Quality time with Abel

Karin drove to Cleveland to see Weird Al in concert for the second time in two years. Daniel and Samuel slept over at their grandpa’s. Abel remained with me. I took advantage of the quiet and put on the first half of The Brutalist. At intermission (yes, that’s the kind of movie it is), we went to the neighborhood’s new Popeyes; then, we came home and finished the movie. Abel slept through most of the second part. He slept the rest of the night, too, except for brief awakenings to suck from his bottle. He was lively, early the next morning; when he was hungry, he said Ma, ma, ma, ma, and I knew I was no proper mother substitute.

The Brutalist is long and arbitrarily plotted but has some great scenes, none better than the “Statue of Liberty” scene near the beginning.

Was it really made for just $10 million? That’s amazing.

I waited for months to see it, but I have to say, Anora is better.

R.I.P. Charlie Kirk

My two cents.

I’m sorry he was murdered, of course. It’s an awful thing, and I can’t imagine that the social repercussions will be good.

Before he was killed, I barely knew about Charlie Kirk. I knew his name and that he was associated with the political right. I didn’t know about his specific views or his way of conducting himself.

I believe I once watched some minutes of a video in which he debated college students. But I don’t remember what was said.

(I don’t spend much time listening to the pundits. For example, I may have been the last person in the United States to become aware of Tucker Carlson and Rachel Maddow. And no, I don’t know if those two pundits are meaningfully comparable; my point is just that I ignore famous talking heads, from both sides.)

I didn’t know any details of Charlie Kirk’s personal life: that he was only thirty-one, that he was married and had young children, that he was close to Donald Trump, etc.

I still know little. I know even less about the young man who is thought to have killed Kirk.

Why am I writing, then? I guess to make the (obvious) point that most of us have nothing worthwhile and non-obvious to say. Lamenting is good, because a life has been taken and human life is sacred. But how many of us can responsibly attempt more than that? I’ve noticed a disturbing number of people on social media – friends of mine – issuing or sharing calls to arms. Calls to, like, hunker down with one’s family and one’s guns; or to join in fighting a civil war that, allegedly, already has begun. Which all seems dangerously overblown, especially since the average person can’t be trusted to have understood (a) Charlie Kirk, (b) his killer, or (c) his many and varied admirers and critics. Because I recognize that I understand so little about (a)–(c). And because I see other friends – Ecuadorians who know less than I know about U.S. politics – posting about Charlie Kirk. (Their condolences are unobjectionable; their hagiographic pictures and language are not.) Which makes me think, maybe people are opining because it’s a bandwagon to climb onto. (Which, arguably, I’m also climbing onto, hoisting myself up a little more surreptitiously than most.)

Body-text fonts, pt. 43: Spectral

Last week: Paraguay 0, Ecuador 0.

Tonight: Ecuador 1, Argentina 0.

We concluded South America’s World Cup qualification tournament with:

• qualification
• a victory over the World Cup champions
• a final position as runners-up (trailing only the aforementioned champions)
• a total of five goals conceded in eighteen games – the joint-lowest total in the tournament’s history
• a streak of five “clean sheets” (games with no goals conceded)
• a streak of eleven undefeated games

I think it was after the goalless draw in Uruguay, with eight games to play, that I predicted we wouldn’t lose again.

The bad news is that tonight, Moisés Caicedo received two yellow cards and was ejected. The second yellow card was extremely doubtful. The referee, who’d been obliged to eject an Argentinian, seemed to be trying to even up the numbers.

I’m sure we’ll appeal to CONMEBOL. Let’s pray that no suspension is enforced.

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Having recovered from injury and illness, I mowed the shin-high backyard grass. It was slow going, but painless … until, some hours afterward, my hip and ankle began to trouble me.

Then, today, I threw out my back.

Either I get sidelined due to a foot puncture – or sinusitus – and suffer; or I recover, then mow, then suffer.

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The font Spectral is common on the internet, especially on Substack (which only allows, what, four fonts?).

Too small? Click here; read the “Thunder Gun Express” of Substack posts. It’s just a very long summary of Niccolao Mannuci’s very long travelogue and history of Mughal India – the “Thunder Gun Express” of books.

