#reminds me of a paper i read comparing jekyll and hyde crime and punishment and lolita in terms of competing dualities. shadow doubles

[batsplat]

very deliberately said in the agassi/sampras essay that i was NOT going to get into that specific passage because there just flat out wasn't space for that without going on a massive tangent, but let us tentatively unpin this pin... there is something ontologically fascinating about sampras saying "as jekyll and hyde as we were" about him and agassi. correct me if i am wrong and am missing out on nuances of anglo phrasing, but that's not just *one of those things people say*, right? in context it's pretty obvious sampras just means they were opposites, which isn't really how that works - usually you call one person jekyll and hyde when you want to say they have a hidden dark side. now, tennis players are generally not particularly, uh, learned, so i think we can probably safely assume sampras did not give it all that much thought and isn't too well versed in his jekyll and hyde lore (aka the premise of the story). but well, maybe he Divined something. the implication of the phrase is that this rivalry consists of one person, split between a good and an evil side. one person that is two, in constant competition. the argument i suppose is that you need all these contrasting traits for a unitary whole, where said contrast is necessary for the spectacle - except it's going beyond that to argue that the two sides are integrated into the 'one' in the process of competition... which, sure, let's hear him out i guess. also you could say hyde isn't simply EVIL, he is man's desire freed from inhibitions. the dark internal urges or whatever. which i guess does work in that agassi was very much Not the disciplined one and when he's talking about the gap between good and bad it's... in the context of how much better sampras is at Being A Tennis Player. at altering his lifestyle to fit the demands of his profession. whereas agassi is the guy who misses his family and needs loads of friends around and doesn't want to give up on living in vegas and also, y'know, did meth. which is a pretty major inhibition to be ignoring as a professional athlete. but it STILL doesn't really work because the jekyll persona still needs to have those urges, like jekyll isn't pure 'good' right. agassi isn't revealing sampras' hidden wildness. so in conclusion i have thought about this more than sampras and... pete. i'm not saying there's nothing here but i think we need to work on this