so ive been meaning to post links to these two new york times articles for a while,

http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=daa22e9836cf2a402e2fb3491b03b936&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVzW-zSkVA&_md5=b52a186aa4abdebf78414e9453b17b0d

"Your Brain on Baseball" by David Brooks

this is by the times's conservative pundit and it's about the exact same type of automated brain functions that wallace attirbutes to tennis players (bottom of page 260 is one example) only with baseball players at spring training, pretty interesting stuff

http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=9d550e9075d64e6301e2d7646ec1bf4a&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVzW-zSkVA&_md5=946b019e72aad143a1d68a83a16f758d

It was mentioned at some point earlier that ETA didn't buy into the idea of a corporate sponsorship for the entire academy as Port Washington did, but Wallace still draws distinct connections between tennis and consumer culture. I thought it was interesting that he'd take the time to mention who was sponsored by whom, who's logos were plastered on whose gearbags. And this is just in the Jrs, the tournaments that rarely make it on television.

In our reality, sports is a huge outlet for consumerism, the incredible SuperBowl ad prices, and the brand recognition that seems to skyrocket the moment a popular athlete signs on with the brand.

This has already been posted on a billion times, I know, I'm just too lazy to find the right post to comment on.

On 677 Ms. Steeply (the reporter) and DeLint and watching the match between Hal and Stice and DeLint talks about the pressures of winning- "Winning two and three upset matches, feeling suddenly so loved,so many talking to you as if there is love. But always the same, then. For then you awaken to the fact that you are loved for winning only. The two and three wins created you, for people. It is not that the wins made them recognize something that existed unrecognized before these upset wins. The from-noplace winning created you. You must keep winning to keep the existence of love and endorsements and the shiny magazines wanting your profile."

I find it interesting that the Ennet House Drug and Alchohol Recovery House (sic) is right next to the Enfield tennis academy, because it got me thinking about some parallels between tennis and drugs (or more specifically, sports obsession and substance addiction).

When the book was going over some of the things that addicts/mental patients learn during recovery, it kept mentioning a bunch of strategies and lessons patients are taught in order to regain control of their lives. These continous lessons of control reminded me of the strict sports lessons of James's Incandenza's father, which were then taught by James to his son, Hal (especially those regarding controlling your body). I'm drawing closer parallels between mental patients and tennis players as the novel goes on, in their similarly obsessive, struggling, carefully monitored existence.