Distinctive/Distiguished Academics

MR pointed me to this post about "possible models for Freakonomics 3." I'm not particularly interested in this topic, but what struck me was that the top three "models" (i.e. public intellectuals) are people that I read almost every day. I'm pretty sure that I could pick a Krugman, Gladwell or Cowen article out of a lineup nearly 100% of the time. Their styles of writing, research, critical thinking and debate have played a substantial role in furthering my post college education and sharpening my mind.

Paul Krugman writes an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times every Monday and Friday. He's also published about two dozen books, won the Nobel Prize in Economics, and cemented a spot as one of the most important economists of the late 20th/early 21st century.

Malcolm Gladwell's virtuosic ability to write about nearly any conceivable topic is almost maddening. His books are perpetual best sellers and every one of his New Yorker features is worthy of a careful reading.

Tyler Cowen is certainly the least well known of the this trifecta, but he may be the most prolific intellectual blogger in the world. His site, Marginal Revolution, is a treasure trove of interesting links, thought provoking analysis, and spirited debate. Other notable attributes: he reads no less than six novels at a given time; he's a film and music buff (old/new, American/international, indie/blockbuster...), he's also an expert on ethnic cuisine. I would bet that he sleeps less than four hours per night.

Gladwell on Football, Dog Fighting and Brain Damage

Bill Simmons called it the best sports piece of 2009. I call it just another Gladwell masterpiece. The first hand accounts of life in football's trenches (i.e. the line) are crazy and the details of dog fighting are grim and repulsive.

“Lately, I’ve tried to break it down,” Turley said. “I remember, every season, multiple occasions where I’d hit someone so hard that my eyes went cross-eyed, and they wouldn’t come uncrossed for a full series of plays. You are just out there, trying to hit the guy in the middle, because there are three of them. You don’t remember much. There are the cases where you hit a guy and you’d get into a collision where everything goes off. You’re dazed. And there are the others where you are involved in a big, long drive. You start on your own five-yard line, and drive all the way down the field—fifteen, eighteen plays in a row sometimes. Every play: collision, collision, collision. By the time you get to the other end of the field, you’re seeing spots. You feel like you are going to black out. Literally, these white explosions—boom, boom, boom—lights getting dimmer and brighter, dimmer and brighter.

Malcolm Gladwell also wrote the forward to Simmon's upcoming Book of Basketball. I've already preordered my copy and hope to have it signed by the Sports Guy when he visits Professor Thom's on October 28th.

Sketch Comedy Writing 101

I had my first class at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater last night. Incredible! We viewed and analyzed the following sketches:

Ass Pennies by UCB (One of my all time favorites)
The Audition by Mr. Show (This one blew me away. I had never seen it before.)
Comfortable by Kids In The Hall (I hadn't previously seen this one either. Not bad.)

We also have a packet of UCB sketches with Matt Besser's notes. Last night we did a table reading and analyzed "Astronaut Prejudice." I forgot how great that sketch is.

I'll be writing at least one sketch per week, so perhaps I'll end up posting a few here.

Nadal. Federer. Nadal. Federer.

They're both fantastic and they're the only two reasons to watch men's tennis these days.

Federer was profiled by David Foster Wallace back in 2006, and it's safe to say that very few other 21st century authors could have properly captured the grace and artistry of this man's game.

Although not as splendid as DFW's piece, Cynthia Gorney wrote a wonderful profile of Rafael Nadal in this week's New York Times Sunday Magazine. As I was reading about Nadal I thought about the Federer article and I found it interesting that two of the best pieces of sports journalism in the past 5 years were written about these two tennis players who have occupied the number one and two spots in the world rankings during that time period.

Were they just particularly good subjects? Does tennis as a sport lend itself to more literary sports journalism? Was it just a coincidence?

The sports website Deadspin made the point I was searching for:

With this story, The Times Magazine — and its Play, R.I.P. — has published two of the finest long-form profiles of Nadal and Roger Federer. What's more, the authors of the profiles (Gorney, a creative writing professor, and the late David Foster Wallace, he of no further introduction), are not sportswriters but writer's writers.

And those running a sports magazine could take yet another hint from this type of standard: Sometimes, it pays to turn your pages over to outsiders. Not all the time, mind you, but sometimes, for a fresh take. They might not know anything about sports — still, DFW did — but they can make sentences cha-cha real smooth. Or squirt a variety of juices in your face.

That's what matters most.

So true. Some of my favorite pieces of sports writing were written by the likes of John Updike, David Foster Wallace and David Halberstam. While all of these writers clearly had a passion for sports, they were, as Deadspin points out, "writer's writers."