Game, Set…and History

As that most hallowed of tennis events, Wimbledon, unfolds in its 125th staging at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, Stephen Tignor’s High Strung: Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, and The Untold Story of Tennis’s Fiercest Rivalry, serves as a lively look back at what’s widely regarded as the sport’s “Golden Age” and the personalities who defined an era.

The title is a bit of a misnomer, as High Strung encompasses much more than the Borg-McEnroe rivalry (it’s bookended by two now almost-mythical matches between the champions: the 1980 Wimbledon and 1981 U.S. Open finals). It chronicles the time when tennis bridged its genteel and stodgy pre-Open past to the wild, freewheeling, and fan-riveting years of the ‘70s and ‘80s, with names like Jimmy
Connors, Ilie Nastase, and Vitas Gerulaitis, in addition to Borg and McEnroe, as headliners.

Tignor, a former executive editor at Tennis magazine, displays a deep knowledge of the nuances of the game, as well as a knack for colorful description — Borg: the “Angelic Assassin,” with “a headband for a halo”; McEnroe: “The Dark Prince of Queens,” with “the insouciance of the born improviser” — that makes High Strung a tennis lover’s delight. His overview of the key elements that shook the foundations of the sport forever, as well as the athletes who contributed to the seismic changes, provides a detailed picture of an institution in a radical state of flux.

Technical aspects so critical to the evolution of the sport are also examined, as the author notes how the arrival of the Czech “techno-man” Ivan Lendl was a precursor to the power game that would bring McEnroe’s days as the feathery maestro with a wooden racquet to an end. (Tignor notes that by the time McEnroe transitioned to the next-generation midsize racquet, it was too late for him to master the demolishing forehand later employed by players such as Andre Agassi. McEnroe was the last to win the U.S. Open using wood, in 1981.)

But no doubt it’s the “fire and ice” contrast of Borg and McEnroe that’s the fascinating crux of the book. (A documentary on the two, also called “Fire & Ice,” currently airs on HBO.) The methodical and enigmatic Swede, whose “mind never seemed to get in the way of his muscle memory,” is a storybook foil for the brash “superbrat” McEnroe, who always wore his heart (and mouth) on his sleeve, and whose tantrums (and unequaled poeticism of strokes) became the stuff of legend.

Living the Language Loca

As a lover of all things linguistic, one of the fun parts of having come from my background has been what are called “Cubanismos,” those colorful phrases that are so perfectly and uniquely Cuban in flavor — and impossible to translate in any conceivably coherent way. (An hilarious offshoot of the “Cubanismo” includes the pronunciations of some of the more commonplace American venues and items, as in the T-shirt, left.)

Also referred to as “Cubonics,” these sayings comprise a zany subset of what is otherwise known as Spanish, and to this day I still discover a new nugget or two along the way. 

Sacred Geometry

An item I saw the other day about an anniversary related to one of my favorite artists, the Abstract Expressionist painter  Mark Rothko, is a reminder of how art and spirituality intersect in transcendent ways.

Forty years ago, two visionary art collectors foresaw a sanctuary of contemplation and thought, where several canvases commissioned from Rothko would grace – no better word for it – a very special place of nonsectarian meditation in Houston, Texas. Thus was born the Rothko Chapel.

I remember learning about it in college, and if it intrigued me then, I find the idea even more fascinating now. The search for spiritual growth is par for the course these days, but for this unusual and beautiful concept to have been conceived in such a distant past? (Or in the words of chapel director Emilee Whitehurst, “One of the interesting things about being at the chapel now is that it’s almost as if the rest of the world has caught up to where they were 40 years ago.”)

No Place Like It

Midnight in Paris reminds again that Woody Allen is the proverbial phoenix of filmmakers, often discounted after a less-than-stellar project or another, then hitting one out of the park that you didn’t see coming. Over just the last few years, for example, the terrific Match Point (2005) was followed by the forgettable Scoop and Cassandra’s Dream; and then… Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Next, the minor-leaguers Whatever Works and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger; and now… Midnight in Paris.

So the cycle continues. It’s difficult to not love a movie that opens as a visual paean to the beauty of Paris, an appropriate preamble to the chimeric confection that follows. Plot thin but fantasy rich, Midnight in Paris is held together by the Allen alter-ego here played by Owen Wilson, an actor I never thought to like as much I did in this performance – a soft, musingly dazy portrayal that is never less than enchanting. His character, Gil, a Hollywood scriptwriter who yearns to be a novelist, is in the City of Light on a business trip with his prosaic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams), a not-so-soulmate for an aspiring artist with a dream driving his heart.

It all unfolds with bells at the stroke of midnight, as a wandering Gil is picked up in a backstreet alley by revelers in a classic Peugeot that is clearly from another time. And then the real party begins. We’re back in 1920s Paris, with a cast of characters that makes Gil feel like the ultimate stranger in paradise. Scott and Zelda, Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway…and that’s just the beginning.

Paris Match

Rafael Nadal wins his sixth French Open on the red clay in Paris, France 6/5/11
(Photo: Charles Platiau/Reuters)