An entertaining draw

– but a goalless one – between Peru and Ecuador. The Peruvians are a hairsbreadth from elimination. I’m sorry about that. They play hard but can’t score goals.

Peru: sixteen games played, six goals scored. 😢

Ecuador: sixteen games played, thirteen goals scored, five goals conceded. Three of the five were conceded during the first three games. These are amazing statistics. I wonder if any defense in CONMEBOL’s history has been so stingy (that is, since this qualification format was adopted in the mid-1990s). I’ll find out. Not tonight; after all the games have been played.

Average (i.e., mean) scoreline involving Ecuador: Ecuador, 0.8125 goals; opponent, 0.3125 goals.

Average (i.e., mode) scoreline: 0–0.

No wonder it has seemed so dreary. I should be grateful. This is historic.

Together with Venezuela’s defeat to Uruguay, this draw ensured Ecuador’s passage to the World Cup. Brazil also qualified. Uruguay and Paraguay each need one more point from two games (or else that Venezuela not obtain six). Colombia’s position also is strong. The Bolivians trail Venezuela by a point; either Bolivia or Venezuela will claim the play-in spot.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Protests this weekend. Stay safe! Better yet, stay home! Some protests are effective. My hunch is, these won’t be. They’ll just embolden the government to crack down further. This is a powder keg, and all it needs is for some cop or protestor to kill or get killed.

Don’t like how things are going? Vote.

A drab draw

Ecuador 0, Brazil 0.

Ecuador and Paraguay – the second- and third-placed teams – have each scored just 13 goals in 15 matches.

Both teams could qualify for the World Cup on Tuesday, with two games to spare.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Re: South America. My reading group’s next book is this classic:

One group member already has pointed out this similarity:

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Samuel, earlier this week: “I want to be rich.”

And tonight:

Samuel: “What is prosperity?”

Karin: “Having all you need, and more.”

Samuel: “I want prosperity.”

They grow up so quickly.

This blog entry is for Jesús

… the nurse who gives my children their shots.

It was Abel’s turn to get poked. He glared when Jesús came into the room.

“Children recognize me,” Jesús told Karin. “I was at Walmart, and a child saw me and ran away. His parents gave me dirty looks.”

Jesús is super nice.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It’s old news, but … Paris Saint-Germain shredded Inter, 5–0, with the best team performance in any final in the history of the Champions League. (I’ve observed just one other comparable performance: Barcelona’s, in 2009, which caused a very good Manchester United team to chase shadows. Milan’s drubbing of Barça in 1994 is supposed to have been impressive, too, but I didn’t see that game.)

Were I forced to choose, I’d name Vitinha as PSG’s standout player:

Willian Pacho started in defense and repeatedly charged into the opponents’ half to intercept or wrest away the ball. He was astounding. They all were, the Parisians.

Pacho has returned to Ecuador to play in Thursday’s World Cup qualifier, against Marquinhos – his club-mate – the captain of Brazil and PSG.

The case against living in las Malvinas

… a.k.a. the Falklands.

Argentina came within a point of qualifying for the World Cup, defeating Uruguay, who fell in the standings. Ecuador rose to second place. We’d dropped to fifth because Brazil and Paraguay won their games; but then we beat Venezuela, 2–1, in what should have been a cakewalk but became rather fraught when Venezuela scored.

Enner scored twice for Ecuador but missed a penalty kick, as is his way. Other outstanding players were midfielder Pedro Vite and goalkeeper Hernán Galíndez. The latter dislocated his finger; Pervis pulled it back into place.

Five games remain for each team. We’ll play on Tuesday, in Santiago. The Chileans are last.

Karin took Samuel to the emergency room last night because we worried that he had appendicitis. He didn’t, thank goodness. Today we’re all much happier.

The scholar, pt. 2

Samuel seemed shell-shocked after his first day.

“What did you do in school?” I asked.

“Work,” he said, grimly.

He wouldn’t say much else. He made a beeline for his toy cars and organized them fastidiously. Then he slept all afternoon.

