Jones/ESPNMAG

[JC]

Well said.

 

[SF_Express]

This thread has certainly had some great, and terrible, moments. Kind of one-stop shopping for examples of what's both right and wrong with this place and the people who inhabit it.

 

[hockeybeat]

Attempting to answer Lynch's questions...

I really admired the way Jones weaved personal anecdotes (first visiting Yankee Stadium as a 12 year old; thinking about disappearing into Mexico) into the individual segments while writing what he observed (Jeter signing, Yogi, David Tyree).

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

Double D - I'm glad you no longer want to punch me in the face.

I know that once engaged in a discussion like this - I tend to keep at it and that rubs some the wrong way. Sorry.

One of the best things about this joint is the finding of excellent writings you would not have uncovered on your own. Fenian posted one not long ago on Garry Wills. I clicked the piece by Jones after reading the high praise heaped on the piece. I read the first four sections and felt duped. I hate feeling duped. I also don't like it when some anonymous "first time caller" uses 2 of his first 25 posts to call me a "forking idiot" and to suggest I need to be put out of my misery. I'm guessing that you too would have taken exception if you were in my shoes.

Back to the piece. I appreciate that you and Fenian consider Jones a friend. As you've noted - that colors your viewpoint. But I'd bet that even Jones would admit this wasn't his best work. I'm not alone in saying it was something I couldn't even bring myself to finish. In the first part Jones used the word "I" over 30 times. It's off putting when writers make themselves the story and to go from that to Michael Phelps breakfast place was too much short attention span theater for even ESPN. Then the bizarro pairing of Armstrong and Tyree?

I'm over the anger at being duped into reading even part of that dreck. And I'm also sick of this thread. Unlike Shotty - I mean that I'm done with the posts regarding whatever the heck that thing Jones wrote was.

 

[Boom_70]

Lynch, I gave this more thought that it certainly deserves, but that's also, in essence, a perfect summary of this entire board. So here goes.

I wondered this morning why I was actually tempted to take you up on your offer to come to Worcester, walk into a bar and kick your forking ash (something I'm pretty confident I could do) and I realized it's mostly because Chris Jones is my friend. And so what feels like mindless criticism of his work, oddly, feels somewhat personal. And I suspect the same is true for jgmacg, who I'm also lucky enough to consider a friend. Really good, narrative, literary journalism is hard. (A lot harder than blogging; I know because I've done both. And

Gregg is that you?

 

[GBNF]

Double D - I'm glad you no longer want to punch me in the face.

I know that once engaged in a discussion like this - I tend to keep at it and that rubs some the wrong way. Sorry.

One of the best things about this joint is the finding of excellent writings you would not have uncovered on your own. Fenian posted one not long ago on Garry Wills. I clicked the piece by Jones after reading the high praise heaped on the piece. I read the first four sections and felt duped. I hate feeling duped. I also don't like it when some anonymous "first time caller" uses 2 of his first 25 posts to call me a "forking idiot" and to suggest I need to be put out of my misery. I'm guessing that you too would have taken exception if you were in my shoes.

Back to the piece. I appreciate that you and Fenian consider Jones a friend. As you've noted - that colors your viewpoint. But I'd bet that even Jones would admit this wasn't his best work. I'm not alone in saying it was something I couldn't even bring myself to finish. In the first part Jones used the word "I" over 30 times. It's off putting when writers make themselves the story and to go from that to Michael Phelps breakfast place was too much short attention span theater for even ESPN. Then the bizarro pairing of Armstrong and Tyree?

I'm over the anger at being duped into reading even part of that dreck. And I'm also sick of this thread. Unlike Shotty - I mean that I'm done with the posts regarding whatever the heck that thing Jones wrote was.

Chiming in for the first time.
I can understand the feeling of being duped. Completely. This is not a year-end piece. There is nothing in here that encapsulates what happened in the previous year.
Because that would be The Things We Remember.
ESPN has typically presented its annual year-ender as a seemingly never-ending version of its Top-10 plays; a collection of meaningless quips and tidbits about the year's biggest sports moments. Tyree's catch would've had a blurb about "coming out of nowhere to make The Catch," and they almost certainly would've called it something kitschy, like "The Catch" or "The Grab." That's ESPNtheMag's M.O. - play to the mind of 12-year-olds at the first stop, and to the mind of 45-year-olds the next.

This story, broken down into 11 separate yet connected pieces, focuses not on the great moments of sports that are still fresh on our minds - really, has Michael Phelps' performance faded? - and how the great moments in sports either reflect the common man, or the athlete or anything in between.

