Brit Color

The British World Cup commentator for ABC offered the best quote of the tournament yet. Referring to the high strung Argentine forward Tevez, he said:

"He's a volatile cocktail, ready to spill over at the slightest shaking."

Brilliant.

Ghana Gone, Dunga Dunga Done

In the end, the defensive game failed the traditionally offense-minded Brazilians. I remember Dunga, their rugged fullback from the '90s, the World Cup held in the US in 1994. No wonder he employs a defensive strategy, that's what he played, that's what he knows. Pity Felipe Melo who scored an own goal and then got himself red-carded so his colleagues ended up a man down. Or perhaps no pity. Soccer is a cruel master.

I didn't see any of the game itself but the Costa Rican food service guys in the corporate cafeteria watched it in the back kitchen. Two mistakes, they told me, that's all it took for Brazil to fall.

I did see much of the second half of the Uruguay/Ghana match, an ugly affair. The Ghanans seemed to have heart but little else - their effort was a clunky one, mistake-prone, inelegant, and ultimately futile. Uruguay showed little more flare, their chiseled featured striker Forlon the exception. He wouldn't appear out of place in an ad shoot for Big Sky country - or International Male, for that matter, give him some leather chaps and a soccer thong and you'd have an eye-popper. But over all both squads displayed nothing remotely resembling finesse and though I didn't see the penalty shots it didn't surprise me to hear that Ghana had failed to convert two kicks. They were a lumbering, raw, wild team and now they're done. And Uruguay, inexplicably, is on to the semi finals.

David Foster Wallace, Book Reviews, and the Need to Believe in One's Work

The review by Wyatt Mason of David Lipsky's Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace in the July 5, 2010 (vol LVII, num. 12) issue of the New York Review of Books is interesting on many levels. What struck me, however, is Mason's discussion of some of the earlier reviews of Wallaces's books, reviews that disparaged Wallaces work as "not edited," "excessive," "self-indulgent," "gibberish," "nonsense," etc.

Though Mason generously accounts for how some of those reviewers might have come by their opinions (deadlines that required hurried reading, for example), what stands out, in light of how we're beginning to understand Wallace today, is how un-generous and shortsighted those reviews were. Could it have been otherwise? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps only in time do we come to fully appreciate, or re-evaluate, a writer's work. Perhaps something truly new, truly innovative, must inevitably endure ridicule and misunderstanding before the prevailing culture catches up with its genius. The Beats, Kerouac in particular, come to mind.

Of course, the object lesson here for aspiring writers, writers willing to chart new territory, to experiment with form, to break with tradition, is to believe in oneself and to disregard the tenor and substance of negative reviews. It's a daunting task to be sure, one that, in Kerouac's case, could not be achieved. It seems clear that, despite Wallace's suicide, his belief in his work never wavered. Though in interviews Wallace admitted to  doubts he had about his fiction, the work itself belies those admissions. The force of certainty pervades his novels, stories, and essays and while every writer is to be afforded his or her apprehension about their work, ultimately the work stands on its own.

In the case of the reviews that Mason cites, what comes through clearly are the peevish, harried, pedestrian minds of the reviewers. Genius comes to light slowly while banality is always plain to see.

Maradona and Guillermoprieto

Alma Guillermoprieto, writing for the New York Review of Books blog, has a fun piece on her experience as a young reporter given the task of writing about Diego Maradona. This was in the 1980s, the "hand of God" era, the days when the stocky Maradona was the most dynamic, enigmatic, and heralded soccer player in the world. Guillermoprieto knew little to nothing about soccer and that's part of the self-deprecating good humor of the piece. Read her blog entry here: Maradona and Me

USA/Ghana Aftermath

All is right in the football world, it seems. Ghana, upon which a whole continent's hope rests, continues on while the pedestrian squad from the United 50 dissolves back into irrelevancy. And the 'fans' of the Team USA? Well, NASCAR and vampire TV and early summer Major League Baseball are on so adios, Team Amigos.

I'm not sure why but the sight of Bill Clinton partying with Mick Jagger in the VIP Booth struck me the wrong way. Politricks and entertainment, two great deceits.

USA vs Ghana

The karmic collision. An intrinsic sense of solidarity with the American lads, their upbringing on suburban soccer pitches or grade school gravel stone playgrounds similar to my own. Yet the raw cultural baggage of this nation's intercontinental aggression weighs heavily. How root for the Monster?

Ghana. Africa's last hope this 2010 World Cup, this billion strong pageant of sport. The first African World Cup, a competition dominated for decades by Europeans - except for Brazil's periodically puncturing the balloon of plenty.

