If I made my own sports concept album it would be Toller Cranston Skates for Mexico , and it would be about, mostly, the Lillehammer Olympics, which allowed skaters who had left competition and turned pro to reinstate to amateur status: to come back. I fell in love with figure skating in , a few months after the Vancouver Olympics. I quit drinking in January , so about a year and a half later. I fell in love with this video first: the lovelorn, adolescent swoon, a Dear John letter to the judges.
And anyway on YouTube you can rewatch videos endlessly. You can revisit that ecstasy, losing yourself in the music and the dance. An endless replay which forestalls any need for regret or for redemption. Time stands still. Lifts his chin to face the camera and the clip cuts in just as the commentators ask if he looksβ.
Those soft landings, the arms coming up in curves and the leg stretched out you can point your toe if you have to , setting the tone for your career. Always looking up, not horizontal. Flirtation and appeal are basically submissive stances. Entreaty, pleading, sometimes ruefulness and regretβthat one weird exhibition where he kept covering his face.
Which he started by getting down on his knees, head down and hands clasped behind his back, and somebody in the crowd gave the wolf whistle he was waiting for.
Needy, but what he needs is to be pleasing. What he needs is the camera, is what everybody says. Fling up a gallant hand: the courtier scamp, the elegant scapegraceβthe ham. Maybe already beyond all natural help. Swoon your way at high speed down the whole length of the rink. Lines as elegant as brushstrokes.