With Samuel away, Daniel has been extra clingy.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

World Cup-wise, we lost 1–0, in Brazil. We debuted a new coach (Sebastián Beccacece). We wore red (!). Alan Franco, a midfielder, played surprisingly well as a makeshift right-back. Otherwise, it was a forgettable game.

At the same time, in São Paulo, the Packers and Eagles played a regular-season game. Was the NFL wise to promote itself to Brazilians while a World Cup qualifier was in progress? Maybe: the qualifier was such a stinker.

The Bolivians have begun hosting games in El Alto – clearly a savvy choice. They defeated Venezuela 4–0 and leapt back into contention. A lot of bad teams are contenders this time.

Body-text fonts, pt. 28: Iowan Old Style

Halftime in Philadelphia: Ecuador 2, Bolivia 0. Ecuador using subs. Some ought to be starters.

Ecuador wearing white. Bolivia wearing very pale green shirts with dark green shorts and stockings. These outfits do not exactly fan the flames of patriotism.

For a while, I listened to a livestream with amateur Bolivian commentary. It sounded like this: We’re una porquería. … Come back, Marcelo Moreno Martins! … Hee, hee, Brazil is going to tie the USA.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This month’s typeface is Iowan Old Style. Some computers arrive with it installed. Supposedly, it’s one of the “ten most popular text serif fonts, as selected by Identifont users over the past seven days.”

I’ve seen no evidence of this out in the wild. Who, exactly, is using Iowan? Maybe I look in the wrong places.

People should use Iowan. It’s lovely.

I own just one book set in Iowan. Fortunately, it has 600+ pp. – plenty from which to sample.

Here’s the italic:

And the roman:

Ecuador 1, Chile 0; Brazil 0, Argentina 1; Peru 1, Venezuela 1

The highlight videos might make you think we’re kinda good. That impression would be false. We’re very good at defending; apart from that, we’re putrid.

The coach has to go. Has to, has to.

Even so, I’m happy that we won and climbed to fifth place. (We were joint-fourth, briefly, but Venezuela reclaimed a point in Lima and moved ahead of us again.)

Brazil lost at home, to Argentina, and sunk to sixth. At least we aren’t Brazil. …

Ten months (ten!) until the next qualifiers. In that time, we could get a lot better. Or worse. Every team’s form could change.

Venezuela 0, Ecuador 0; Argentina 0, Uruguay 2; Brazil 1, Colombia 2

The Venezuelans are at their all-time best. They’re on pace to qualify for their first World Cup.

Ecuador outplayed them in Maturín, in the far northeast, about as far as you can go without straying into CONCACAF land. What an uninspiring game this was. Neither team covered itself with the tiniest shred of glory.

Whenever the Ecuadorians would recover a ball in their opponents’ half, they’d send it to their back line to “recycle” possession. It seems to be what this coach wants them to do.

We’ve scored four goals in five games. We’ve scored in just two of those games.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

For the first time ever, Argentina and Brazil lost qualification games on the same day – Argentina at home, against the superb Uruguayans, and Brazil in Colombia. Luis Díaz, whose father, recently released from kidnapping, was in the stands, scored two late goals to sink the Brazilians.

The Brazilians are on a two-game losing streak – their first ever in World Cup qualification. It might become a three-game losing streak. They’ll play Argentina next. I expect the Argentinians to be in a kicking mood. They hadn’t lost since the first game of the World Cup. Before that, they hadn’t lost in dozens of matches.

On holiday; Bolivia 1, Ecuador 2; Brazil 1, Venezuela 1

A satisfactory little vacation in Austin. I’ve done what I said I’d do, except I haven’t ridden the bus.

I’m about to finish reading my second book.

David took me to a good Colombian restaurant in East Austin, the seedy-but-gentrifying part of town. He lives in a much-nicer-but-also-gentrifying part of town. I gather there are other neighborhoods that leave his in the dust.

