He won't be back?

Behold, your first Spring edition of “Turns of Phrase,” your (quasi) weekly look at smart writing at the sentence- and clause-level.

Today’s Turn of Phrase comes from Mark Leibovich and his Atlantic profile of former Terminator, Mr. Universe, Governor, and Danny DeVito doppelganger Arnold Schwarzenegger. In some ways it is a fairly standard celebrity profile, letting us see the celebrity in his home, among his people, on his jet. We get the dutiful recap of a long career and origin, and the standard look at what said celebrity is up to now. Good stuff, but hardly novel.

Amidst that standard profile architecture, though, the article takes a very elegiac turn, with Schwarzenegger, now in his 70s, reflecting on that career filled with triumphs (biggest movie star in the world, most-decorated bodybuilder in the world, governor of the biggest state in the country) but seeming to be a bit at sea without a final mountain to conquer. What’s next after you’ve done it all? There are glimmers of wistfulness, with Schwarzenegger sharing that he absolutely would have run for president after his tenure as governor, if it weren’t for that pesky Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution.

It’s a well-executed profile, even if one gets the sense that Leibovich didn’t quite get as much access to Schwarzenegger as expected. The Turn of Phrase we are here to discuss today, the bit of craft that, well, turned my head, comes late in the story. After Leibovich (perhaps mischievously) asks Schwarzenegger what he would do if, hypothetically, President Biden asked him to be secretary of state, Schwarzenegger seemingly lights up and, animated, engages with the fantasy. Shortly after (after the fantasy has faded, it would seem), we get this:

“Schwarzenegger told me he really does want to live forever. Not everyone would, at his age. But not everyone has had his life, either. ‘If you have the kind of life that I’ve had—that I have—it is so spectacular. I could not ever articulate how spectacular it was.’ He was trying to project gratitude, but something else came through—a plaintiveness in that gap between the tenses.”

It’s a somewhat sad, but not tragic, moment of humanity and regret from a very much larger-than-life figure, but what captured my ear was, of course, that last phrase: “. . . in the gap between the tenses.” Circling back, as I did, on the page, to see exactly what Leibovich was referring to, you spot, if you missed it at first (as I did) that tense change—from the life Schwarzenegger “had” to the one he “has,” and you see that there is indeed a plaintiveness there. And what a simple but perfect way to get at the revelation that Schwarzenegger let in in that moment, so descriptive (a “gap”) and yet so simple. It’s a beautiful, human moment, but it’s made legible and spot-lit by a beautiful, human Turn of Phrase. Lovely.

Thanks for reading,

John?