Teams move in patterns, in rhythms, at high velocity; one must watch the game abstractly, not focusing on any single individual al...one, but upon, as it were, the blurred and intricate designs woven by the paths through which all five together cast a spell upon the opposition. The eye watches five men at once, delighting in their unity, groaning at their lapses of concentration. Yet basketball moves so rapidly and so depends on the versatility of each individual in escaping from the defense intended to contain him that the game cannot be choreographed in advance. Twelve men are constantly in movement (counting two referees), the rebounds of the ball are unpredictable, the occasions for passing or dribbling, or shooting must be decided instantaneously; basketball players must be improvisers. They have a score, a melody; each team has its own appropriate tempo, a style of the game best suited to its talents; but within and around that general score, each individual is free to elaborate as the spirit moves him. Basketball is jazz: improvisatory, free, individualistic, corporate, sweaty, fast, exulting, screeching, torrid, explosive, exquisitely designed for letting first the trumpet, then the sax, then the drummer, then the trombonist soar away in virtuoso excellence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the mor...e it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Billie Holiday's burned voice had as many shadows as lights,... a mournful candelabra against a sleek piano, the gardenia her signature under that ruined face. ... If you can't be free, be a mystery.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Though the Jazz Age continued it became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children's party taken over by the... elders.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The zipless fuck is absolutely pure. It is free of ulterior motives. There is no power game. The man is not "taking" and the woman... is not "giving." No one is attempting to cuckold a husband or humiliate a wife. No one is trying to prove anything or get anything out of anyone. The zipless fuck is the purest thing there is. And it is rarer than the unicorn. And I have never had one.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Men are free when they are in a living homeland, not when they are straying and breaking away. Men are free when they are obeying ...some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom. Men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom. The shout is a rattling of chains, always was.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »