David Foster Wallace on Tornadoes

David Foster Wallace, who wrote Infinite Jest -- regarded by at least some experts as the best novel of recent years -- died in 2008 at the age of 46. He grew up in central Illinois in the 1970's, and in 1992 he wrote a wonderful essay on tennis and tornadoes. I spent a great amount of time thinking about tornadoes as a kid, and these two passages really spoke to me:

Most days from late March to June there are Tornado Watches somewhere in our TV stations' viewing area (the stations put a little graphic at the screen's upper right, like a pair of binoculars for a Watch and the Tarot deck's Tower card for a Warning, or something). Watches mean conditions are right and so on and so forth, which, big deal. It's only the rarer Tornado Warnings, which require a confirmed sighting by somebody with reliable sobriety, that make the Civil Defense sirens go.

* * * *

Tornadoes were, in our part of Central Illinois, the dimensionless point at which parallel lines met and whirled and blew up. They made no sense. Houses blew not out but in. Brothels were spared while orphanages next door bought it. Dead cattle were found three miles from their silage without a scratch on them. Tornadoes are omnipotent and obey no law. Force without law has no shape, only tendency and duration.

You can read the whole essay, entitled "Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley," in a collection called A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments. I recommend it.

NBA Update

Facing elimination tonight in Boston, LeBron James scored 45 points and had 15 rebounds as the Heat blasted the Celtics 98-79 to force a Game 7 in Miami. Naturally, this will give all the folks on ESPN a chance to talk about LeBron's "will" and "effort," because from their perspective, that's all that matters in basketball. Actually, any Kentucky fan would have recognized tonight's game as what happens when a really athletic team is hitting jump shots, while the opponent that needs to shoot well from the outside is ice cold. Those games usually turn into blowouts for UK, and that's what happened to Boston tonight. The Celtics were only 1-14 from three-point range, while Miami went 7-16 from behind the arc. LeBron was also unusually dialed in with his mid-range shot, as he went 19-26 from the floor. Boston had no chance under those circumstances, so it is not surprising that Miami cruised to an easy win. And if Miami is red-hot and Boston is ice-cold on Saturday, the Heat will roll again. But my guess is that both teams will regress to the mean, and that Game 7 will be much more competitive.

Miami participated in the last Eastern Conference Final to go seven games back in 2005. They lost Game 7 at home, 88-82 to the Pistons. The next year the Heat won the championship.

Boston hasn't played in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final since May 30, 1987, when their legendary series again against the Detroit Pistons ended in Boston. The Celtics won that game 117-114, winning the East for the fourth year in a row -- but for the last time until 2008.

The Heat are going for their third trip to the NBA finals; the Celtics are trying for their 22d.