Walter Ayoví

I’ve been trying to find out what some other philosophers think of the case of Mr. Edward Snowden (future refugee in Ecuador?). One philosopher I consulted was Robert Paul Wolff, more politically outspoken than most. Alas, he had little to offer beyond a few snarky comments about the NSA. But he did say quite a lot about how well he liked his own writing. Which was fine. In this merciless discipline, some light self-appreciation is refreshing.

The concluding paragraph really hits it:

Far and away the greatest contemporary cellist is Yo Yo Ma. He has so completely mastered the ferociously difficult technique of the cello that when he plays, he looks as though he is not so much producing the music as listening to it. There is something about the way he holds the cello, leaning back away from it as though it were playing itself, that communicates that he need no longer even think about the fingerings and bowings that absorb the attention of lesser cellists. The great Russian cellist Rostropovich used to play in much the same manner. God knows, I do not think of myself as a satirist in the same world as Jonathan Swift, say, but there are times when I feel like Fast Eddy Felsen, moving around the pool table with an animal grace, secure in the knowledge that he cannot miss.

Whom I kept thinking of was Walter Ayoví. Walter Ayoví.

I wondered if there were any good YouTube videos of Walter Ayoví “moving around … with an animal grace, secure in the knowledge that he [could not] miss.” Probably not, I thought. How many other people are there who sit around thinking of the animal grace of Walter Ayoví.

And then I found this video commentary by some Mexican dude. Here was someone who understood. Thank heaven for small mercies.

Listen to the commentator say: Siempre desmarcado.

If you don’t know Spanish, I feel sorry for you.