Abraham Jiménez Enoa is a Cuban writer in exile. He is a brave man. He was born to a “revolutionary” family. His grandfather was a bodyguard to both Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Abraham grew up to rebel. I met him last week at the Oslo Freedom Forum and have written about him, here. You may like getting to know him a little.
Yesterday, I had a note or two about youth-sports officiating. (An item in a column, and a letter in a post.) Things are getting nasty out there. Fewer and fewer want to ump or ref. I don’t blame them.
A friend writes me, “Here in Georgia, the need for youth-sports officials is the subject of public-service announcements.” And how about this, from a reader with wide, and intense, experience?
Way back (1985 or so), I was [a police sergeant in a major city] with a son who played Little League baseball. An umpire was needed for a game and they asked me to do it. I would be the only umpire out there, and I was untrained, to boot. I called both coaches to home plate and told them the following:
“I haven’t been home for two days and haven’t slept, I have been on a crime scene. I am here to watch my son pitch. I am an untrained and unqualified volunteer. I will act in good faith and I will do my best, but I will not take one syllable of crap from either dugout or any fan from either side; I will just walk away.”
As luck would have it, the bases were loaded with a 3-2 count in the bottom of the last inning. I called the batter out, looking, on strike three. It could have gone either way. I was profusely thanked by both coaches and several fans on both sides for being fair and for volunteering my time — had I not consented to do it, there would have been no game.
My son pitched for the winning team and I had to call his balls and strikes; a lot of pressure. Those were better citizens during a better time.
And how ’bout this?
Hi, Jay,
In the last couple of weeks since you passed on that astonishing quote from an English teacher who said that Shakespeare “lived in a pretty small world,” I have not been able to stop ruminating about it. It so happens that I was re-reading Hamlet at the time, which play of course speaks for itself, but I also dialed up some podcasts to help enrich my understanding. The very first lines of an episode from Shakespeare for All on the play are as follows:
“Hamlet is the greatest play in the world. It is a play which speaks to people across all times and across all ages. It is the world’s greatest tragedy. Another distinctive feature of Hamlet is that it is so cosmopolitan. . . . The frame of reference in terms of history, in terms of literature, in terms of geography, is extraordinarily wide. If Shakespeare is a global author, Hamlet is a global play.”
(Paulina Kewes, Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford)
I also listened to an extraordinary episode of This American Life reporting on a prison program in Missouri in which they staged Hamlet, one act every six months, over a period of 2-3 years back around 2003. The program explores how the prisoners who acted the various parts found profound connections from their own lives and circumstances to those of the characters written 400 years earlier.
“I am Laertes,” says one man. “I am. I am.” Another inmate who plays the ghost of Hamlet says that he feels that when he delivers those lines it is the man he murdered who is actually speaking. Haunting stuff, and quite frankly the best audio program I have ever listened to.
It’s probably best that that teacher has elected not to teach Shakespeare. Someone who so little understands him should not be the one to expose the next generation to his work.
Last, how about this?
Hello, Jay,
You showed a photo of a Major League Soccer player from South Africa, Evidence Makgopa. As a lifelong fan of the world’s greatest game, I’ve seen many unique names of players. Here are examples: Christ Bongo, Laughter Chilembe, Norman Conquest, Surprise Moriri, and Mark De Man (who appropriately played as a defender).
The greatest nickname, however, belongs to the great German former player and manager Franz Beckenbauer — Der Kaiser (after whom I’ve named my VW Jetta).
Marvelous. Thank you to one and all.