The woebegone

I’d hoped to write a long entry about Ecuador’s companions in misery in this World Cup. But, scanning the list, I found just two, maybe three, comparably disappointing teams: Türkiye (eliminated, having lost twice); Uruguay (nearly eliminated, having drawn twice); and Senegal (nearly eliminated, having lost twice). (I fancy Senegal’s chances against Iraq, however; I don’t fancy Uruguay’s against Spain.)

UPDATE: As I type, the South Koreans are losing to the South Africans; if the result holds, they’ll finish third in the group. And if they don’t scrape through in that position, it will be a tremendous disappointment.

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Other teams have been eliminated or soon will be, but none came into the tournament with the expectations of Türkiye, Uruguay, Senegal, or Ecuador (UPDATE: or South Korea). There’ve been no shocking breakthroughs (UPDATE: not unless the South Africans preserve their victory, anyway). But some teams have exceeded expectations on the field, if not in the standings. I tip my hat to the eliminated Panamanians. I tip it to Cape Verde and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, each of which may yet pull through. I tip it to New Zealand (in dire straits) and Iran (in straits slightly less dire).

I might be expected, for graciousness’s sake, to tip my hat to the Curaçaoans. But I won’t unless they acquit themselves against the Ivorians. Ecuador outplayed Curaçao, after all.

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More notes. This is turning out to be a World Cup for top-drawer strikers. Messi, Haaland, and Mbappé have astounded. Vinícius Júnior and CR7 have shown flashes, if less consistently. And the whole Dutch front line looks good.

Less famous but also excellent: Germany’s Deniz Undav; Morocco’s Ismael Saibari.

I couldn’t say the same for any of the defenses, except maybe Argentina’s – which is considered fragile by some pundits. (Nor have the Mexicans and Spanish conceded, but they hardly have been tested.) The best individual defensive performance was by Bosnia & Herzegovina’s captain, Sead Kolašinac, against Canada.

As late as yesterday, it was mathematically possible for Ecuador to win the World Cup without ever scoring. I told my brothers I’d gain pleasure from such an outcome. I don’t think they agreed. Their Internet silence was rather loud.

World Cup notes; body-text fonts, pt. 52: Fairfield (old and new), Fanwood, and Fanwood Text

Tuesday evening, we were without Internet. I couldn’t stream Norway’s first World Cup match since 1998 – Iraq’s first since 1986. Norway won, 4–1.

Then I missed Argentina’s brushing off of Algeria. Messi equaled Miroslav Klose’s scoring record. After his third goal, I relented and tuned in to Fox. The commentators asked how the Argentinians would motivate themselves. They played for Messi’s sake in 2022, they said, but now that Messi has won the World Cup, what will they play for?

It’s for such imbecilities that I avoid tuning in to Fox.

We reprogrammed our TV and, happily, gained offline access to Telemundo before the midnight match. I caught the Austrians’ first World Cup appearance since 1998. I went to sleep before they finished putting the Jordanian debutantes to the sword.

Iraq and Jordan were the first Asian teams to lose. Iran, on the previous night, salvaged a point against New Zealand. Humorists produced this headline: Kiwis Learn How Trump Feels after Stalemate with Iran (or words to that effect).

The French had a glorious second half against Senegal. Along with Argentina, they are the favorites (Spain failed to defeat Cape Verde). The French are frightening. They could win the tournament with just twenty good minutes in each game.

I have kind feelings but few words for: Belgium, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay, England, Croatia, Ghana, Panama, Colombia, and Uzbekistan. Their games were entertaining.

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Fairfield (des. Rudolph Ruzicka, 1949) was shortened and fattened by 1990s digitizers. This is what one comes across in, e.g., recent Norton Critical Editions:

(There is a lighter body-text weight.)

Compare with the original metal-type in Henry Hazlitt’s influential primer. This type has longer ascenders and descenders:

(More Hazlitt:

Actually, “in the long run we are all dead” is a problem for “longrunism.”)

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The newer Fairfields may be easier to read at small sizes, but the original is more beautiful. Thankfully, the metal-type’s dimensions have been digitized as Fanwood (lighter) and Fanwood Text (darker).

The Fanwoods have no boldface. But they are free to download and use. And lovely. It’s gratifying to come across them in new books.

E.g., in Freida McFadden’s.

(Our sofa is like the cop’s.)

