Chris Nicholson's Writing Weblog
August 30, 2005 • Tuesday
Tennis' US Open begins today in Queens, New York.
For the past decade this annual fortnight has been the busiest two weeks of my year, due to my having been on the editorial staff at Tennis magazine. Last year I left the magazine to freelance full-time, but the US Open still promises to be a busy, busy period for me. However, this year my role in covering the US Open is different than in the past. I'll be working as an editor with the official tournament website, USOpen.org.
I'll be doing some non-tennis work, too, but much of my next 14 days will revolve around what's going on in Queens. My only chance for respite from 14-hour workdays will be rain cancellations — if there are any. Despite the busy schedule, I should still have time to update this blog, probably with goings-on at the tournament.
Game on!
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August 27, 2005 • Saturday
The story's been kicking around the Internet and in art circles for months, but it's just made its way to me: Robert Redford and Paul Newman may be starring in a film adaptation of Bill Bryson's travel essay book A Walk in the Woods.
... Woods is one of my favorite nonfiction books. If the film is actually made, it may make Bryson one of the most publicly popular nonfiction writers of our generation.
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August 25, 2005 • Thursday
The new (September 2005) issue of Esquire magazine contains an excellent humor piece by A.J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World.
The piece, "My Outsourced Life," is an account of a writer jumping on the off-shoring bandwagon by hiring out his life tasks, such as phoning his parents, arguing with his wife and reading to his child. Very funny, very poignant.
You can read the piece at Esquire's website, but the privilege will cost you $2.95. For a few extra coins, you can buy a copy of the magazine and read it in hard-copy.
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August 23, 2005 • Tuesday
My article from the July 2005 issue of USTA Magazine, a Tennis magazine supplement, is now online: "Shooting Stars." The piece offers tennis-photography tips from longtime pro tennis photographer Russ Adams.
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August 22, 2005 • Monday
This weekend I finished reading the novel High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.
When I began reading the book, I almost stopped because it was reminding me too much of the movie based on the novel. But I'm glad I stayed with it; the book is an excellent read.
Hornby's style and narrative tone in High Fidelity remind me much of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. But what grabbed me most was Hornby's ability to write such concise observations of the complex emotions one experiences when surviving through a breakup and when maturing into an emotionally conscious adult. This ability is well summed in quote from Ernest Hemingway's Garden of Eden that I keep framed on my desk:
"… it is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply."
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August 05, 2005 • Friday
About an hour ago I finished reading J.K. Rowling’s new book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Other than that I loved reading all 652 pages, I won't say anything else. Why? Because of the Boba Fett Effect.
I was 11 years old, and Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi had been released into movie theatres about a week earlier. In that era, movie houses showed a film on just one screen, and moviegoers were waiting in line for two to six hours to see ... Jedi. Therefore, many waited a couple weeks before braving the queue. I was one of them.
However, several kids from school had seen the movie. One afternoon I was boarding the bus with my schoolmates, and another boy, harassing me, decided to divulge that the intergalactic bounty hunter Boba Fett dies in the film. (I assume I'm not ruining this plot turn for anyone — the movie came out 22 years ago, so if you haven't watched it yet, I'm thinking you're not anxious about it.)
The student's unwanted revelation incensed me, and we almost got into a fight. The standoff had only reached the yelling point when a teacher interfered and asked what had happened. We told her, and the other kid is the one who was scolded.
Thus, my boyhood lesson in the social ramifications of ruining stories for others.
The Boba Fett Effect — coming to a blog near you.
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