"like kobe", he lauded himself, "like kobe."

i ventured into the community yesterday to play basketball. i was planning to shoot baskets by myself in the park, but a bunch of guys approached: they were starting a game. there were more than five of us, so we took turns shooting, to see who would play. i was hoping i would miss. i don't play basketball consistently. 'neither do i', one of the other guys said, but there is a difference: i have a slim and bookish body, not really designed to adapt well to sports. it is one thing to drag out my non-basketball playing friends to serve as lame duck opponents in games they don't even want to be playing; it is another to play in a game with guys who play basketball every evening, and with at least one person who can actually dunk.

in the first game, i played pretty well. i focused on not doing anything wrong. i sent crisp passes and got a few rebounds. at this point, i know my strengths. i'm not an athletic-freak, i'm a jump-shooter. i scored one of my team's five points in the first game. i got a pass from the guy who could dunk, and i faked a shot, which a trash-talker on the other team jumped at. then i had a clear jumper. bang! "good move", the guy who could dunk told me; it was like receiving a compliment from michael jordan. he didn't care what my name was, my personal history, my political affiliations, etc. we communicated in the way that teammates on a basketball court communicate. i had been insecure at first, and was happy that my teammates knew; i could play defense, i could set a pick, i could score a point or two. i wasn't the kid in gym class with braces, bespectacled with sports goggles, picking up the ball and running down the court, without dribbling. i was more like woody harrelson in white men can't jump. i had also communicated with the other team; now they had to guard me. my defensive assignment was a kid who was smaller than me. he was quick, but i had confidence that i could keep him in front of me. on one of the last possessions, he told everyone on his team to "clear out." this sets up an isolated situation. i figured he would try to get around me and drive to the basket. i didn't go for the bait, though. i gave him a few inches, whereas if i had gotten too close, he might have blown right by me. he settled for an ill-advised three pointer with my hand in his face, a "hero" shot, which he missed.

our team lost the first game however, 11-5. my ball had disappeared somewhere in the morass of players, and i gradually realized that it was the game ball. the next game started between the team that beat us and the team that had "next." i sort of wanted to leave, but they were using the ball to play. so i stayed. then, two big verizon trucks showed up. the drivers hopped out, leaving them parked right next to the court. large speakers were magically and instantly assembled on the backs of the trucks, and rap music began to boom. the game went on.

during the second game, i was less successful. the guy i was supposed to guard- i stopped him the first time, cut him off on the baseline. a golden rule of defense is to deny the baseline. the second time though, he got around me. i was too slow for this fleet-footed achilles. the leader of our team switched me to a different position. i also took a shot, a three, and it was an air ball.

oh well. the bottom line is that i went down to the park and my identity for a short while was negated. people are fed through machines and all that comes out, all that matters, is how you ball.

junot diaz reading

Junot Diaz will read from his pulitzer-prize winning book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, at 8pm on Monday, September 8th, in the Multipurpose Room of the College Avenue Student Center.

I haven't read the book, myself. It won the Pulitzer, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Novel of 2007. A good deal, apparently, is set at Rutgers University, where Diaz graduated in 1992. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times remarks of the book:

"a sort of streetwise brand of Spanglish that even the most monolingual reader can easily inhale: lots of flash words and razzle-dazzle talk, lots of body language on the sentences, lots of David Foster Wallace-esque footnotes and asides. And he conjures with seemingly effortless aplomb the two worlds his characters inhabit: the Dominican Republic, the ghost-haunted motherland that shapes their nightmares and their dreams; and America (a.k.a. New Jersey), the land of freedom and hope and not-so-shiny possibilities that they’ve fled to as part of the great Dominican diaspora."