Tennis Club News
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
"This battle fares like to the morning's war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind;
Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea
Forced to retire by fury of the wind:
Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;
Now one the better, then another best;
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror nor conquered"*
-King Henry VI
King Henry VI, Part iii
Act 2, Scene 5
*(A BIG quote cuz we were just informed by several people that they look at the newspage just for the epigraph. Hummppff.)
Michelle and Audrey at the Labor Day Party
The Labor Day Party was huge fun: big crowd, eating and playing and hanging (and a bit of posing and declaiming), but we are now on to the next thrills.
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TOURNAMENTS. Yes, starting this weekend with Women's Singles and Men's Doubles. Fierce, yet decorous. Sign up sheets are on the club bulletin board. You can also call the clubhouse and ask a friendly staffer to enter your name, in blood if you want, on any tournament. Every one is guaranteed at least two matches. The fee is $25 per player, not per team. Matches run from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The deadline has been extended to the end of day Thursday.
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Some featured performers at the Labor Day Party:
Jack
Liz
...and Molly, Nick, and Michael
And we have a Meet and Greet Party coming up:
What a summer and still lots of time for more tennis this Fall.
The Membership Committee is happy to report that as we
head towards the end the summer season, CTC's membership
has been full all summer along with the full slate of
prospective members from the 'Waiting List'
who joined us on the courts this summer.
Our goal, of course, is to continue the club's sustained effort
to bolster interest in CTC and entice potential new members
of all ages and stripes who love tennis and live in Cambridge.
With that in mind we'll be holding the last
'Meet & Greet' gathering at the club next week on
Thursday September 16th between 6-8 pm.
We encourage you to bring a friend or two who might be
interested in membership. We'll be serving food and drink -
and membership committee members will be available to go over
the formal process of introducing prospective new members.
Interest in the club has taken a strong turn - currently
reflected in our current 'Waiting List' of prospective
members - which has been at capacity this summer.
So if you have neighbors or friends in Cambridge who
might have an interest in CTC, we encourage you to bring
them to the 'Meet & Greet' Septmber 16th. It should be fun.
Co-membership Committee Chairs,
Sam Fleming
Kate Canfield
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By now the world knows that the club has been broken into and vandalized. We've had considerable feedback about Vandals. Our amazing members don't have any real information about our vandals, but lots of info on the Vandals of Antiquity. Here's an excerpt of an extensive two-part email:
A shout-out to King Alaric and his hoard of visigoths!
Happy 1600th anniversary of the Sacking of Rome Sack of Rome (to the day - as seen on BBC news - hey I can't make this stuff up!).
See BBC (old) news article -
here.
You'll have to wait another 45 years for Geiseric and the Vandals to drop by.
PS- A quick quote or two from some Wiki pages about the fun-loving Vandals shows how misunderstood they are -
In modern usage, a "vandal" is someone who engages in senseless destruction. This usage is a result of the Vandals' sack of Rome under King Genseric in 455. The Vandals may not have been any more destructive than other invaders of ancient times, but writers who idealized Rome often blamed them for its destruction. For example, British Enlightenment John Dryden wrote, /Till Goths, and Vandals, a rude Northern race,/ Did all the matchless Monuments deface/.^[2] note.
[...]
There is, however, some debate over the severity of the Vandal sack. The sack of 455 is generally seen by historians as being more thorough than the Visigothic sack of 410 Sack_of_Rome, because the Vandals plundered Rome for fourteen days whereas the Visigoths spent only three days in the city. The cause of most controversy, however, is the claim that the sack was relatively "clean", in that there was little murder and violence, and the Vandals did not burn the buildings of the city.
[...]
The term /Vandalisme/ was coined in 1794 by Henri Grégoire, bishop of Blois, to describe the destruction of artwork following the French Revolution. The term was quickly adopted across Europe. This new use of the term was important in colouring the perception of the Vandals from later Late Antiquity, popularizing the pre-existing idea that they were a barbaric group with a taste for destruction. Vandals and other barbarian groups had long been blamed for the fall of the Roman Empire by writers and historians.^[3] note-2.
[...]
From around 1540, the Swedish king had been styled, /Suecorum, Gothorum et Vandalorum Rex/: /King of the Swedes, Goths and Vendes/.^[4] note-3. Carl XVI Gustaf, dropped the title in 1973 and now styles himself simply as King of Sweden".
Anyone want to double check the above?
We are drowned; we are stewed, basted, hammered, but we play on. We've slowed down a bit here in August. We have slow days that are, you know, kinda busy.
Tuesdays and Fridays are the busiest days. Tuesdays are crazybusy. Monday is the slowest, 'cepting Monday prime-time when there are 3 courts reserved for in-house league play and you, yes, you can't get a court. The weekends are slow. Go figure.
At 8:00 a.m. the phone is always, always busy. The action at 8:00 for reservations is frantic. Please be kind to your friendly staff member who takes your reservation calls. We're burning through staff members. Their ears are bleeding.
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The next, and last, Round Robin is on Wednesday, September 15. The meal will be catered. Tennis starts at 6:00.
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We seek contributions from members. Insights, jibes, cracks, questions, suggestions, remarks, jokes.
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? The club directory should be in your hand, always, but the website has much of this year's info.
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:
Our newest book to be blurbed is: 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."
Inside Urban Charter Schools: Promising Practices and Strategies in Five High-Performing Schools by Kay Merseth
"an inspirational and practical how-to guide for school reformers."
The club directory for 2010 should be in your hands or by your side all day, every day. But, should something untoward befall you and the directory isn't handy, all of this year's information is available on the website, except for membership information.
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.
We still have the tournament draws (from 2001 to 2004) available on-line (including all of the results), thanks to the Java Kid. We are re-locating the links, however.
"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.)
Take a look
(
lots of pictures)
at what was happening at this time last year.
The Yearbook
link will take you to the last newspage from 2009. 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 Boston 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 (2009). The less-than link (<) next to the honeycomb icon will take clickers to the previous issue of this year's newspage.
