Body-text fonts, pt. 53: Equity

… which is Matthew Butterick’s update of the classic Ehrhardt typeface.

Equity (darker version; lighter version) is excellent – and underused. I’ve seen it “out in the wild” only in books by Butterick or by his enthusiasts: e.g., in Bryan A. Garner’s Legal Writing in Plain English.

(Of course, Ehrhardt already is good enough for most uses. Perhaps Equity is superfluous.)

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Equity is this month’s featured font because private equity is in the soccer news. Infantino is trying to make room for investors – Trump associates! – to buy a substantial share in FIFA’s tournaments.

Some FIFA member nations expect to benefit from the deal. Others – those that have no trouble paying for their soccer operations – staunchly oppose ceding business control to outsiders.

The European nations have resolved, unanimously, to boycott all FIFA competitions unless Infantino’s proposal is withdrawn or voted down.

I hope they get their way – without the boycott. I am not taken with Europe’s “principles.” Europe has a long history of thinking itself too good to play with anybody else.

Tim Vickery, in this video, explains:

Vickery’s diagnosis and proposal are very nearly my own, and so I’ll leave the matter there. But this is not to treat it lightly. The World Cup’s continuance is in danger.

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

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P.S. Tens of thousands of Moroccans illegally crossed into the tiny Spanish semi-exclave of Ceuta yesterday. Spain and Morocco, along with four other countries, are slated to host the 2030 World Cup together.

The piano (cont.); World Cup notes

The piano has been moved to the kitchen, its likely resting-place for as long as we live in this house.

Now we must learn to play the thing.

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What follows is highly selective.

Ivory Coast 1, Ecuador 0: An even, chaotic contest decided by an 89th-minute goal. Chaos doesn’t favor Ecuador. Our strength is tidy defending.

Piero Hincapié had trouble marking 19-year-old Yan Diomande. The goal came from an attack down that flank.

Thrice we hit woodwork. Our attacking woes continue. I will say, it’s hard when foulers aren’t penalized. The Ivorians were spared a couple of second yellow cards.

Brazil 1, Morocco 1: Has-been vs. emerging superpower. The same is true of their respective continents. The Moroccans were breathtaking in the first half; having established their superiority, they ceded the initiative. Brazil had a single brilliant moment.

Australia 2, Türkiye 0: The most entertaining game so far.

(Some would choose the Netherlands vs. Japan [2–2].)

I love watching the Turks. They attack at breakneck pace, slickly, all game long. But the Australians defended stoutly and landed two counter-punches.

USA 4, Paraguay 1; Germany 7, Curaçao 1; and Sweden 5, Tunisia 1: Three blowouts that tell little about the winners (and not much more about the Tunisians, who fell apart late but weren’t consistently bad).

Mid-half hydration breaks, twice per game: I am sick of them.

An entry, posted late, requiring every ounce of strength to type

Notable World Cup “tuneup” results:

• Ecuador 1, Morocco 1 (cracker of a game)
• Brazil 1, France 2 (France dominant)
• England 1, Uruguay 1 (tedious)
• Colombia 1, Croatia 2 (dunno)
• South Korea 0, Ivory Coast 4 (look out for the “Elephants”)
• USA 2, Belgium 5 (too soon to gloat, alas)

Tomorrow promises to be grueling; today already was. Lily, Karin’s sister, will be married tomorrow afternoon. It’s the childcare that vexes. Samuel, at least, is accounted for: he’ll bear the rings. He successfully brought the cushion down the aisle during today’s rehearsal.

Abel and Daniel are another matter. The last thing the ceremony needs is a chorus of squawking. I scouted the building today for possible retreating-places. There aren’t many.

Today, before I chased around and, ocassionally, strong-armed Abel and Daniel, I’d already tired myself loading a humungous, old brush pile – which had plagued our backyard since we bought the property in 2021 – into our pastor’s trailer. Pastor Josh and I took the debris to the church and tossed it into the forest next to the parking lot. It’s not every day you get to dump stuff in a forest.

This has been a grueling entry to type, too, because my “shift” key has been sticking.

