Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
--Omar Khayyám, quoted on BBC4's Free Thinking podcast.
A blog about ideas, popular culture, philosophy, and personal enthusiasms (or "springs of delight") of all kinds.
by John Updike
It looks easy from a distance,
easy and lazy, even,
until you stand up to the plate
and see the fastball sailing inside,
an inch from your chin,
or circle in the outfield
straining to get a bead
on a small black dot
a city block or more high,
a dark star that could fall
on your head like a leaden meteor.
The grass, the dirt, the deadly hops
between your feet and overeager glove:
football can be learned,
and basketball finessed, but
there is no hiding from baseball
the fact that some are chosen
and some are not—those whose mitts
feel too left-handed,
who are scared at third base
of the pulled line drive,
and at first base are scared
of the shortstop's wild throw
that stretches you out like a gutted deer.
There is nowhere to hide when the ball's
spotlight swivels your way,
and the chatter around you falls still,
and the mothers on the sidelines,
your own among them, hold their breaths,
and you whiff on a terrible pitch
or in the infield achieve
something with the ball so
ridiculous you blush for years.
It's easy to do. Baseball was
invented in America, where beneath
the good cheer and sly jazz the chance
of failure is everybody's right,
beginning with baseball.
"Baseball" by John Updike, from Endpoint. © Knopf, 2009. Reprinted with permission."Baseball" by John Updike, from Endpoint. © Knopf, 2009. Reprinted with permissionhttps://open.substack.com/pub/thewritersalmanac/p/the-writers-almanac-from-tuesday-998?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios
…In Ms. Viorst's book, the 10th good thing about Barney is the way he becomes a part of the earth and so helps the flowers to grow. That's an immortality beyond debate.
The 10th good thing about Rascal was his daily testimony of unconditional love. In his every waking, bouncing moment, in his every grateful, unguarded nap in my lap, he reminded me that love is always worth the price of heartbreak. And that's a kind of immortality too.
Willie Mays has died, just as they prepare to play an MLB game at his starting place: Birmingham's Rickwood Field.
They used to play his song (and Mickey's and the Duke's) before the Nashville Sounds home games at old Greer Stadium. 🎜"Now it's the '80's..." 🎝
How time marches on.
"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind." God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (and see Mr. Rogers, below)
"Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail."
Jailbird, prologue
When asked in 1978 about his writing process, Updike said, “I’ve never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think that pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them, you will never write again.”
After the birth of his third child, he had rented an office above a restaurant in Ipswich, and spent several hours each morning writing there. Throughout his 50-year career, he remained devoted to that schedule, writing about three pages every morning after breakfast, sometimes more if things were going well. He said: “Back when I started, our best writers spent long periods brooding in silence. Then they’d publish a big book and go quiet again for another five years. I decided to run a different kind of shop.” WA
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"And maybe this is what I have learned more than anything from my great-great-grandfather: to keep my eyes and my mind open, to enjoy the wonders of nature and never cease to ask questions." Sarah Darwin, foreword to "A Modest Genius: The story of Darwin's life and how his ideas changed everything" by Hanne Strager