Tennis, Movies and the allure of Jazz

I have not written much lately because I have been really busy, so this post will be a brief summation of some of the stuff I would like to discuss in greater detail but cannot due to time constraints. The first, of course, is the US Open. On the women’s side, the seeds have fallen off at an astonishing rate, which I believe is testimony to the depth of the field. Few to watch on the women side include Melanie Oudin, whose upset wins over tennis stalwarts Maria Sharapova and Elena Dementieva has put her in the conversation as one of the serious contenders for the title and earned her, in my view, the mantle of breakthrough tennis star this year; Kim Clijsters, whose comeback culminated, recently, in an upset win over Venus Williams; Na Li, who is quietly but expertly making her through the draw; and Serena Williams, who is full of confidence and is playing on her favorite surface, hard courts. On the men’s side, the seeds are holding steady for the most part, but there has been some major upsets, most notably Andy Roddick and Gilles Simon. Roger Federer, whose versatile style of play I admire most, "looks" to be the favorite to repeat. But either Juan Del Potro or Andy Murray is more than capable, when push comes to shove, of staging a huge upset. I cannot say with any certainty who I think could ultimately win – the level of play is universally strong. However, if I were to go out on a limb, I would pick Serena Williams and Andy Murray to win.

Beside tennis, other extraneous things I would like to talk about briefly include: movies, Jazz, and news. First, movies. I have seen most, though not all, of the critically acclaimed films that came out this year, as well as a few that are best forgotten. So far, I liked Star Trek the most, followed by Public Enemies and Harry Potter. District 9 and Up were good (particularly the first fifteen or so minutes of the latter), but not great. I am looking forward to the Oscar race in the fall; the new change implemented by the Academy, namely to showcase ten films in the Best Picture category instead of the customary five, should allow a broader range of deserving films to be honored. Also: while studying I have been listening to Bebop music over the internet. My favorite joints are actually the ones with “love” and “tranquility” as the theme. Perfect quiet is ideal, but the sound of Jazz in the background keeps me attuned and helps the time go by. And finally, I made a few changes to the blog: I added a new “Thought of the Day” feature, which is basically a gadget that tracks the news stories of a particular news topic, which I set periodically to correspond with thoughts and issues I am discussing in my blog entries; and, since I get most of my news about international affairs from the BBC World News America program, I provided a link under “Cool Links” (just below NPR, which is my primary source for things national and local). Until next time.