In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

214 ARRAYS
fessional sports when serious business interests are at stake: "According
to a report from New York, the American Tennis Association has decided
that Suzanne Lenglen, despite her status as professional, may continue
to play against American amateurs. Based on this report, it is possible
that a new match between Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Willis is on the
horizon" (Berliner Tageblatt, August 5; Annees-memoire, 160-161). Finally,
"with improvements in artificial ice making and the building of
rinks capable of holding large crowds," the summer months are full of
activity in preparation for the next season of the fledgling National
Hockey League. While hockey officials establish detailed rules for selling,
optioning, and exchanging players and devise a system for documenting
attendance records, no less than four new franchises are established: the
Chicago Blackhawks, the Detroit Falcons, the New York Rangers, and
the Toronto Maple Leafs (Diamond, 31f£.).
Bringing more athletic events and more Hollywood films to a greater
number of towns, stadiums, and movie palaces, the entertainment industry
steadily improves its services for a public that wants to be close to its
stars. But the more this desire for closeness is gratified, the more it
reaches new levels of intensity: ultimately, fans dream of seeing their own
bodies transfigured into the individual, admired, unique bodies of stars.
This fills their existence with eternal longing for an eternally postponed
moment of recognition. Xaver Kleinsgutl, the good-looking young servant
of Professor Cornelius' family in Thomas Mann's story "Unordnung
und fruhes Leid" ("Disorder and Early Sorrow") spends much of
his time waiting for this moment: "He loves the cinema with his entire
soul. After an evening at the movies, he tends to feel melancholy-filled
with yearning and apt to talk to himself. He harbors vague hopes that
someday he will make his fortune in that splendid world and become an
accepted member of it-basing his hopes on his thick head of hair, his
nimbleness, and his daring. He's fond of climbing the ash tree in the front
garden, rising from branch to branch up to the very top, and then scaring
the wits out of anyone who spots him. In this perch, he lights up a
cigarette and puffs away at it as he sways back and forth, keeping a
lookout for any film director who might pass by and hire him" (513).
Of course, the film director for whom young Kleinsgutl is waiting in
the treetop will never show up-at least not before the end of Mann's
story. Should he indeed appear, it would be better if he were from