Point of View: Lin-Sanity

   Tonight we’re going to see Alec Bawdlin try to lin the mayoralty of New York City on “30 Rock,” and after that we’ll dial in one of Mary’s c-lin-ical shows, “Grey’s Anatomy.”

    This, of course, after The PBS News Hour has delineated for us ma-lin-gerers the appalling failings of the de-lin-quent.

    You could have knocked me over with a shuttlecock when the night before at the badlinton Lynn Baldwin asked me who Jeremy Lin was. “He’s only the linchpin of the New York Knicks, the lingua franca of the world, in fact,” I said, blinking.

    “I’ve heard of him, I just didn’t know his first name,” she said consolingly. “A gremlin made me do it.”

    “That was like asking Larry Penny who Linnaeus was,” I continued.

    But, of course, it wasn’t quite the same. After all, a week before Lin had been l’inconnu. Now, words like linseed, alkalinity, all-inclusive, and lingo linger in my brain as I try to go to sleep each night after the Knicks play, following yet another lin-vigorating display.

    When my eldest daughter called yesterday to say my 5-year-old grandson was playing point guard on his team, and seemed to be liking it, I said, “You’ve got to get him to a doctor to have his peripheral vision checked out! We must know how well he sees the court.”

    “Dad, I just want him to have fun. . . .”

    “And dribble. He’s got to dribble, dribble, dribble. Crossovers, behind the back, through the legs . . . all of that.”

    “But I can’t let him dribble in the house.”

    “Why not?”

    “Because somebody lives downstairs.”

    “Oh, yes . . . Is he there all the time? I know! He could dribble in your room in the attic.”

    “On that thick carpeting?”

    “. . . You’ll have to rip some of it up. Nothing must stand in the way of this boy’s career. How’s his first step?”

    “His first step? He took that when he was a year old.”

    “No, no, I’m talking about the first step he takes when he blows by the defender on his way to the rim.”

    “No wonder no one played sports in our family, Dad. I just want him to have fun, to enjoy the game.”

    “He’s got to develop that explosiveness, and also a quick release on the perimeter. . . . What shall I offer him as an incentive, a lin-centive. . . ? Tell him I’m sending him a Jeremy Lin shirt. How about a visit to Harvard, a consult with a sports psychologist?”

    “A visit to a shrink might do you good, actually, Dad. He’s 5 years old.”

    “Now don’t be lin-solent, Emily. I’m chillin’. I’m chillin’. It’s just that I’ve got lin-somnia. I’ve been taken, as they say, to lin-finity and beyond.”