Sublime

constructed.

Only a fraction of the old magic remains, and impostors are everywhere!”

Martin Amis’s The Information,

This last and most important attribute Vladimir Nabokov once called shamanstvo—the enchanter-quality.

He was a gaunt young man who seemed suspicious of conversation that strayed outside certain unspecified guidelines.

In the second of their two rounds, Ali stepped off the ropes for the last two minutes and proceeded for the first time in the afternoon to throw punches. His master’s assortment leaped forth, jabs with a closed glove, jabs with an open fist, jabs with a twist of the glove to the right, jabs with a turn to the left, then a series of right-hand leads

Every one imagines that fear and anger, violence and desire, rage laced with the surprise capacity to forgive—character—is all that matters in the end.

Let us quote Plimpton’s account here: He repeated, at times so slowly that it seemed as if he were stumbling through a written text, what he had so often said in dressing-room statements following his victories: “There is never a loser. No fighter should be a winner. Both should be applauded.” The reporters stood around uncomfortably, knowing that