My legs are sore because yesterday I hiked through a stony, scrubby forest. I’m no birdwatcher, but I was delighted when a roadrunner crossed my path. It was an idyllic morning – except that the freeway traffic near the forest was very loud.

Back where Ana & David live, we did a little tour of the Halloween decorations.

Ada, my neice, is a chatterbox. She is keen to describe all the neighborhood calaveras (skulls). She tells us about Ellison, her imaginary older sister.

George, my nephew, likes to be read to and to dribble the soccer ball around the house.

We watched Ecuador play awfully against Bolivia. To our intense relief, Ecuador scored the winning goal in the last minute. Afterward, David and I listed four or five players whom we never want to see again. The commentator was a nice man from South Africa or maybe New Zealand who clearly knew little about South American soccer or soccer in general. By the end of the game, even he was remarking on how poor these players were, and David and I were warming up to him.

The other notable result was that Venezuela rescued a point in Brazil thanks to a late bicycle-kick goal. The Brazilians were very angry.

Body-text fonts, pt. 17: Robert Slimbach’s fonts: Adobe Garamond, Minion, and, especially, ITC Slimbach

We live during Robert Slimbach’s benevolent reign, or Adobe’s. It’s stale. Good as Slimbach’s Adobe Garamond and Minion have been, it’s tedious to see them still used so often.

Slimbach has created other fine typefaces for Adobe – Adobe Ten Oldstyle, Adobe Text (see Elizabeth Anderson’s Private Government), etc. – but, for whatever reason, book designers haven’t warmed to them. Arno and Warnock are good, too, but only on certain days of the week.

What I really like by Slimbach is his early, Zapf-inspired eponymous font for ITC. I first noticed it in NIV Study Bibles from the 1990s and early 2000s. It’s also in Bruce Cumings’s history, Korea’s Place in the Sun, and in the anthology Latin American Philosophy for the 21st Century; lately, it’s been shared all over the Internet in the body text of Ross McCammon’s book, Works Well with Others: An Outsider’s Guide to Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, Handling Jerks, and Other Crucial Skills in Business That No One Ever Teaches You.

(I seldom read self-help books. But I read all of this one. It’s painless, and it gives tips about how and when to write curt emails and use curse words and drink after the job and on the job, and how to tell your dining partner you’re not going to drink if you aren’t going to. And how to pronounce the names of alcoholic drinks from Scotland. It’s a very pro-drink book. The author’s dissimulations to the contrary, it’s the douchiest self-help book I’ve read. [I know, there are much worse ones.] After I finished the book, I looked up some of McCammon’s Esquire articles, and wow, that was like landing on a different planet. I shut the computer and fled the room. … By the way, I learned from At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig [Adobe Garamond] that the country that imports by far the most Scotch, or that used to, is tariff-free Paraguay; the booze is then smuggled into Argentina and Brazil.)

As for Minion itself, I like it – but not tiny, and not in lines of interminable length, which is how Oxford University Press uses it.

Wanna see Minion used well? Look at a Vintage paperback of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

January’s poem

More raiding of government buildings. This time, in Brazil. Good grief.

Funny thing, Ecuadorians stage actual, effective coups, and I’m not always devoid of sympathy for the insurgents. Some day I really ought to work out the differences between the various cases.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This month’s poem is by Los Tigres del Norte.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Yo te regalaba todo

todo lo que me pedías

Sin embargo, me reclamas

(¡Y te daba hasta mi vida!)

Pero tú ¿qué me has dado?

Falsas promesas de amor

Pero tú ¿qué me has dado?

Golpes en el corazón

Yo te regalaba todo

Hoy reñimos (si te olvidas)

Salí mal con mis amigos

porque tú no los querías

Pero tú ¿qué me has dado?

Todo lo perdí por ti

Pero tú ¿qué me has dado?

Solo me has hecho sufrir

Para sanar las heridas

voy a buscar otro amor

Casi arruinaste mi vida

golpeando mi corazón

Yo te regalaba todo

Con mi madre discutía

Me quería abrir los ojos

Perdóname, madre mía

Pero tú ¿qué me has dado?

