Yesterday’s final in Rome between Federer and Djokovic was a fascinating spectacle, not only for the superb tennis but for the psychology of the event. Federer was thoroughly outclassed in two punishing sets. The look on his face at first said, “This guy is a better tennis player than I am”. Then the look deepened to something even more disturbing for the great Federer: “This guy is a better tennis player than I ever was”. Djokovic’s level is so consistently high, and so breathtaking, that it is becoming clear that he is really the best tennis player of all time.

I read a very good article in the most recent NYRB (May 21) about Max Beerbohm, written by Phillip Lopate. I found myself resonating to the Beerbohm sensibility, which I would find hard to summarize. With the miracle of youtube I listened to an old broadcast of his (1956) on BBC radio about London, past and present. Again, I won’t attempt to summarize (and thereby defile): I suggest you listen to it yourself. It is a sensibility we need more of. The accent intrigued me: it made the Queen’s accent seem vulgarly posh. Beerbohm’s accent is beyond posh–in its own realm of vocal perfection. It seems like the voice of civilization itself. He left London at age 37 to move to Rapallo in Italy, where he lived till he died; like a true Englishman he had to live abroad. Shaw called him “the incomparable Max”, which irked him; I prefer “the unclassifiable Max”, because he escapes all stereotypes.

The other day I had a very interesting letter from someone who coaches varsity tennis at a major university. He had been reading my book Sport and had incorporated some of it into his training methods (it had to do with theoretical and practical knowledge), as well as mentioning it in an article on tennis for an online teaching program. How many philosophers can say that their writings have affected the way a sport is actually taught?

I found myself at the British Consulate in Miami last evening, seeing in the election results. It struck me how essentially gentle, humorous, sensible, broadminded, and skeptical the British are–in contrast to the ferocity, humorlessness, gullibility, and narrow-mindedness of others I prefer not to mention. This was disturbing. We are so self-conscious about our words, possibly because of speech as a class marker. We don’t speak language as much as dance it.