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.

We crash out; the French-born; a movie for the family

Congratulations to the Senegalese, who outplayed and beat us.

The Dutch outplayed and beat the Senegalese.

We outplayed the Dutch but unluckily didn’t beat them. So, we crashed out.

(All three countries outplayed and beat the Qataris by the same number of goals.)

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This four-year-old Vox video is truer than ever. The French talent pool is deep. France supplies the rest of the world with players: especially, the African teams.

This time, France is without some of its top stars; but the reality is, it could field half a dozen decent teams in a single World Cup – teams so competitive that on a good day, a “B” or “C” French team could beat the “A” team. This afternoon, Tunisia, with ten French-born players on its roster, beat France-proper. Tunisia was unlucky not to qualify out of its group.

If Senegal defeats England – which isn’t beyond imagining; it will be a bruising game for the English – Senegal could face France in a quarterfinal. A largely French-born, French-trained team could knock out France.

(Click to enlarge.)

This raises interesting questions for the French constitutional principle of laïcité, which explicitly concerns itself with religious identity but often is interpreted as applying to other forms of identity. “France does not refer to its citizens based on their race, religion or origin. To us there is no hyphenated identity,” the French ambassador to the U.S. famously said after the 2018 World Cup. What, then, to make of French citizens who try to defeat the French team in the name of Senegal or Tunisia? Do they not belong to the French nation? (Legally, they surely do.) Or, by French cultural lights, do they not truly represent those other countries? Do the ambassador’s words imply that the Tunisian team is a cultural sham?

I have no very firm grasp of how the French themselves would answer these questions. (Not that I’d insist that only the French are entitled to decide what it is to be French, even if they are entitled to decide who is French.) But it does seem to me that French national identity has different sorts of conditions than, say, U.S. national identity. This should give pause to identity activists and theorizers. In this era of identity politics, national identity is too often overlooked, or it’s taken for granted as a fixed part of the background. But it is not equally fixed by the same variables everywhere, even if, everywhere, the law helps to fix it; and its significance and function vary from nation to nation.

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Tonight our family took a break from watching murders. Instead, we watched Minions, which, many years ago, was either the first or the second movie that Karin & I saw together in a theater. Samuel walked around repeating Minion-gibberish and catchphrases like “Respect, power, banana!” Daniel, who was still wearing his oversized Ecuador shirt after yesterday’s game, himself looked like a little yellow Minion.

Ecuador 2, Qatar 0; England 6, Iran 2; tornadoes

I had to wait twenty years to see Ecuador play for the first time in a World Cup. I lived through five World Cups before Ecuador ever qualified for one. Oh, the shame and helplessness of those years.

Samuel and Daniel saw their very first World Cup game yesterday, and Ecuador played in it.

Ecuador scored the first goal after three minutes. Stephen and I jumped up and yelled and celebrated. Samuel and Daniel were startled. They cried.

Then the goal was disallowed because a player was offside.

Stephen and I couldn’t see the infraction – not even after the replay was shown. I gather that 99% of the world couldn’t see it, either. That doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. Offside is decreed by technology now. Good thing, because if a human referee had decided that we were offside on that play, FIFA and the host nation would have lost all credibility.

In any case, fútbol-wise, Qatar was doomed. Ecuador was better by about ten miles. The only question, at that point, was whether the referee would permit Ecuador to win.

Then, after twelve minutes, he awarded Ecuador a penalty kick. (He couldn’t have done otherwise, really.) He should have shown Qatar’s goalie a red card, but, understandably, he let the host nation off the hook.

Enner Valencia, who had been missing his penalty kicks in recent games, calmly scored. Stephen and I were quiet this time.

The rest of the game was a walk-through for Ecuador. The Qataris were rattled and simply awful. The Ecuadorians were more cautious than I should have liked. Valencia scored again later in the half, and then Ecuador rested. Or tried to; Qatar kept on fouling.

The Ecuadorian supporters could be heard cheering. Many Qatari supporters left at halftime.

In this video, one of the soberer analysts on U.S. television describes the Qatari exodus. Some of the numbers he cites seem off, but the lesson is clear enough.

How valuable was this victory? We got the points. We regained some confidence after a series of lackluster practice games. Our main scorer regained his form. Were we good? Impossible to say. Qatar was so, so bad. We could have tried harder to score more goals, but it was crucial to rest and calm down. The games against the Netherlands and Senegal will be very hard.