Falsas promesas de amor

Pero tú ¿qué me has dado?

Golpes en el corazón

Para sanar las heridas

voy a buscar otro amor

Casi arruinaste mi vida

golpeando mi corazón

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Quarterfinals 1 and 2 – the best day of the World Cup; December’s poems

I am in awe of the Croatians. They are BALLERS. I doubt I could think more highly of a soccer team.

Brazil, not so much.

The key contest was between Casemiro and Luka Modrić. (Casemiro is Brazil’s grownup.) Modrić outduelled Casemiro all game long, including during the building up of Croatia’s goal.

Other pundits have highlighted Marcelo Brozović, whose job it was to subtly close off Neymar.

The Brazilian fans sang and danced, and I was like, don’t you understand that your team is getting schooled? That the Croatians are better than the Brazilians with the ball (and, certainly, better without it)? That they are doing what they like to do, which is strenuous and sophisticated: doing it with steel and style: and the Brazilians aren’t?

Great soccer nation or not, these colorful fans are just that: fanatics.

The second quarterfinal, between Argentina and the Netherlands, was made wild by some erratic refereeing, as well as by the Netherlands’s launching long, high passes into the box in a desperate attempt to even the score. It worked; but the Argentinians, who were briefly unsettled, gathered themselves, seized control again, and won the penalty shootout.

Messi is right to complain. The ref hurt Argentina. Even so, the Argentinians used the ref to mess with the Dutch. Their breaches of etiquette – deliberately handling the ball, kicking it into the Dutch bench – were so brazen, the ref didn’t know what to do about them, and the Dutch were put out of sorts. It behooved the Dutch, who were down by two goals, to put the Argentinians out of sorts, and they did, but then the Argentinians made sure the Dutch were put out, too, and the Dutch came out worse.

Two of the day’s goals – one scored by Neymar, the other assisted by Messi – were exquisite. The Dutch worked a stunning free-kick goal.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This month, the poem is by me.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Sometimes, it’s hard to be a daddy

He changes diapers all day long

He changes Danny’s

He changes Sammy’s

And, as he does, he sings this song

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Apologies to Tammy Wynette.

I had to change a diaper while Morocco and Spain contested their penalty shootout in the octavos de final. I did a wipe, watched a penalty kick, did a wipe, watched a penalty kick …

All right, that wasn’t much of a poem, so here is one from The Atlantic: “Ode to Not Watching the World Cup.”

I am not convinced …

The bloodletting

Karin, Samuel, Daniel, and I all got into the car early this morning and went to the South Bend Clinic so I could have blood drawn for some routine tests. Good thing I didn’t take the bus: I had to be poked twice, and almost fainted. I lay on a bed in the clinic and the nurse revived me with orange juice and two or three cold packs.

“You can keep them,” she said. (They aren’t re-usable.)

Having blood drawn is one of those Supposedly Fun Things I’ll Never Do Again.

Meanwhile, Karin took the boys to McDonald’s and got us all some breakfast, for which I was grateful: nothing gives one an appetite like nearly fainting. Karin had plenty of time to go to McDonald’s because the lab at the clinic was crowded with patients who surely wanted to get tested early so they could go home and watch the World Cup.

Here is the bracket. The first two knockout games were played today.

I’d be glad to see the two African teams reach the semifinals on the right-hand side of the bracket. It’s not farfetched. Say what you will about Qatar as a host nation, the Islamic teams have benefited from playing in the Middle East. It’s only fair that they should be allowed to play where it feels like home, as the Western countries so often do.

On the left, I’d like to see Argentina play against Brazil. But I’d settle for Croatia.

For nerds

The latest video from Un mundo inmenso takes us on a quick tour through utopian social theory, with mentions of Plato, More, Bellamy, and Nozick …

… as a prelude to discussion of a homegrown work, Arjirópolis or Argirópolis (1850) by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the author of Facundo.

Sarmiento wrote a lot of things. Even so, I’m a little shocked that I hadn’t heard of this book. I’m especially shocked that there’s no mention of it in the best English edition of Facundo.