Personally, I thought it was more than just a sports piece - and although I disagree with Boom on his idea of selling out, because a paycheck is a paycheck is a paycheck, I understand that Jones' Esquire-ish(?) writing seems out of place in ESPN.

Maybe that's why I liked it so much.
Maybe that's why others have not.

 

[Boom_70]

OK, because Elliotte asked, and I respect him as someone who's probably already seen the Canadiens exhibit at the Hockey HOF while I have not, I will attempt to present a substantive reply to one of CL's critiques -- namely, his problem with Part III, the point of which section seems fairly obvious to me.
(I will leave aside any response to the fourth-grade snarkery attending the basic point.)
The section begins with one athlete talking about an encounter with one president, and moves from there to a general discussion of how these two men -- and athletes/celebrities/etc. -- maintain and/or rehabilitate the public personae that developed around them during the peak of their respective career. Secondarily, it seems to be a nuanced study of how we define public figures -- do we define them by the good they have done, will do, and continue to do, or by the worst mistakes/crimes/blunders/rumors of same with which they are involved. Can they come back from the latter? Should they? Is that something they can do, or something we allow them to do? As for Tyree, it seems that he doesn't want the sum total of himself to be one catch in the SB. Albeit, it's a lower level of concern than Clinton's or Armstrong's, but as a microcosmic perspective, I think it works.
Therefore, I do not believe that you can find three random people and do the same thing, and I think an argument based on that premise fails.

Fenian - the "piece" (of crap) starts with something that happened in 1999.

1999.

For a supposed 2008 "Year in Review".

Let me ask you - what did Lance Armstrong do in 2008? Did he win the Tour de France? No. Why bring him up at all? Why bring Clinton up? Seriously. You are an intelligent person. WTF? Why the grouping of Armstrong, Clinton and Tyree? It's a Mad-Lib. Someone bet Jones that he could sneak in a reference to Armstrong, Clinton and Tyree and not get it into a piece. There's no other rational explanation other than the fact that it's a piece of crap.

I learned a long time ago that, given a respectful reasoned response, the poster in question will reach behind himself and scratch his brain. It is pointless to mention that, if you want to write about the topic of legacy (who really owns it? How can it change? Can it change at all?), one might just begin -- with a quote, mind you, of your subject relating a relevant anecdote -- in the past. It is pointless to mention that it is well within bounds while writing a year-end feature to base it partly in events that happened earlier. (Let's write about the Obama campaigh without mentioning the 2004 speech, or the McCain campaign without talking about Vietnam.) These are things that actual writers do. All of this is pointless, so fair enough.
And, Boom, if NR offered me $20K and expenses to write for them -- hell, they pay Lowry and Godlberg more than the dime-a-word those two hacks deserve - I'm on it like a shot, although I suspect that what I turn in may not be what they were looking for. And the fact that you could postulate that the late Mr. Buckley's startlingly advertising-free little magazine would offer that kind of money pretty much proves you don't know deck about the subject of this thread.

Fenian - you are contradicting your own stated philosophy:
" You write where you're asked and, when you do, you do good work."

Please explain how I am contradicting myself.
"You write where you're asked" -- I am hypothetically asked by NR to write something for 20K Not being rich, I accept.
"you do good work" -- I will ashume, for the sake of argument, that I do this. The point of view may not be what NR expects, but this can come as no surprise to me or them. (And, remember, Boom, you are criticizing Jones only for the fact that he wrote for ESPNmag, not for what he wrote there, so don't come back at me with the notion that what I write has to be what NR expects ideologically. That's not the basis of your argument on this thread, and do change it now would be cheap and stupid.). They run it and pay me or they kill it and pay me. All books in balance.

Again just so we are clear I liked the Jones piece. I love the "genre" as you put it. Some might consider this stuff to be a cliche but I always look forward to the "best" lists that come out at this time of year, along with the wrap up type stories like Jones has done.

As far as my question to you - the key term is "good work" - if you are asked to write about Bush accomplishments in past 8 years but you turn in something that points out his failings, would that be considered "good work" by the National Review?

 

[pallister]

This thread REALLY needs some cheese.

 

[Double J]

To go along with all of the w(h)ine?

