Zen of Muhammad Ali: And Other Obsessions - Softcover

Miller, Davis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099429527 ISBN 13: 9780099429524

Publisher: Vintage, U.K., 2003

Synopsis

This collection features Davis Miller’s celebrated trilogy of award-winning Muhammad Ali pieces, including the classic “My Dinner with Ali,” together with a provocative new essay called “The Yin and Yang of Muhammad Ali.” There are also two pieces about Miller’s unusual relationship with boxer “Sugar” Ray Leonard, and he continues to explore the Bruce Lee phenomenon. Now collected for the first time, these brilliant pieces form a haunting meditation on fighting, living, friendship, and love.

About this title

About the Author

Davis Miller’s writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, Esquire, Sport magazine, Sports Illustrated and other periodicals. His first published story, “My Dinner with Ali” was voted by the Sunday Magazine Editors Association to be the best essay published in a newspaper magazine in the USA in 1989. He lives in North Carolina.

From the Back Cover

“Davis Miller writes profoundly and beautifully.” – Joyce Carol Oates

From the Inside Flap

The best of Davis Miller's essays and memoirs - including the award-winning "My Dinner with Ali."
Collected here for the first time are the best of Davis Miller's essays and memoirs. The volume contains the celebrated trilogy of award-winning Muhammad Ali pieces, including the classic "My Dinner with Ali," together with a provocative new essay called "The Yin and the Yang of Muhammad Ali." The title story "The Zen of Muhammad Ali" was nominated for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing and was included in the 1994 edition of "The Best American Sports Writing. There are also two pieces about Miller's unusual relationship with another boxer, "Sugar" Ray Leonard, and he continues to explore the Bruce Lee phenomenon - as he did in his acclaimed bestseller" The Tao of Bruce Lee. The book concludes with a section of compelling essays about Miller's own life - "filled with the clarity of ordinary human experience." ("TLS about "The Tao of Muhammad Ali).
"The Zen of Muhammad Ali tells us about fighting, living, friendship and love. The pieces are arranged - each with an illuminating new note - to form a unique and haunting book.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

from "THE UMPTEENTH LIFE OF MUHAMMAD ALI"

I first became a serious Muhammad Ali watcher in January 1964, an obsession that stayed with me throughout my teen years.

My first story for a major national magazine was about a seminal Ali experience -- my 1975 sparring session with him, when because of his influence, I was hoping to become a world champ myself. In September 1977, my girlfriend Lyn and I eloped and unsuccessfully tried to get married at the Ali - Earnie Shavers bout at Madison Square Garden. By 1986, when I became the district manager of a video store chain in Ali's hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, I seldom thought about him.

My first day in Louisville, driving to one of my shops with the company president, he pointed across the street and said, 'Muhammad Ali's mom lives there'. From then on, my eyes were riveted on the house whenever I passed by. On the Friday before Easter 1989, a blocklong white Winnebago was parked out front.

I worked up courage, went to the door of the Winnebago, knocked. Ali opened the door, looking as big as God. He leaned under the frame to see me, waved me in, did magic tricks, invited me to stay for dinner.

For several years after that, I saw a lot of Ali. I've written stories about him and our relationship, as well as my first book, THE TAO OF MUHAMMAD ALI, a nonfiction novel about the ways he has influenced my life. Because of Ali, I have found my voice: I am now a writer.

Like almost everyone who was born before 1970, I can't help but remember a time when Ali seemed to be constantly moving inside a private and wondrous rhythm, when his eyes shone like electric blackberries, when heat shimmered from his almost perfectly symmetrical torso. The young Ali's seemingly endless energy promised that he would never get old. Now, at 60, for almost two decades, he's been older than just about anyone his age.

Yet, when you know Ali, you don't feel bad for him. He is not the first artist to have suffered for, and because of, his art and beliefs. Though his ego is no smaller than it once was, in many ways Ali is relieved that it has been a long while since he has felt the need to play the role of Allah's angry avatar.

'I see those old fights and interviews', he says, 'and I can't believe that's me'.

Ali today is among the happiest people I've known; many of his day-to-day activities have a quality about them that might best be described as soberly magical.

Ali always calls me 'my man'. Although I've spent days and days with him, he never remembers my name. This is not indicative of boxing-induced mind-fry (he would've done the same when he was young and healthy). It's more a product of having met probably half the people on the planet.

Ali speaks in a halting voice that sounds as thin as tissue paper and issues from high in his throat. When sitting, he drifts in and out of sleep. At night, he often wakes; he seldom gets as much rest as he needs. These patterns do not mean that he is listless. Contrary to popular perception, he has an amazingly high energy level and is gifted with enormous stamina. Every year I have known him, he has travelled the globe for weeks in a row, making appearances and being on the move for up to eighteen hours a day.

There are nearly constant tremors in his hands, particularly the left, and when he is concentrating or anxious (as he was at the 1996 Olympics), his head shakes, more so when he is tired. His facial features have the muscular rigidity -- the 'mask' -- that is associated with parkinsonism. He is more expressive with friends and with children.

In the hundreds and hundreds of hours I've spent with him, only twice have I seen him frustrated by his health. 'God gives people trials', he says. 'This is my trial. It's His way of keepin' me humble'.

. . .

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage, U.K.
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099429527
• ISBN 13: 9780099429524
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208