The beloved David Shields (q.v.), Other People:
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The ruling ethos of Seattle is forlorn apology for our animal impulses.
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In Laura,
Lydecker, of course, can’t control his gun: He kills the wrong girl earlier in the movie, and when he later tries to complete the act, even Laura can outmuscle him, causing him to misfire. He’s quickly mowed down by McPherson‘s boys. There’s control (verbal), then there’s control (physical). There’s language, then there’s blood.
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In high school I was athletic and thus, to a certain extent, popular. However, I worked unduly hard at it, at sports, with very little sprezzatura, which made me extremely unpopular among the really popular, really athletic people. Why? Because I made popularity or grace look like something less than a pure gift. Only the really popular, really athletic people knew I was unpopular, so I could, for instance, be elected, if I remember correctly, vice-president of the sophomore class and yet be, in a sense, underappreciated.
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My father didn’t particularly mind my mindlessness, since… he was also a lifelong athlete (runner, swimmer, trophy-winning tennis player) and sporadic sportswriter who, even now, at 94, still writes an occasional sports column for his local suburban California weekly. My mother, on the other hand, disapproved. Once, she said to me, “Sometimes when people ask me if all you ever do is play sports, I want to tell them, ‘At least he’s devoted to something. At least he has an activity at which he excels,’ but other times I wish you were obsessed with something a little more permanent.”
“Yes, I know,” I whispered; it was very late on some Sunday night.
“Sometimes I just want to tell those people: ‘Leave me alone. Leave him alone. He’s like a dancer on that damn playfield or ballyard or what-have-you.’ But what I usually tell them, what I really feel, and what I guess I’m trying to tell you now, is that I wish you’d dedicate yourself with the same passion to a somewhat more elevated calling.”
“Yes, I know,” I whispered again[.]
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I once felt joy in being alive and I felt this mainly when I was playing basketball and I rarely if ever feel that joy anymore and it’s my own damn fault and that’s life. Too bad.