The Hammock Papers: tennis

07 July 2024

Accept.

Art is not life, nor a reproduction of life, but a representation carried out within the specific terms, conversions and limitations of the particular art used.

The most realistic art is considerably removed from reality. Art does not give real things or imitations of real things.

The thing that art gives is strained first through the artist's selections and judgments, and then through the specific techniques which he used to present them. If you are to enjoy an art, you must first accept its terms.

Thomas Hart Benton

26 May 2024

Opposites.

The 1984 French Open Final ...

McEnroe and Lendl had been swapping the world No 1 ranking for much of the past year but though the American held top spot as Roland-Garros began in 1984, he was not an overwhelming favourite for the title, thanks to his lack of love for the clay.

McEnroe had only played at Roland-Garros four times before, with two quarter-final runs his best efforts. By contrast, Lendl loved the mud and had already reached the final, in 1981, when he lost to Bjorn Borg in five sets.

But McEnroe had three reasons to believe this could be his year. First, he arrived at Roland-Garros unbeaten in 1984; second, he had beaten Lendl in their past four encounters, including twice on clay in the previous month. And third, because while he already owned five Grand Slam titles, Lendl was still chasing his first, having lost all four of his slam finals, leaving many to question whether he had the mental strength required.

Both men had reached the final for the loss of just one set; McEnroe to Jose Higueras in round four and Lendl to Andres Gomez, a future champion, at the same stage. Opposites in playing style and personality, it was no secret that the two men disliked each other ...

16 February 2024

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL