The night before Halloween

All Hallows’ Eve’s Eve … everything’s wet and dour … I’d love it if only I didn’t have to work. My back feels like it was trodden upon by elephants. I don’t know why. It can’t only be due to my tremendous fat.

In a few minutes, Karin & I will go to an appointment with Karin’s mom’s family. Its purpose is for us to plan our Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve been doing my bit, calling the Chinese restaurants to learn which of them will be open.

A dire result

… in the Copa Libertadores. Barcelona lost its first semifinal game, at home, 3 goals to 0. Grêmio was the opponent.

One more semifinal game awaits. Recent “away” performances have been good, but 3–0 surely is too steep a mountain to climb.

Last night, South Bend had its first frost.

The fall, pt. 2

So far today, I’ve walked five miles: to the doctor, to the bank, to my job, etc., etc. All the time, it’s been cold and rainy. And to think that I used to routinely do this sort of thing.

A householder on Sunnyside Ave has left out some potted ibises, free for the taking.

At the office, things are quiet. I trust the rain to keep my tutees away. What with the fall weather and Halloween, I’m reading three “supernatural thrillers”:

The Man Who Was Thursday (this is my fourth time);

All Hallows’ Eve; and

Inferno.

For this last book, I’m using Mark Musa’s evocative, elegant translation and notes (next time, I might read someone else’s). Inferno is like the Bible: each new version brings out something different. Also, like the Bible, it’s profoundly sobering.

Inferno has its quirks, though. Dante (the character) always is fainting. (Things keep getting worse and worse down there in Hell.) Also, Dante clearly thinks well of his own ability. He likes to group himself with the most illustrious fallen poets.

Raiders vs. Chiefs

Due to the harm it causes, football shouldn’t be played or viewed – especially not the NFL’s Thursday night games, which have been criticized of late. On Thursdays, the players are lethargic. They’re insufficiently recovered from their Sunday games. Thursday games are lousy to watch (or so the critics have been claiming).

Well, this year, I’ve been viewing Thursday Night Football through Amazon Prime Video. Last week’s game was very good. This week’s game was one of the best I’d ever seen. (At least, the two offenses played well.) The Chiefs aimed to preserve their lofty standing. For the Raiders, the stakes were higher: they were obliged to win in order to save their (hitherto) disappointing season.

It was all very dramatic.

There were seven lead changes. Each quarterback flung the ball farther than three hundred yards. One of them did so with a broken back.

The Raiders missed two field goals. Their star running back, Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch, was ejected for shoving an official.

One of the Raiders’ pass defenders dropped an interception. The ball was caught by a Chief receiver, who scored with ease.

On the game’s last drive, the Raiders needed a touchdown. They maintained possession with an unlikely fourth-down catch. Another catch brought them within a yard of the end zone.

With fewer than ten seconds remaining, the Raiders had no timeouts. “Beast Mode” wasn’t eligible to carry the ball for them.

View for yourselves what happened.

I had never, ever seen anything like this. (Another game summary is here.) Even Karin was overcome. “This game is incredible,” she said, and she was in another room.

An old stomping ground

This article has a photo of my old job site: Bed Bath & Beyond in downtown Seattle.

It’s fitting that the article is about riding the bus. That’s what I did in Seattle, in 2004, when the transport system was not as efficient.

My parents are lending a car to Karin & me. I’m studying how to drive it. Alas. I’d hoped to go all my life without driving, like C.S. Lewis did. Later, I might permanently give up driving, in the manner of J.R.R. Tolkien, who saw Mordor encroaching all around him.

A quiet holiday at home

Ahhhh, Fall Break (until Tuesday). A brief holiday, but a sorely needed one. I plan to rest and to dissertate. The section I’m currently writing is about the book of Ezekiel, chapter 4.

No holiday for Karin, even though she could use one, the poor dear. She’s miserably ill. Right now, we’re watching Pac-12 football (sort of) and she’s preparing the treasury report for our church.

The kitties just had a tremendous fight at the highest level of their cat tree. They do that sometimes. Outside, the weather is very stormy.

I read the inaugural Flashman novel by George MacDonald Fraser. Flashman is the James Bond of the 19th century, but more of a rake and a bastard, and certainly more of a coward. Unlike the Bond books, the history in Flashman is scrupulously accurate. The first book treats Britain’s imperial debacle in Afghanistan. It’s often said that U.S. officials would’ve known not to invade Afghanistan if only they’d recalled the Soviet debacle there. Well, they could just as profitably have read Flashman.

Imagine something like J.G. Farrell’s Siege of Krishnapur, comparably funny and anti-imperial but shown through a dastardly lens. That’s how Flashman is. Suppose one were to teach a course on British postcolonial novels. One couldn’t assign Krishnapur and Flashman right next to one another. They’re too alike; any reader would get burnt out. But one might arrange the books along Northrop Frye’s seasonal wheel, (i) reading Farrell, one of the gentler ironists, three-quarters through the term, and then (ii) going through one or two other ironical books before (iii) concluding with Flashman – irony at its bleakest, most wintry, and most comic.

(The kitties are fighting again at top of their cat tree. There are lightning forks outside the window.)

More results

Well, Paraguay lost to Venezuela, 1 to 0. So much for Paraguay.

Argentina defeated Ecuador, leaped over several teams, and qualified for the World Cup. Ecuador didn’t field any of the players who defeated Argentina in the first game of the tourney. That, perhaps, is the most surprising fact of Ecuador’s World Cup cycle.

In Lima, Peru and Colombia each scored one goal. Peru’s was a golazo by its talisman, the excellent Paolo Guerrero. He scored with an indirect free kick that was touched by the Colombian goalkeeper. Now, to reach the World Cup, Peru must defeat New Zealand in a two-game playoff. Colombia finished above Peru and reached the World Cup directly.

The Uruguayans scored twice against themselves but still defeated Bolivia, 4 to 2. They also qualified for the World Cup.

These results helped to eliminate the Chileans, whom the group-winning Brazilians defeated, 3 to 0.

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Ironically, the Chileans would’ve qualified for the playoff at Peru’s expense had they not won an earlier judgment in court. Due to Bolivian impropriety, Chile and Peru had sued against that nation. Chile’s 0–0 draw against Bolivia was converted into a 3–0 Chilean victory, and a 2–0 victory for Bolivia became a 3–0 victory for the Peruvians. On the whole, then, the judgment benefited Peru more than Chile. The difference was enough to switch these nations’ respective, final positions (click to enlarge):

(The chart on the left gives the official, post-judgment standings. The chart on the right shows what would’ve resulted without the court judgment.)

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All of this was dramatic enough. But it paled in comparison to what happened in North America.

The Hondurans, obliged to defeat Mexico, narrowly managed to do so. One of their goals came from a shot that hit the crossbar and bounced off the Mexican goalkeeper’s head.

The Panamanians were similarly obliged to defeat Costa Rica. Their winning goal came at the end of the game. I celebrated it with great passion. Their earlier goal was even more dramatic. It was un gol fantasma: the ball never crossed the goal line. But the shooter, Blas Pérez – my old Panamanian favorite – was fouled and should’ve been awarded a penalty kick.

Here’s a video that shows all of this in clear detail. It also shows the Hondurans’ lucky goal.

Why do I care about these North American games? Because they made possible the elimination of the United States, that hollow team, which lost against Trinidad and Tobago. And so one of my dreams, that the U.S. should fail to qualify for a World Cup, has finally come true.

Results

Though the Ecuadorians played hard, they lost, two goals to one, relinquishing their last chance of qualifying for next year’s World Cup.

They almost didn’t lose. The Chileans scored their winning goal because an Ecuadorian substitute, having just ventured onto the infirm playing surface, slipped. But the night’s other results would have sunk the Ecuadorians even if they’d drawn.

A draw also would have pretty well sunk the Chileans. Instead, momentarily, they’re vaulted into third place. I say “momentarily” because they must play their concluding game in Brazil. Whether they qualify may well depend on how few goals the Brazilians decide to score against them. The Brazilians may end up KO’ing Chile for the third consecutive World Cup cycle.

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Argentina and Peru stalemated in Buenos Aires. Their fates depend upon their respective final matches.

Sitting pretty are the Brazilians (already qualified); the Uruguayans (assured of a playoff, at least; virtually assured of direct qualification); and, amazingly, the Paraguayans. GET THIS. Right now, the Paraguayans are in seventh place, i.e., three places from direct qualification, with a goal differential of minus-five. But if they defeat Venezuela at home, they’ll at least reach the playoff (they’d overtake either Colombia or Peru) and they might even qualify directly, overtaking Chile or Argentina (or both). This good placement is due to their superb comeback victory in Barranquilla. They scored in minutes 89 and 92, defeating the Colombians, 2–1. The Paraguayans are South America’s “cardiac” team.

Then again, I wouldn’t put it past them to fail to defeat the last-placed Venezuelans.

To recapitulate, this is the table (click to enlarge):

And these are the concluding fixtures:

Argentina at Ecuador
Bolivia at Uruguay
Chile at Brazil
Colombia at Peru
Venezuela at Paraguay

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The best result of the day was Kazuo Ishiguro’s selection as the Nobel literary laureate. When it was announced, it made me so pleased, I almost wasn’t bothered about the World Cup. Ishiguro is a fine writer, and The Remains of the Day, his most famous novel, displays the sublimest English and Japanese virtues.

Karin’s birthday; tomorrow’s World Cup qualifier; this year’s philosophical job listings

For her birthday, I went with Karin to a stir-fry restaurant at the mall. I also bought her this spiffy coloring book:

Its pages, colored, should look like this:

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Tomorrow is the do-or-die game in Chile. I’d say, “Please pray for Ecuador to win.” But does Ecuador deserve to qualify for this World Cup?

Arguably, no.

However, the Chileans certainly don’t deserve to qualify for this World Cup.

Please pray for Ecuador to win.

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It’s job-listing season for philosophy departments. Despite my hard work this year, it again looks as though my dissertation won’t have progressed far enough for me to be a viable candidate.

Were I to finish the current draft by the end of this month, job-wise it’d still be too late.

I can dream, though.

One job is at a Wesleyan liberal arts college in lovely, rural, upstate New York. It involves helping to “build a program” with one or two other professors. Translation: I could teach in several different subfields outside of my own area of specialization. That’s something I’d very much like to do.

Several other jobs look good because of the nearby mountain scenery. (Actually, there are very few such jobs.)

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This year, even more than usual, political philosophers and moralists are in high demand. This trend is to my advantage.

In especial demand are philosophers who moralize about race. I believe that race is a very important topic. But this recent philosophical emphasis on race leaves me uneasy: it has a whiff of fashionableness about it. In other words, I doubt that the attention now bestowed upon race is a manifestation of good faith.

Still, if I do think of anything worthwhile to say about race, I’ll try to write it in a paper.