The craziest thing I saw in the past week – *exasperated, bleeding out of my ears, walking away from the podium* – we’re just going to get this on record.
The craziest thing I saw this week, funnily and tragically enough, involved Cristiano Ronaldo by proxy. Welcome back to the White House, one of the most obviously tan people in recorded history! They know and love you here.
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Disclosure: I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time around men directly related to each other recently. To that point, in three out of four recent weekends, I was surrounded by brothers, including my own. I’ve always enjoyed feeding off the fraternal vibe, yet I went to a college without Greek life. The camaraderie, the internal knowledge, the handoffs one can only perform with a certain degree of intimacy: this is what gets me.
From back-to-back bachelor parties through, of all things, a Phish festival, the brotherly tone has been a strong presence for me recently. And then, lo and behold: rumors of an Oasis reunion began haunting my phone on a recent Saturday.
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Let me start here, where many others have already landed in the past day-plus: the World Cup final between Argentina and France was the greatest soccer match I’ve ever seen. Recency bias aside, it was certainly the most dramatic. Intergenerational, intra-club team stars; said stars each posting multiple goals; a budding dynasty against a historically great, if slightly underachieving, nation; yellow cards issued toward the bench, controversial penalties, and then penalty kicks; simply put, it had everything.
Where do you start? You know how it ends, now, after the most minutes ever played in a World Cup and a final which – of course, obviously, how could you possibly think it would go any other way – went to extra time, during which both teams scored – of course, obviously, how could you possibly think it would go any other way – and then went to penalties. Momentum swung like bored suburban parents (yes, tip your servers, I’m here until–).
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The Basílica de la Sagrada Família
The first architect of the Sagrada Família was a man of diocesan ilk and inspiration, exactly the kind of person you would hope and expect to build something prototypically beautiful and adhesive to the traditions and standards that the Catholic Church, particularly in Spain, would presumably place upon a person. He took the same approach to his projects, calculating and reasonably efficient, that you take to ordering monthly subscription boxes, or homing in on preferred brands of toothpaste. “This works, it addresses a problem, so I like it, and let’s stick with it for now, until and unless a problem arises.”
Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano was no slouch, having aided in the designs, re-designs and restorations of many important buildings in and around his native Catalunya[1]. He took on the project under the advisement of the Associació de Devots de Sant Josep, and when it got to be too much, his adviser Joan Martorell recommended Antoni Gaudí, an exceptionally devout Roman Catholic even by Catholic standards. The latter then spent the final years of his life figuring out what to do with the thing before, well, getting hit by a tram and passing away in 1926.
Franck Fife/AFP/Getty
Two years ago, my oldest, not older, brother brought up a point I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since[1]. He was thinking about patriotism, and how it presents a weird proposition when an American athlete does something extraordinary on a grand stage, and you aren’t especially proud of what your country has or is capable of accomplishing as you see it. Borders are troublesome in their very existence, and trying to adhere to them is a worry of people who can afford homes within their borders, or people who aspire to
In fairness, as someone who was born here and has no connection to my heritage other than the aspirational and that which is skin tone-related, I’ve been a lot more Republic of Ireland-forward than he has, but I think I get it, to some extent – the United States isn’t the greatest breeding ground for pride in anything you like unless a lot of people like yourself enjoy it, and even then, it can be a dogfight.
Graphic by Brian Kraker
Another year down. Another year older, but perhaps none the wiser? Maybe that decision doesn’t belong to you alone. It felt like nothing did, most of the time. From Tide Pods to the Philly Special to countless acts of cruelty and many more of plain senselessness to the continued existence of the Golden State Warriors to having 12 years left to stop the sun to inexplicable blue lights over Astoria, everything that happened felt like it was going to happen anyway, sooner or later, and we were all left to bear it as best we could. Same as it ever was, but different.
Still: we would be equally bereft of sense to assume that darkness would drive out darkness. You may have heard that only light can do that. For all the bad and rot everywhere, urban, suburban and rural, at home and abroad, there were the moments in between that made everything we experience every day that kept us together, however briefly. If we experienced them together? All the better.
As Bootsy Collins said in 1972, “Balance is my thing/The snow, wind and rain must come.” With that, we delve into the year that was, with an eye toward the twelvemonth ahead.
Getty Images
At any moment, we look upon the cultural objects not only as a reflection of our times but as a platform for expression. The musician yearns through her melodies and counter melodies; the novelist writes drunk, edits sober and broods regardless; the designer draws upon prevailing interests and toes the various lines of high, middle and low brow before settling in a space of his own. Always, it is a manifestation of the present moment, the beholder not bothering to look for beauty so much as to shoulder ugliness and make it something you can stand for more than a few seconds at a time.
In the twenty years since the 1998 FIFA World Cup, soccer, like this planet, has undergone monumental, identity-shifting changes that have placated the bored masses while at turns enthralling, inspiring and enraging the truly devout, left searching for hope amidst seas of anger and ultimately meaningless Arsenal Champions League berths. Both have inspired roughly the same number of divisive, cynical thoughts for the digital age, compressed and condensed for your basura attention span.
And yet, when the chickens come to roost, we know – or, at least, think we know – the name of the game, and whatever means we utilize to achieve our ends end up being enough to justify those ends. On Sunday, in plain sight of corrupt world dignitaries, oligarchs and protesters, as well as many millions of people who actually wanted to see the game play out for its own sake, France defeated Croatia 4-2 in the World Cup Final.
Find this photographer/This is begging for a citation
“Soccer keeps people from thinking about more dangerous things.” – Vicente Calderón, longtime President of Atlético de Madrid
It was 2018. Nigeria, ever the underdog, was just under a quarter of an hour into a match against Argentina that would seal the fate of both sides. Nigeria was playing from a position of relative power; Argentina, as ever, was in a place of righteous indignation and suffering from internal ailments.
Photo courtesy of Reuters
Quick, off the top of your head: who was the last player not named Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi to win the Ballon d’Or? It has literally been a decade, for starters. It’s a period of shared dominance so lengthy that the award itself has changed structure and name twice within that time, and yes, it is a truly enviable time to be watching soccer with these two creating magic week after week.
No matter if you didn’t come up with the answer quickly; the dichotomy of these two stars, whose orbits encapsulate seemingly the entire history of the game they have perfected in wholly contrasting styles, is so clear and sustained that you’d be forgiven for thinking the game hardly existed before them. But once upon a time, a Brazilian with flowing locks and a million-real smile was the best player in the world, sporting a combination of skill and native moxie that catapulted him to superstardom. This morning, Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, better known as Kaka and as the answer to that question until further notice, announced his retirement from soccer.
Tuesdays With Horry 