Landon Donovan might have played soccer with my nephew on Jersey Shore town fields. Youth leagues. Babysitting leagues. The embarrassment of riches. The Corporation - entertainment a-plenty. Where do we go from here? What if the USA wins? How celebrate? How revel in the vanquishing of the last African nation in the first World Cup in Africa?

But this IS sport, and to engage in sport is to compete. So compete we must. Football will never replace warfare  in deciding the globe's conflicts, but such ritualistic engagement does break down cultural barriers. Stadiums of cheering, chanting, singing spectators engaged in the ritual of Sport. Along those lines we pretty much all measure out. It's in the grim minutiae of the Haves and the Have Nots where the poison percolates.

So from the nation of Have, the Monster oil slick nation, the Toxic Nation Apocalypse, I deliberate my allegiance, shrug my red, white, and blue shoulders, muse my black, red, yellow, green solidarity Ital oneness, and decide to embrace whatever outcome emerges from tomorrow's epic clash of Africa and North America on a football pitch at Royal Bafokeng Stadium, Rustenburg, South Africa.

Biking Martha's Vineyard, Part II

Menemsha feels like some small Portuguese village, or some seaside town in Normandy, a quiet, out-of-the-way place where the fish is fresh and the people guarded, even vaguely suspicious, until you spend a few minutes chatting with them, asking about the daily catch, the nearby sandy cliffs, or commiserating over the Celtics' disappointing loss on the far coast. Then you realize their guardedness is just that understated Yankee reserve and before you know it, you're friends.

But as much as the idea of lingering here appeals, we don't. With the bike ferry behind us, up we ride on North Road, back into the Massif Central, my odometer edging toward 50 miles. The sun still burns hot and bright in the cloudless blue sky and we're feeling the good and honest fatigue that comes from hours in the saddle and the constant absorption of salt air, sun, and island wind. Despite the allure of the relatively shaded Chilmark roads with their massive oaks and maples and scant number of autos, thoughts of a huge fish dinner begin to overtake our enthusiasm for the pedal stroke and in silent mutual agreement we know we're now riding with a destination in mind - the Edgartown Seafood Market.

We ride with purpose along the aforementioned Edgartown-West Tisbury Rd's bike path. It's shady, the surface endearingly toned in places by patches of faded orangey pine needles, and basically bereft of other users. It's always a good thing, too, after a long day of riding when you're tired and perhaps allowing the mind to wander a bit, not to have to worry about car traffic. You're able to find a comfortable pedal pace and lapse, without danger, into meditative calm. So we do and in no time we're back on the outskirts of Edgartown and parking our bikes on the wooden porch of the fish market just before the tony village center.

Everything in the long glass display case looks appealing and fresh: local cod and marlin, thick red tuna steaks,  heaps of littlenecks, bone white haddock filets, a tray packed with olivey-green soft shell crabs, buckets of shrimp. We clomp in our riding shoes back and forth trying to decide what to get, trying to envision how we'd cook this or that and what would be good for starters and how many pounds of haddock and dare we get lobster too? We go with the haddock (to be pan-fried, breadcrumb-coated, in olive oil) and thick marlin steaks (for the grill), smoked mussels (for the salad made from greens growing in Kevin's garden), and, at my insistence, three soft shell crabs (only three as the Leonator balks, unfamiliar with eating these strange creatures - later on, after I've lightly fried them, cut them in half, and placed each half open-faced on toasted bread with mayo and arugula, he devours his share with considerable delight).

Not the best one-handed bike handler, nonetheless I happily take up the burden of carrying the bounty home (the Virginian's bike satchel already filled with produce purchased up the road at the Morning Glory farmstand). Carefully we wend our way back to the Chappy ferry, wait for the skipper to beckon us aboard, and chug across the cut to the other side. The last stretch, a couple miles on Chappaquiddick Rd, then the long dusty driveway to Camp.

But before setting in to cook, the lure of a plunge into the ocean is impossible to resist. A five minute drive in Kevin's pickup takes us to Dike Bridge and the Trustees of Reservations at East Beach where, unhesitating, we rush down the hot sand and plunge headlong into the chilly surf in diamondy sparkle splashes.

The denouement to an extraordinary day of cycling comes later, in the gathering evening, our plates laden with the sea's bounty, our spirits soaring, our thirst slaked, our bodies humming with fatigue and gratitude. We toast each other and offer thanks and praises to the Most High for the privilege of Being in this wholesome place, and for enduring friendships.