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

OK, because Elliotte asked, and I respect him as someone who's probably already seen the Canadiens exhibit at the Hockey HOF while I have not, I will attempt to present a substantive reply to one of CL's critiques -- namely, his problem with Part III, the point of which section seems fairly obvious to me.
(I will leave aside any response to the fourth-grade snarkery attending the basic point.)
The section begins with one athlete talking about an encounter with one president, and moves from there to a general discussion of how these two men -- and athletes/celebrities/etc. -- maintain and/or rehabilitate the public personae that developed around them during the peak of their respective career. Secondarily, it seems to be a nuanced study of how we define public figures -- do we define them by the good they have done, will do, and continue to do, or by the worst mistakes/crimes/blunders/rumors of same with which they are involved. Can they come back from the latter? Should they? Is that something they can do, or something we allow them to do? As for Tyree, it seems that he doesn't want the sum total of himself to be one catch in the SB. Albeit, it's a lower level of concern than Clinton's or Armstrong's, but as a microcosmic perspective, I think it works.
Therefore, I do not believe that you can find three random people and do the same thing, and I think an argument based on that premise fails.

Fenian - the "piece" (of crap) starts with something that happened in 1999.

1999.

For a supposed 2008 "Year in Review".

Let me ask you - what did Lance Armstrong do in 2008? Did he win the Tour de France? No. Why bring him up at all? Why bring Clinton up? Seriously. You are an intelligent person. WTF? Why the grouping of Armstrong, Clinton and Tyree? It's a Mad-Lib. Someone bet Jones that he could sneak in a reference to Armstrong, Clinton and Tyree and not get it into a piece. There's no other rational explanation other than the fact that it's a piece of crap.

I learned a long time ago that, given a respectful reasoned response, the poster in question will reach behind himself and scratch his brain. It is pointless to mention that, if you want to write about the topic of legacy (who really owns it? How can it change? Can it change at all?), one might just begin -- with a quote, mind you, of your subject relating a relevant anecdote -- in the past. It is pointless to mention that it is well within bounds while writing a year-end feature to base it partly in events that happened earlier. (Let's write about the Obama campaigh without mentioning the 2004 speech, or the McCain campaign without talking about Vietnam.) These are things that actual writers do. All of this is pointless, so fair enough.
And, Boom, if NR offered me $20K and expenses to write for them -- hell, they pay Lowry and Godlberg more than the dime-a-word those two hacks deserve - I'm on it like a shot, although I suspect that what I turn in may not be what they were looking for. And the fact that you could postulate that the late Mr. Buckley's startlingly advertising-free little magazine would offer that kind of money pretty much proves you don't know deck about the subject of this thread.

Fenian - you are contradicting your own stated philosophy:
" You write where you're asked and, when you do, you do good work."

Please explain how I am contradicting myself.
"You write where you're asked" -- I am hypothetically asked by NR to write something for 20K Not being rich, I accept.
"you do good work" -- I will ashume, for the sake of argument, that I do this. The point of view may not be what NR expects, but this can come as no surprise to me or them. (And, remember, Boom, you are criticizing Jones only for the fact that he wrote for ESPNmag, not for what he wrote there, so don't come back at me with the notion that what I write has to be what NR expects ideologically. That's not the basis of your argument on this thread, and do change it now would be cheap and stupid.). They run it and pay me or they kill it and pay me. All books in balance.

Again just so we are clear I liked the Jones piece. I love the "genre" as you put it. Some might consider this stuff to be a cliche but I always look forward to the "best" lists that come out at this time of year, along with the wrap up type stories like Jones has done.

As far as my question to you - the key term is "good work" - if you are asked to write about Bush accomplishments in past 8 years but you turn in something that points out his failings, would that be considered "good work" by the National Review?

As anticipated, cheap and stupid carries the day.
Move along, Boom. Your original argument was the dumbest thing about this whole thread ""I like Jones. I like this piece. But I hate the magazine it's in, therefore..."
And Chris? I don't believe I ever mentioned whether Jones and I were friends. I addressed one of your criticisms on its merits. The vehemence, I do not understand.

 

[Songbird]

I'm curious about Chris' interpretation of Armstrong-Tyree.

 

[JayFarrar]

I've been thinking about this more than I should.
So do people think that Jones's piece was meant for the magazine's regular readers or someone else?
I suspect that the magazine is trying to become more than what it currently is, so it has went out and hired writers who will not turn in the average sports piece, but instead turn in copy that will take a couple of reads to understand.
Pieces that challenge and redefine what a story means.
I can see how an average reader might like at year-ender The Jones wrote and think "WTF?" and I can see how another writer might judge the story.
The question becomes, was the article geared for the regular reader of the magazine, or for people of letters. The people whose opinion can make or break a magazine's literary reputation.
If the magazine wants to become something else, to get there, it can't be a top 10 list of what happened.
So you get what The Jones turned in.
I thought it was fantastic, well-written and it made me wish I had followed sports closer. But as I thought about it today, if I had followed sports closely, I probably would have hated Jones story.
Very interesting, at least to me.