-page anthology of horror stories by American writers, from pre-Poe all the way up to Joe Hill. It's incredible.

By far the most fascinating aspect of the book so far has been the evolution of subject—of what Americans are horrified by. This Chopin story, from more than 100 years ago, has touched closest to what keeps me awake at night. Madame Pelagie (I'm leaving out the accent because I'm lazy) and her sister live in the ruins of their father's brick mansion, and dream of pinching enough pennies to rebuild it—they are middle aged and estimate they will be very close to death before they can make that happen. Then, a young niece comes to live with them, and captures the heart of Pelagie's sister. When the sad isolation of their impoverished, meager existence drives the niece away, Pelagie's sister begs Pelagie to throw away their shared dream, and use their money to create a new, open life for they and their family.

Pelagie, for love of her sister, listens to her weep for hours, then goes that night to say goodbye to the ruins, and relents. She spends the rest of her life with her sister, their niece, and their family, living in the shadow of the ruins, until she dies, unfulfilled—the line above comes near the end of the story, after she's given up, and it's the only line in the anthology so far that's actually made my shiver.

I think most driven people—whether you're trying to be a writer, a rich person, or a professional athlete—have that vision of life as their nightmare. A time when you've given up, or realized that you've failed, but still have to live out the rest of your days. I know that feeling has, more than once, caused me to get out of bed at three in the morning to write, so that I can wake up and feel like I'm still moving. Like Pelagie, we all get a limited time—incredibly limited, if you're trying to make it as an athlete—to achieve what we feel we're meant to achieve. If you don't live with that feeling, I'd suggest you not go in search of it. There's nothing horrifying about living life for happiness, or peace—it's just not a state of mind I understand.

To me, a major message of the story is that you have to do what you can with the time you're given—if Pelagie and her sister had managed to save enough money to rebuild the mansion before their niece arrived (call her death, or a blown out knee, or whatever applies to you), they would have achieved their mission. Once that curtain drops though, there's no lifting it. It's a powerful motivation to me to keep working—the last thing any of us wants is to live our life by smoldering, faint fires. There is another quote from the anthology, from Harriet Prescott Spofford's "The Moonstone Mass" that you may want to turn to if you feel you've stalled in your mission:

"Death and stillness have no kingdom on this globe, and even in the extremest bitterness of cold and ice perpetual interchange and motion is taking place."

Even somewhere behind Pelagie's eyes, her dream still lives. Even when you feel you've failed at what you're trying to do—there's still something moving inside you. Whether it's to restart your goal, or find another one, it's up to all of us to harness that natural energy.

Unless you're fifty and your dream is to play pro football. Then you're pretty much screwed.

Labels: quote of the week

"No one wins the presidency with stunts."

--Plouffe to Barack Obama on John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate

If you invested either time or money (or even thought or a vote) into the Obama for President campaign, consider this book an incredible "Thank you" note from campaign manager David Plouffe. A "Thank you" note that will cost you $25, but still—it was fun to relive the stressful two years that Shar and I spent living and dying with the campaign, especially knowing that the book had a happy ending.

The joy of this book, for me (aside from the insight into the behind-the-scenes stuff), was gaining an appreciation for the discipline and intelligence of Plouffe and the rest of the campaign team. It was easy to take in the debates as they happened, but Audacity to Win makes it just as easy to take in the debate prep—in the quote above, Plouffe sums up a lot of the campaign's philosophies. Don't try to pull stunts or fast ones on the American public—craft a winning strategy, and stick to it at all costs. Put your heads down and work.

Stunts, Plouffe reminds us (and his candidate), do not win the presidency—nor do they win the job, the girl, or the attainment of any serious goal. Hard work and consistent discipline do those things (and if you don't believe that's the only way to win the girl, good luck). In trying to move towards my own goals in life, it's an important lesson to remember. There is no substitute for hard work, and for seeing your path to victory—as Plouffe writes, in one of the book's frequent and well-executed sports metaphors, you have to block and tackle to win.

If you can't master the fundamentals of whatever arena you're trying to succeed in—whether it's football or campaigning—you're going to get your butt kicked, no matter how much of a juggernaut you appear, or feel like. Dan Monson, the basketball coach at Long Beach State, has pointed out once or twice to me that, "You can't fake confidence." As his team has painfully learned a few times, you can't fake free throw shooting, either.

Along with mastering the basics, the long-view perspective ("Seeing the whole field, and not just three yards of it" as Plouffe writes) is essential. I have more than one friend who told me they wanted to write fiction for a living, but who completely melted down after receiving a rejection letter for the first story they've ever submitted somewhere. Mastering the ability to recover from setbacks—minor or significant—is a fundamental skill in every arena, and one that has to be mastered, I think, to succeed in any of them. Obama wouldn't have gotten very far if Plouffe freaked out and threw in the towel after losing New Hampshire, the second state to hold a primary.

So, from the book, comes an affirmation of a way I've tried to live, and a methodology I've used to hit most of the goals I've set for myself. Decide where you want to go; craft a plan to get there; work hard to execute that plan; and remember its length and breadth to help overcome setbacks. "Idealism kept us going, but pragmatism kept us grounded," writes Plouffe. And grinding on their goal, every single day, got them where they wanted to go.

We should all be so lucky, and so disciplined.

Labels: Generalness, quote of the week