BOOK REVIEW
Push Dick’s Button ignites ‘conversation’ on sport’s key topics of the day
reviewed by DAVE LEMIEUX Push Dick’s Button certainly merits an Olym-
pic gold and comes close to a perfect score (which- ever judging system you use). Just an aside here, if asides bother you (or comments in parenthesis, a technique Button re- lies on heavily), Button’s book will, er, push your buttons.
Come to think of it, like any groundbreaking
free skate or debatable judging mark, there’s a lot here that will bring the skating world to its feet, whooping in joy or howling in protest. “I call this book a conversation,” Button said
from his home recently. “It’s meant to be casual, informational, and everything in it is up for argu- ment. I know a lot of things in it could and should be argued about.”
Always a lightning rod, Button has not mel-
lowed noticeably with age, at least where the fu- ture of “the fi ne art of fi gure skating” is concerned. What is most apparent, though, in his fi rst book since the autobiography he wrote at the tender age of 22, is that his passion for the fi ne art runs deep- er than ever. Push Dick’s Button is an engaging cocktail:
one part memoir, one part history, one part tech- nical manual, with a healthy dash of Button’s 100-proof opinions. If he drove you crazy (or to drink — see the
Dick Button drinking game) as America’s preem- inent fi gure skating commentator, you likely will not get very far into this book. And that would be too bad. A treasure trove of all things fi gure skat- ing, Push Dick’s Button is hard to set down (I read it cover to cover in two sittings) even for the casual fan.
Quadrennial skating fans will fi nd answers to many of their questions about just what the heck is going on out there on the ice during the Sochi Olympics. On page 67, Button begins chapter six on
centering: “How many times has the kid in all of us tried to spin a top and keep it from careening off the table? A skating spin should be like a spin- ning top, turning steadily and evenly in one spot, without wobbling or lurching in ever-larger circles or traveling toward the edge of the table (or barri- ers of the skating rink).” Button says writing the book challenged his
own long-held notions about the sport. “Writing this little conversation has been
an eye-opener,” he said. “It made me learn more about the things I thought I knew a lot about and really didn’t. It opened my eyes.” Seasoned observers can, as Button urges early on, skip the basic bits and immediately start heat- ed arguments over the meatier parts later in the book.
“What I think is the most signifi cant part of the book is the fact that I urge the ISU to split into
two federations,” Button said. “One for speedskat- ing and one for fi gure skating.” Button feels the current rules are so restric-
tive they’ve squeezed artistry and innovation right out of the sport. T e result, he says, is an endless series of cookie-cutter programs that emphasize mere quantity over quality. In his opinion, skat- ers are becoming jumping-bean automatons with aimlessly windmilling arms to garner maximum points in accordance with an ever-shifting blizzard of addendums to the current rules. Button wants to inject more of what made the sport so popular in the past: the lyrical lean of the body seamlessly matched with deep musical knowledge brought brilliantly alive by skaters with vivid personalities. “My feeling is that fi gure skating is turning into a gymnastics event,” he said. “T e old system had some things right. It emphasized technical merit and artistic impression. T ere’s no reason to have a short program any more because the short and long programs are exactly the same today.” T ere is much more here to delight — from
an oblique reference to “Bunga Bunga” music (not a Buttonism, it really does exist, I checked) to the gentlemanly (and gentlewomanly) origins of the sport.
Button’s descriptions of his favorite skaters and their transcendent programs are alone worth the price of admittance. “T e book is like a fi gure skating program. T ere’s the one you plan to do, the one you do and
the one you wish you’d done,” Button said. As for how the skating great would score his
own book? “I’m not sure how to judge this book,” he
said. “Give me another week or so after I reread it. “T ere’s a lot of fun and factual things I left
out for volume two, which will probably never see the light of day,” Button added with an impish chuckle.
As for volume one, I give it a 5.8. SKATING 11
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