Outtakes & Articles

My interview with Nerve magazine.

 A fun piece I wrote for the "Talk of the Town" section of The New Yorker.

While researching Sweet, I met with Tony Jebara, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. I arranged to see him after I learned that he and his research partner had created a "wearable computer" that, when aimed at a pool table, calculates the most appropriate shot for the pool player to take — and even shows that player exactly how to make the shot. It's a weird, creepy, interesting device. But does it ultimately taint the game of pool?

Most of my bar-league pool compatriots yearn to play pool in Vegas, where, until I started writing Sweet, I had never been. In the spring of 2003, I planned a vacation to Las Vegas. I picked a week when there would be pool tournaments in town — both professional and amateur — so I could see for myself what my pool teammates were pining for.

Ruth McGinnis, while not the first woman to play professional pool, was certainly among the most important and accomplished, an athlete ahead of her time in an exhilarating but often mentally punishing sport.