I’m not shocked that Argirópolis wasn’t translated until recently, or that the translation’s price is $70. But there’s no fee attached to the Spanish original, in which Sarmiento uses utopian spelling (Arjentina, Uruguai, fewer accent marks, i rather than y, etc., etc.).

To call this book “utopian” is a bit misleading. A utopia is a no-place, or a no-place-in-particular, but the new country is precisely situated: it’s a confederation formed from Paraguay, Uruguay, and river-adjacent parts of Argentina, with a new capital on an island in the Río de la Plata. As in Facundo, the local geography determines the politics; the new land subscribes to no replicable political philosophy, though certain countries (e.g., the USA) serve as its models.

This is perhaps one of the more prescient “utopian” works, anticipating and even recommending the subservient role that Latin American countries would assume in global trade. Sarmiento is said to have been a Latin American apologist for neoliberalism well ahead of his time. To assess whether this is fair, I’d have to read the book.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

If the world had only twenty countries of roughly equal surface area, what would they be?, Un mundo inmenso asks in another recent video.

So: the channel has turned to counterfactual speculation. I hope it isn’t running out of things from actuality to discuss. This is an immense world, after all.

Paraguay 3, Ecuador 1

Not our best outing.

Fortunately, the Chileans failed to defeat Brazil (they came up five goals short), and Uruguay defeated Peru (somewhat controversially). These results guaranteed our qualification for this year’s World Cup, with a game to spare.

Uruguay qualified, too.

The really shocking result was in Europe: North Macedonia eliminated Italy, the continental champions.

As of this writing, we are the qualified nation with the second-least World Cup experience. This will be our fourth World Cup. For Qatar, the host nation, it will be the first.

Thirteen of thirty-two places remain unclaimed.

Ecuador 1, Brazil 1

Samuel is a well-read and affectionate little boy. Should he maintain his current interests, however, he is likely to become a wrestler for the WWE. Eighty percent of his waking hours are spent gleefully kicking, scratching, eye-gouging, headbutting, and bodyslamming his father. I don’t exaggerate; if he weren’t pint-sized, it would be unbearable.

Also, he doesn’t allow me to read. The last three weeks, I made it my priority to read one book. (I was out of renewals and needed to return it to the library.) It was an easy and entertaining book. I only got through half of it. I’ll blog about it should I ever finish the last two hundred pages.

Tonight Samuel is mugging me while I type. This afternoon he mugged me all during Ecuador’s World Cup qualifier against Brazil. Brazil scored in the first ten minutes; a little later, our goalie, Alexander Domínguez, was red-carded; a little after that, a Brazilian was red-carded. Then another Brazilian, the goalie Alisson, was red-carded, but his red card was rescinded by the VAR. In the second half, we were awarded a penalty kick; it was rescinded by the VAR. Then we scored the tying goal from a corner kick. Then we were awarded another penalty kick and Alisson was red-carded a second time, but again the foul and red card were rescinded by the VAR.

I thought the Brazilians managed the game quite well, though they didn’t create many scoring chances. For Ecuador, it was good to earn the draw after such an awful start.

We have three more matches to play. If we win Tuesday night’s match, away to Peru, our qualification will be guaranteed. Many other scenarios also would allow us to qualify.

It is still very cold and snowy, and Karin has built a shelter in our back yard for stray cats, using plastic bins and straw.

Chile 0, Ecuador 2

Big, big victory for Ecuador in Santiago, in the stadium of Club Deportivo Universidad Católica. We dominated in the early minutes and were rewarded with a well-taken goal by Pervis Estupiñán. Then Chile’s Arturo Vidal committed the red-card foul of his life. To the Chileans’ credit, they rallied hard and played with courage. But Ecuador created the better scoring chances – many of them squandered by Michael Estrada. It wasn’t until stoppage time that Moisés Caicedo struck the coup de grâce.

