The Show and its invisible substructure — the world under E.T.A.'s telos
echoes
From: Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Limitation, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
- Early text: "The realities of the men’s professional tennis
tour bear about as much resemblance to the lush finals you see on TV as a
slaughterhouse does to a well-presented cut of restaurant sirloin"; the
Qualies as "a pre-tournament tournament"; "The move up from qualifier to
main-draw player is a huge boost, both financially and psychically, but it’s
still a couple plateaux away from true fame and fortune." [early, framing]
[e-text]
- IJ echo: "the Show" — the professional tour that is E.T.A.'s explicit
goal-state and organizing horizon; the academy exists to feed juniors into
exactly this economy. The essay is the documentary anatomy of what "making
the Show" actually means: the money, the obscurity, the grind below the
televised surface that E.T.A.'s ethos is training its kids to survive.
- Weight: prefiguration