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Katha Pollitt and Sam Tanenhaus

the breakfast table
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from: Sam Tanenhaus

The Ewing Epic

Posted Thursday, June 3, 1999, at 11:45 AM ET

Well, Katha, I guess it's time I did some of the work instead of leaving it all up to you. So, a brief departure, or detour, from the domestic scene to the world map. I assume you've looked at today's New York Times, Page One. Imagine if, say, a dozen years ago, someone showed you a headline like "Moscow and West Making Headway on a Kosovo Plan." What would it mean? A post-World War III mop-up detail? Some bizarre plan for the Olympics, concocted by Ten Turner and Gorbachev?

And how about the amazing photo, reminiscent of a bead necklace as conceived by Cristo, of "the second post-apartheid election" in South Africa. The march of history, or rather a concatenation of tiny steps that result in new unfathomable worlds. The beauty is in the matter-of-factness, the understatement.

Unlike the latest Star Wars fantasia, which we saw last night. It struck us all as a kind of souped-up car-chase movie and seemed the opposite of what imagination is all about. I remember an old girlfriend taking me to the first Stars Wars movie in, what?, 1977, maybe. She'd been dazzled. I sat through it uncomprehending. I've gotten even worse since then. I actually slept through the first 40 minutes last night, as I always seem to do these days at the movies. And in planetariums. Anyway, give me Vertigo or Jules and Jim.

The item that had the biggest effect on me, though, is Patrick Ewing's torn Achilles' tendon. Whether you follow the NBA or not, here's a story of epic proportion. The battered warrior, never appreciated by the fans despite 14 years of struggle, seems at last on the verge of triumph, playing every game in excruciating pain and to heroic effect, only to be stricken from the lists and carried off the field. Achilles doesn't quite fit. He was our Hector. Michael Jordan was Achilles, who slew him every spring, a ghastly ritual but impossible not to watch.

Which makes me wonder why we call these reports "news" at all. They're really variations on old themes. Back to Ecclesiastes. Why don't the religious advocates call for teaching that in school instead of evangelical prayers? Or is Ecclesiastes too Jewish?

Mystified as ever,
Sam

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112
from: Sam Tanenhaus

The Ewing Epic

Posted Thursday, June 3, 1999, at 11:45 AM ET
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Katha Pollitt is a columnist for The Nation and the author of Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism (click here to buy the book). Sam Tanenhaus is the author of Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (click here to buy the book) and a contributing editor to Vanity Fair.
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