The Brazilians have qualified for the World Cup. The Argentinians have qualified. We are third, with a six-point cushion over the fourth- and fifth-placed teams, and seven points above the best teams in the disqualification zone. There’s a decent chance we’d scrape through even with four concluding defeats.

Tonight I was running my many laps, in the cold and wind and snow, and it was bleak, and I thought of quitting; but I remembered the pibes – the lads – and was inspired to push on ahead.

A brush with death; an unnecessary tournament; baseball

Martin told me that I could watch the Euros with Univisión’s free Prende TV app. I kept an eye on all three of today’s games.

There was a harrowing episode: Denmark’s Christian Eriksen collapsed on the field, apparently due to cardiac arrest. CPR was administered to him. Players, fans, officials, commentators, Eriksen’s wife – all seemed traumatized (as Karin & I were, at home).

I was affected to see the Danish players, clearly anguished, forming a privacy wall around Eriksen and his caregivers.

Eriksen survived.

After a long delay, play was resumed, and the Finns earned their first victory at a major tournament.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Another edition of the Copa América is due to commence. I am not interested in this. The Copa was just played in 2019, in Brazil; this edition also will be held in Brazil. The venue was switched over from Colombia and Argentina. Why those countries should have been chosen is mysterious to me.

All the CONMEBOL countries take turns hosting, and the next turn should have been Ecuador’s. Ecuador might host the 2024 tournament, but this year’s tournament is unnecessary.

Whatever happens in 2024, all I hope for this competition is that it somehow helps, rather than hinders, Ecuador’s quest for World Cup qualification.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

We took Samuel to his first baseball game, at the South Bend Cubs’ stadium. We were in a club box with Karin’s coworkers. Samuel wouldn’t sit still, of course, so I spent most of the evening trailing him back and forth in the (rather crowded) club box.

Brazil 2, Ecuador 0

The Brazilians labored, but their victory was never in doubt; clearly, they were the better team.

Although the result was just, the second goal was questionable. The VAR officials permitted Neymar to re-take a penalty kick because of a minuscule encroachment by Alexander Domínguez.

This greatly irked the Uruguayan commentators (who are as sober as any commentators I listen to). Throughout the game, they had lots of choice words about Neymar, which I appreciated. Afterward, I watched another hour of Uruguayan TV. What a good little country.

The Brazilians are massively talented, but as long as they continue to run 85–90% of their attacks through Neymar, they are doomed to lose against the best European sides.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

In Mishawaka, temperatures have been in the low nineties (F). We bought a garden hose and a kid-friendly sprinkler. The sprinkler is shaped like a fish; when water spurts out of it, it thrashes in a disturbing fashion. Karin & I showed Samuel how to run back and forth through the spray. At first, he stood just outside of its reach, yelling and waving his arms; eventually, he made a few passes.

Now the lawn is watered, and so it will be longer at the next mowing.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Edoarda & Stephen are buying a house at the other end of our block. Of course, we also intend to buy a house, and it probably won’t be right here; but it will be nice to live near them for a short time. And when my parents move into the house where we are living now, they’ll be near to Edoarda & Stephen.

In the meantime, Edoarda & Stephen are allowing me to use their new battery-powered mower. It’s quiet; but, on certain terrain, it’s extremely quirky.

The perils of routine

Samuel constantly asks to be read to. Is this such a good thing? He seems rather desperate. If I’m not reading to him, he brings a book and slaps it down hard on my lap or face or computer; if I refuse him, he cries; if I begin to comply, he hyperventilates until I’ve picked him up and set him on my knee.

I wonder what I’m doing wrong with the child. He has good objectives, but his methods are terrible.

Today we read the original Madeline four times. We also read three of the sequels, and several books unrelated to Madeline. It must have been over three hundred pages – just of Madeline.

This can’t be good for him, can it?

His diet also needs more variety.

Repetition suited him well enough during his first year and a half outside of the womb. Lately, though, it seems to be making him bored and obsessive.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

World Cup qualifying has resumed in South America. Ecuador will play in Brazil tomorrow night, and at home, against Peru, on Tuesday.