Sunday, April 17, 2016
"APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain."
-T.S. Eliot
Liam working on the curtains.
April has been cruel, no? Cold, rain. Snow? We are sure, though, that Spring is coming. Outdoor tennis is coming.
The club's work crew has sparklified the property, cleaned the courts, hoisted the poles, run the cables, hung some curtains, (we leave a big gap so's re-surfacing vehicles can drive from court to court easily). We are mostly ready for Cape and Islands Tennis to come and work their magic. Their magic? They re-surface the clay with shiny new Har-Tru, put down the lines, put up the nets.
The Har-Tru has been delivered and stacked behind what will become court 3. Eight delicious pallets of the stuff. (The delivery was a bit of a spectacle: an 18 wheel flatbed truck drove the clay to us from Virginia. A fork-lift maneuvered the pallets through our back gate. A police detail, flashing lights and all, stopped and directed traffic on Willard St. There were some funny parts: a neighbor lady burst out of her house to scold our cop about how fast cars speed down Willard St. At all hours.)
Har-Tru
Very interesting, I am sure, but when do we open?
There are variables, mostly the weather and the schedule of Cape and Island Tennis, but we are hoping for some time this week. Yes.
Get your racket re-strung, dig out your clay court sneaks. Get ready.
We are.
Almost courts.
The website has a tradition of blurbing books written by members. Let's try a new feature: club artists with current or upcoming shows.
We invite all club artists to send us info or blurbs on their shows.
Pierce has kindly posted lots and lots of great photos of the tournaments and other club events of last year. You can see, and even download his photos at: Pierce Photos.
A call for contributors: We need some on-the-spot correspondents. Please send us opinions or comments or jokes or observations or pleas. Or stories.
Some links of interest:
Rogers CupATP World Tour
WTA Tennis
Craig Lambert wrote a must-read article for Harvard Magazine about Bruce Wright's take on the 'high set' stance and movement in tennis. Take a look: High Set The article is accompanied by a separate video demonstrating the technique. High Set Video Thanks, Craig, for sending this nifty technical riff along to us.
The book? Membership for the coming year hasn't been settled, so the book will be a while in the making. In the meantime, the website will be updated as data dribbles in.
We are going to try out a new feature on the newspage. Let's call it The Book Blurb. The Blurb will note books not necessarily about tennis, but authored by CTC members. So, if you members have recently, or maybe not so recently, written a book that you'd like blurbed, please let us know.
Let's start with:
"The fundamental question of information philosophy is cosmological and ultimately metaphysical. What is the process that creates information structures in the universe?" Heady stuff, no?Well, the club's own Bob Doyle who works much magic here behind the scenes tackled this little issue in his book, Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy. And the club's own Craig Lambert wrote a nifty, readable article for Harvard Magazine on Bob and his place in the free will issue. Take a look at Craig's article,
Two Steps to Free Will.In the midst of renovating garages and ruling vast sectors of cyberspace, Bob Doyle wrote a bit of a magnum opus: Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy by Bob Doyle. "The fundamental question of information philosophy is cosmological and ultimately metaphysical. What is the process that creates information structures in the universe?"
We have a new book by a club member, Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women's Sports, by club member, Susan Ware. The book is: A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Sports Book.
We have some new books from club member, Julie Baer:
Love Me Later
Julie Baer presents us with a unique book. Her fantastic artwork depicts nature and people in a special way. -- Bookreviewcafe.com
I Only Like What I Like
"CHILDREN BEWARE –will have you trying the untried, 'cause it's FUN! The collages fill you up to the eyeballs."
Take a look at: William P. Homans, Jr., A Life in Court, by Mark S. Brodin. Bill Homans was a long time member of the club with "a storied legal career." A lot of folks at the club knew and liked Bill. He could tell a story or two, couldn't he?
We want to mention New Classic American Houses, a book by Dan Cooper about the architecture of Albert, Righter, and our own John Tittmann. "New Classic American Houses is an architectural page-turner brimming with creative interpretations of traditional forms."
Hot off the presses, a new book by Faith Moore, Celebrating a Life, Planning Memorial Services and Other Creative Remembrances. "Celebrating a Life" provides the ideas, inspiration, and how-to advice needed for creating a meaningful memorial service. Light-hearted but sensitive, this thoughtful guide covers it all."
While We Were Sleeping by David Hemenway.
"This book powerfully illuminates how public health works with more than sixty success stories drawn from the area of injury and violence prevention."
The Parents We Mean To Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development by Rick Weissbourd.
The New Yorker review said, "In this ardent and persuasive inquiry, Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist, warns that 'happiness-besotted' parents do children a disservice by emphasizing personal fulfillment over empathy."
Some useful links:
Here's a link to the espn site, with pro ranking.
And a club member (let's call him Sol) suggested a link to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I. The site is rich.
"On the court, tennis players exchange not only ground strokes but lots of information. It's a richly interactive sport, both verbally and non-verbally. If players communicate clearly, simply, and consistently, the game will proceed more quickly, and with less fuss and misunderstanding. Here are a few guidelines that can make the game more fun, friendly, and fair for all...."
We've had some requests to run Craig Lambert's piece, sampled above, on Tennis Communication. (We'd better leave this link up on the newspage permanently.)
The Yearbook link will take you to the last newspage from 2015. From there you can see the whole of the Persistent Archive of last year's news.
Website Note: The time and temperature icon below is a link to a Cambridge weather site.
Joe DeBassio, Webmaster.
Website Note II: The honey-comb icon is also a link. It takes the clicker to an archive of all the past news pages so that said clicker can read the news pages for the whole year (2016). The less-than link (<) next to the honeycomb icon will take clickers to the previous issue of this year's newspage.
This version is archived at: https://www.cambridgetennisclub.com/News/News2016.5.en.html