Disasters

Sad news from Morocco: 2,900 killed by an earthquake. Sadder news from Libya: 11,300 killed by Storm Daniel. In Libya, dams broke, and there was considerable flooding.

Libyan watering projects have long been vexed. The country’s infrastructure is discussed in this two-year-old video by Un mundo inmenso:

There are no rivers in Libya, the video says. Well, it depends on what is meant by river. Libya’s Derna region has long been vulnerable to flooding, a fact which, to outsiders, might seem mysterious or paradoxical. It isn’t so to desert dwellers for whom the concept of a wadi is old hat.

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Pray for Samuel tonight. He may have eaten a few berries of toxic bittersweet nightshade. What I’m sure of is that he put some into his mouth and spit them out. (He insists they were delicious.)

He shows no ill effects, but their onset may be delayed as long as nineteen hours post-ingestion.

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.

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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.

A prank; a vote; a forthcoming event; a new tutee; Zlatan

We’re well into June. The high schools have had their graduations.

At the school where I used to work, the seniors did an especially good prank. They put LimeBikes everywhere inside the building.

It was effective because whenever a janitor would try to remove a bike from the school, the bike would play a recorded message, threatening to call the police.

Eventually, though, the bikes were brought out into the parking lot.

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Today, FIFA’s members voted to select the hosts of the 2026 World Cup.

They chose Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

Morocco was the losing candidate.

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David will arrive in South Bend tomorrow night. He plans to watch the first week or so of this year’s World Cup with his family.

The first game, Russia vs. Saudi Arabia, will be played tomorrow morning.

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At IUSB, my newest tutee is a middle-aged woman from Mexico. We held our first session today. Afterward, we tried to schedule our next appointment.

“Let me view my calendar,” I said, and I brought out the schedule of World Cup games.

My tutee immediately understood.

“Such-and-such hour is no good,” she said. “Two of Mexico’s group opponents play at that time.”

We agreed to meet at 10:00am, the hour of inactivity between the 8:00am–10:00am game and the 11:00am–1:00pm game.

She told me that two years ago, during the Euros, she’d been in the stadium when Zlatan played his last official match for his national team.

“I don’t have much regard for Zlatan,” she said. “I think Sweden has more success without him.”

I told her I thought Sweden’s success was beside the point.

“Well, my husband likes Zlatan,” she said. “I suppose you like Zlatan?”

“Zlatan is incredible. You should read his book.”

Apart from our disagreement about Zlatan, we had an excellent tutorial. I think she’ll be a very good student to work with.

Qualification, which has nearly ended

Africa completed its World Cup qualification cycle. These are the five successful teams: Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tunisia.

In Europe, the Italians were knocked out by the Swedes. This was notable but not surprising. Since 2006, the Italians have underwhelmed.

The Northern Irish lost heartbreakingly against the Swiss. For analysis, I recommend an excellent video – “This Referee is Terrible. Never a Penalty. 12 Man Switzerland Beat Northern Ireland 1-0” – by YouTube user Themadmistake. (Karin told me not to link to this video. It has filthy language.)

The Greeks also failed to qualify, having lost to the Croatians.

Tomorrow, the Republic of Ireland will host Denmark in the culmination of yet another playoff series. And on Wednesday, Australia will host Honduras. In both these series, the initial matches were goalless.

The same was true of Peru’s first match against New Zealand. This series also will be decided on Wednesday, in Lima.

In the first game, in Wellington, the Peruvians were the vastly superior team. A timid team will bring the ball out of its own half by booting it through the air, and a good team will bring the ball upfield by performing a sequence of short passes. But the Peruvians brought the ball out simply by dribbling. The Kiwis were powerless to prevent this.

And yet the game was scoreless because the Kiwis packed all their players in front of their own goal.

Also, both teams were without their best strikers:

(1) The New Zealander Chris Wood, who was injured. He did make a rather terrifying appearance late in the second period.

(2) The Peruvian Paolo Guerrero, who’d tested positive for illicit drug use. As they say in Peru, Hoja de coca no es droga.