Which I only learned about yesterday. It’s the awesomest book I’ve heard of. I’m not kidding.

Even if the Bible were turned into a wild AI-generated movie, it wouldn’t be as spectacular as this book.

But I doubt I’ll ever read the book, so thank goodness for the Substack post.

A beach day

Not in the best of health. Even so, I spent the day out with my family, at a museum and at a windy, chilly Lake Michigan beach. We were joined by my old schoolmate, Dan, and his family. Funny how bearable an illness can be around old friends. There were billowy clouds and lovely, white-tipped waves; we didn’t bathe, but the children enjoyed the playground. Daniel (my son) was so delighted that at leaving-time, he had to be carried away against his will (mercifully, he scaled the biggest hill himself).

We were mostly in touristy St. Joseph but also drove through Benton Harbor, the poorer twin, which has run-down churches with names like Aún Hay Esperanza.

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I’m reading Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, which I found in our local library’s equivalent of the Little Free Library. Ursula Todd (1910–1910, 1910–1914, etc.) lives, dies, is reborn, and lives her same life again. And again. Her lifespan lengthens because déjà vu teaches her to avoid mishaps. (It takes her a few tries to figure out how to avoid getting Spanish flu.) It’s like watching a video gamer replaying levels; or Groundhog Day, set in Downton Abbey’s England, not Punxsutawney. Atkinson skewers the characters, especially the loathsome doctor who delivers Ursula (the girl sometimes survives his care, sometimes doesn’t). The repetition is macabre and funny. Working out the metaphysic isn’t easy. Michael Huemer’s theory of reincarnation comes closest, perhaps. But on that theory the déjà vu wouldn’t transmit real memories; and it would be unlikely – or, strictly speaking, rare – that the same siblings should be sired after Ursula.

Limping

I stepped on a fancy Hot Wheels ambulance. It had sharp tail fins. It made a dime-sized crater in the arch of my foot.

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A few recent club transfers involving Ecuadorians:

• Pervis Estupiñán from Brighton to Milan (permanent transfer)
• Piero Hincapié from Leverkusen to Arsenal (loan with purchase option)
• Kendry Páez from Chelsea to Strasbourg (temporary loan)
• Jeremy Sarmiento, Brighton’s last remaining Ecuadorian, to Cremonese (another loan)

It was expected that Joel Ordóñez and Kevin Rodríguez would be swooped up from Club Brugge and Union Saint-Gilloise, respectively; but they weren’t. So, they’ll have to spend another season lighting up the Belgian league.

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Ecuador’ll play in Paraguay tomorrow night. We’ve qualified for the World Cup. Paraguay is on the World Cup’s doorstep.

So, our motivation is low, Paraguay’s is high, and Paraguay is playing better than usual (if nowhere near as well as from 1996 to 2011).

And we’ve only ever lost in Asunción.

Still, I’d wager, we’ll earn our first point there. Our defense just doesn’t let in goals.

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Current mini-book: Ed McBain’s Cop Hater (1956), the inspiration for the novels of Sjöwall & Wahlöö. Inspired by the show Dragnet, which every other cop procedural is derived from, e.g. the one that goes:

In the criminal justice system

Sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous

In New York City

The dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies

Are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit

These are their stories

(Dun, dun)

Cop Hater is set in New York, but the place names have been changed.

Wikipedia says the first edition has 166 pp. and the revised one has 236. I must be reading the text of the first edition. In my omnibus, the novel’s page count is 116.

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Current late-night viewing: Da Vinci’s Inquest (1998–2005), starring Canadians who haven’t crossed over to Hollywood. That, in itself, is refreshing. I’m also enjoying the lingo. Royal Canadian Mounted Police = RCMP = The Horsemen. I keep expecting a guy on horseback to show up and harangue the cops at the precinct in Downtown Vancouver, but no, it’s always a twerp in a suit.

Lots of autopsies are performed. The nude bits are blurred out (unlike on Britain’s Silent Witness, which uses famous guest actors to play the corpses).

Da Vinci streams, free, via various apps.

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I think the weather has started cooling for good this summer. We’re getting a nice rain tonight. The back lawn is about nine inches tall. I would’ve mowed on Saturday, but my foot had a painful gash in it.