Don’t Hate the Player: A World Cup Roundup
The world’s favorite sport, blemishes and all, has come to Los Angeles.
Sports
"I see great things in baseball." — Walt Whitman
The Decline and Fall of the Football Empire
An apologia for America’s favorite sport fails to recognize the precariousness of its cultural dominance.
This Explains Everything
The Grateful Dead, professional wrestling, and the vertigo of the pop culture microhistory.
Motricity and Desire
High school sophomores or 16th-century saints? Sam Contis’s recent exhibition captures the unmediated facial expressions of runners at the finish line.
World Cup Nausea
With the World Cup looming in North America this summer, Simon Kuper offers a compelling—and depressing—history of this unique tournament.
The Mysterious Eugenics of Aesthetic Taste
In the 11th essay in the Legacies of Eugenics series, Michael Rossi shows how American scientists and artists used their discovery of racial ‘types’ to buttress eugenicist notions of aesthetic taste.
So Unnaturally Slow
Matthew K. Ritchie considers Carson Lund’s “Eephus” and the feeling of being washed-up.
Unparalleled Processing
Michael Knapp reviews Mike Singer’s “Why So Serious? The Untold Story of NBA Champion Nikola Jokic.”
The People’s Literary Sport
Souli Boutis reviews Carlos Labbé’s novel “The Murmuration,” translated by Will Vanderhyden.
A Brand-New Map Without Us
Jack Lubin reports from Super Bowl week in New Orleans.
Everyone’s from Somewhere
Matthew Ritchie reviews “There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension” by Hanif Abdurraqib.
Clear Eyes, Empty Town, Can’t Win
Will Leitch considers the heartbreak of small-town football in his review of John M. Glionna’s “No Friday Night Lights.”
