I never knew tennis balls used to be white. How about that! But it makes sense when I think about it as bright yellow balls aren't exactly traditional.
I remember as a first-year German undergraduate reading Goethe's novella about the Sorrows of Young Werther, the Romantic aesthetic stretched to breaking point in the Sturm und Drang movement. Poor Werther, weeping over the bugs he crushed unknowingly in his innocent walks in the woods, and blowing his brains out over unrequited lust for his married friend, Lotte, who probably would have been a very dull lover, bless her. It was all terribly precious, but there was a genuine love of nature there – and nature in them days was a lot more … natural than European landscapes are today. More Australian, in a way. Not tidied up, and quite inclined to kill you, if you disrespected them.
Most people still need a filter to experience nature, don't you think? Or what are we doing with our iPhones and Samsungs, exactly?
You're right Steve, we do filter nature in so many ways. We who are born from it, build walls against, tame it and destroy it so that so few these days ever truly know it.
This doesn’t directly address your fine post, but I played tennis for many years, starting with the boom of the wooden-racquet era of the mid-1970s. A good portion of the last three decades found me working in a job where one of my many duties was selling and servicing tennis equipment. (I restrung about three thousand racquets over a thirty year period, and I usually managed to sell a new grip in the process, which I’d always install without charging for labor.) When I started playing the balls were still primarily white, but it wasn’t long before the popularity of yellow balls, which seem to be nearly universal nowadays. By the time I’d reached my early thirties I found that I hated leaving the house without sunglasses. Of course I wore them on the tennis court, and I read somewhere that the best color lenses for seeing a yellow object (especially a small, spinning one hurtling towards me at upwards of ninety miles an hour) is blue. I think I found that out when I was in my late thirties or early forties, so from then onwards I always wore blue tinted sunglasses. Instant edge over the competition! BTW, it’s always nice seeing you in print, no matter what you’re writing about.
I never knew tennis balls used to be white. How about that! But it makes sense when I think about it as bright yellow balls aren't exactly traditional.
The last few years I played golf I used optic yellow golf balls too, and I always had my trusty blue sunglasses. Believe me, it helped a lot as I navigated the less-traveled byways of the course.
Whoa—so many layers to consider! Rich with analysis, metaphor, connection, culture, poetry, literature, interpretation, and history, as well as intuited, experiential or assigned meaning. Thank you for flexing my mind away from the prosaic (pun intended) and toward deeper contemplation.
Thanks Kate. I'm glad you noticed all that. I deleted so many paragraphs from this little essay, paragraphs that shot off on all sorts of relevant tangents, but tangents nonetheless. I often I feel I'm writing through a Claude glass just to keep things short enough that people will want to read them :)
I understand. But this is a place for readers and thinkers, so try not to censor yourself. If you have to break things into sections or feel a multi-part post is needed, it might allow you to feel more comfortable in fully conveying all the threads and weaving them into your flexing fabric.💕
Thanks Kate 😊 Although I think I'm doing you a favour in most of these instances. I've discovered lately that if I write my tangents down it helps get them out of my system. Once I see them on the page I can feel if they make the story more exciting or excruciating, and most of the time I find them excruciating 😂 Still, somehow it helps me more clearly articulate what I'm actually trying to say without prattling on.
I never knew tennis balls used to be white. How about that! But it makes sense when I think about it as bright yellow balls aren't exactly traditional.
I remember as a first-year German undergraduate reading Goethe's novella about the Sorrows of Young Werther, the Romantic aesthetic stretched to breaking point in the Sturm und Drang movement. Poor Werther, weeping over the bugs he crushed unknowingly in his innocent walks in the woods, and blowing his brains out over unrequited lust for his married friend, Lotte, who probably would have been a very dull lover, bless her. It was all terribly precious, but there was a genuine love of nature there – and nature in them days was a lot more … natural than European landscapes are today. More Australian, in a way. Not tidied up, and quite inclined to kill you, if you disrespected them.
Most people still need a filter to experience nature, don't you think? Or what are we doing with our iPhones and Samsungs, exactly?
Oh the poor bugs 😅
You're right Steve, we do filter nature in so many ways. We who are born from it, build walls against, tame it and destroy it so that so few these days ever truly know it.
This doesn’t directly address your fine post, but I played tennis for many years, starting with the boom of the wooden-racquet era of the mid-1970s. A good portion of the last three decades found me working in a job where one of my many duties was selling and servicing tennis equipment. (I restrung about three thousand racquets over a thirty year period, and I usually managed to sell a new grip in the process, which I’d always install without charging for labor.) When I started playing the balls were still primarily white, but it wasn’t long before the popularity of yellow balls, which seem to be nearly universal nowadays. By the time I’d reached my early thirties I found that I hated leaving the house without sunglasses. Of course I wore them on the tennis court, and I read somewhere that the best color lenses for seeing a yellow object (especially a small, spinning one hurtling towards me at upwards of ninety miles an hour) is blue. I think I found that out when I was in my late thirties or early forties, so from then onwards I always wore blue tinted sunglasses. Instant edge over the competition! BTW, it’s always nice seeing you in print, no matter what you’re writing about.
I never knew tennis balls used to be white. How about that! But it makes sense when I think about it as bright yellow balls aren't exactly traditional.
The last few years I played golf I used optic yellow golf balls too, and I always had my trusty blue sunglasses. Believe me, it helped a lot as I navigated the less-traveled byways of the course.
Whoa—so many layers to consider! Rich with analysis, metaphor, connection, culture, poetry, literature, interpretation, and history, as well as intuited, experiential or assigned meaning. Thank you for flexing my mind away from the prosaic (pun intended) and toward deeper contemplation.
Thanks Kate. I'm glad you noticed all that. I deleted so many paragraphs from this little essay, paragraphs that shot off on all sorts of relevant tangents, but tangents nonetheless. I often I feel I'm writing through a Claude glass just to keep things short enough that people will want to read them :)
I understand. But this is a place for readers and thinkers, so try not to censor yourself. If you have to break things into sections or feel a multi-part post is needed, it might allow you to feel more comfortable in fully conveying all the threads and weaving them into your flexing fabric.💕
Thanks Kate 😊 Although I think I'm doing you a favour in most of these instances. I've discovered lately that if I write my tangents down it helps get them out of my system. Once I see them on the page I can feel if they make the story more exciting or excruciating, and most of the time I find them excruciating 😂 Still, somehow it helps me more clearly articulate what I'm actually trying to say without prattling on.
I can relate! I totally get it now. Of course you have it sorted out. Sorry to be presumptuous and thanks for going into your process a bit. 😊