greatest amazing

The Greatest Amazing

Untitled, 1959. Oil on canvas, 12 1/8 x 23 7/8 inches.

At the thrift store I bought a backgammon board. I try to be more

accommodating to board games these days. My spouse enjoys them. As

does her family. They get together for game nights (Can you believe

it?!? Family members really hang out with each other and enjoy it!). I

want to be a part of something, as does anyone, so I thought I'd get

familiar with a board game. Enough with being an outsider, I say!

Let's start with board games and then maybe I'll join a gym or take a

cooking class or something - you know, getting out in the world. Stop

being a sullen recluse. Cavort with the unwashed and such.

Last Sunday, after some meaningless errands, I thought to get that

backgammon board out of the attic. Take that as a bad sign that a

just-purchased backgammon board was already in the attic, less than a

week after being brought home. It hadn't been opened.

A film version correctly applying foreshadowing would have me cleaning

out the attic days before showing me at the thrift store. While

cleaning the attic I would awkwardly say out-loud to myself how much

free space the attic now has. (Not exactly Charlie Kaufman, I admit).

That Sunday, before heading to the attic, I sat on the couch to eat an

apple. And that is when The Duchess of Doom entered my life. That is

when my life changed.

Without peer, Allison Fisher is the greatest female billiards player

of all time. I don't trivialize the word "greatest" like most people

do. I also prefer not to throw around the word "amazing" if there is

any doubt. None lingers when I speak of Allison Fisher. She's the

greatest amazing!

The TV was on ESPN for some reason. Maybe I was looking for more

skinny on that punkass bitch Roger Clemens. What I found was the 2007

Women's Professional Billiards Association US Open finals matching

five-time US Open winner Allison Fisher against fellow Englander Kelly

Fisher.

Kelly Fisher

Allison Fisher (Greatest Amazing)

On Allison: Her ferocity, intensity and mastery of this sport appeals

to me on many levels. I grew up with a pool table in the basement of

my home. I would linger around it when my brothers played.

Occasionally I'd get a game in with friends or self. My mom would play

while I was at school. It always seem like a burden to have this

hulking table in the middle of a small basement. More than hosting

tense, competitive games of 9 ball it more frequently housed clothes

that needed folding, photographs that needed sorting or my collection

of Birthday Party and Husker Du LPs. It largely stood for unfulfilled

promise. If I wasn't so lazy, easily-distracted or prone to not

wanting to be at the house at all, I could develop a really strong

game. I could become an intimidating pool force. I didn't. Allison

speaks to that unfulfilled promise.

Her mastery of billiards appeals to my once-closeted

obsessive-compulsive disorder. I am troubled by clutter. An absence of

order in a space can easily drive me out of the room. A wall hanging

ticked left or right gets me out of my chair. Straight, clean lines

bring comfort and calm, hence my affection for Agnes Martin and Carl

Andre (who, you may not know, was charged with and then acquitted of

murdering his wife). Sloppy, recalcitrant curves have no place in

billiards. Allison Fisher is the warden to whom angles and lines

acquiesce. Watching her work relaxes me. Her play lulls me into a

place where I feel convinced that yes indeed the world can conform to

my rigid expectations, despite that fact that everyone wrongly thinks

they are absurd and completely unattainable.

It has been months, probably since lying on a Mexican beach, that I

felt so relaxed as during those few hours watching the wizardry of The

Duchess of Doom* (as she's known) carve up the other Fisher with

astonishing precision. You could almost see the calculations in her

head. The next three shots already scripted as she calibrated the cue.

Greatest/Amazing.

Here is her win:

Backgammon has circular pieces, right?

* a seriously ridiculous nickname reminiscent of Talladega Nights: The

Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Cal: Shake and Bake?

Ricky: No. Never again.

Cal: You're right. I was a total dick, man.

Ricky: From now on, [points to Cal] it's Magic Man...[points to

himself] and El Diablo.

Cal: What--What's Diablo mean?

Ricky: It's, like, Spanish for, like, a fighting chicken.

Cal: That's awesome! With the claws?

Ricky: Yeah, with the claws. With the claws and a beak!

Cal: How'd you come up with that, man?

Ricky: Just--sometimes, things click.