This analysis is fair.

For one day, we led the whole world in the standings – something which also happened during the 2006 World Cup. Then, this morning, England beat Iran 6 goals to 2. Iran looked miles and miles better than Qatar.

Here is Un mundo inmenso’s take on this World Cup.

Now, something different. Samuel asked to watch more tornado videos, so I put on Netflix’s series Earthstorm. It has the best tornado footage I’ve seen. I highly recommend it.

How the word is passed

I’ve just finished reading Clint Smith’s How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery across America. The author travels to various historical sites – plantations, prisons, graveyards, slave markets. He goes on tours. He talks to the guides and to fellow tourists. All through the book, he repeats how important it is to immerse oneself in the history of racism in the USA and beyond.

I say “immerse oneself in,” not “study,” because the process is experiential. The guiding idea of the book is that there’s a difference between merely reading about racist oppression and (for instance) standing in cramped, dark slave quarters or sitting for a few moments in the electric chair at the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

The goal is to feel the atrocities, or, at least, to approximate the feeling.

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This isn’t to downplay the importance of also reading about the atrocities and conversing with those who witnessed or experienced them. The author welcomes these things. He practices them throughout the book.

(Of course, we, the book’s readers, are reading about another person’s experiences – the author’s – which are experiences of approaching others’ experiences. So, we are doubly removed; still, in reading, we come closer.)

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How does the book’s guiding idea fare? How does the author’s quest turn out?

Well, in some chapters, he responds viscerally to the site he happens to be touring. These are the most stirring chapters to read.

In other chapters, while the author’s response isn’t insincere, he does have to try harder to make meaningful connections between the place, the past, and the present.

And in the trickiest passages, he considers whether he ought to distance himself emotionally from how the site is presented to him. For example, he visits a Senegalese slave port, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is commonly said that from this port were shipped millions of slaves (or “enslaved persons,” as the author is always careful to write). Having done his research, however, the author knows that the site was a point of departure for only tens of thousands of slaves. He asks whether this kind of discrepancy should influence the lessons we draw about the past.

He doesn’t quite answer this question, though it’s one that any serious student of history would need to grapple with.

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Rightly or wrongly, “anti-racism” is sometimes categorized as a form of religious devotion. The anti-racist person – at least, the privileged anti-racist person – corrects his or her beliefs, confesses his or her sins, renounces his or her self (or former self), and pursues rectification through evangelism or through social justice work.

I can’t assess this categorization. I am no expert on the recent anti-racist movement, or on what makes a movement religious; and whatever my attitude toward racism is, it doesn’t encompass all these religious elements. But, when it comes to interpreting this book, I think religious categories can be fruitfully deployed.

For all that the book appeals to historical fact, it’s really about affective transformation.

Some transformation is an immediate response to what the senses gather in, in the way that Paul was transformed on the road to Damascus. But, the reasoning goes, lasting transformation is aided by certain (sometimes rather contrived) disciplines. Just as one might pray; serve; sing; read all of the Bible over and over again (even all of First Chronicles); observe the holidays; and take the sacraments – all because these systematic exercises change one’s heart more profoundly than merely reviewing one’s favorite passages and doctrines would do – the pious anti-racist person reads many books; talks to many people; polices his or her utterances and thoughts; recites a common liturgy; and, as in this book, goes on pilgrimages. And not only for the sake of a quick emotional payoff (though it is always tempting to reach for that). The deliberate (“intentional”) anti-racist person strives after a more comprehensive, more lasting, cumulative effect.

Read as a record of this sort of discipline, the book is interesting. Even the passages that drag or overreach serve a purpose, just as a saint’s record of spiritual doldrums and false starts would serve a purpose.

But, I must emphasize, none of this is to say whether the recent anti-racist movement really should be understood as a religion; or, if it should be so understood, whether it is a religion worth practicing. As I remarked, I am not competent to answer the first question. And whether anti-racist religion, if it is a religion, might be understood as an aspect of the Christianity I embrace, and not as an idolatrous or Manichaean rival to Christianity, is not something I can now discuss.

Some links pertaining to the World Cup

It’s the summer’s solstice, but you wouldn’t know it from South Bend’s dark skies and pouring rain.

In Russia, the World Cup has continued its string of bizarre matches.

Colombia was upset after suffering an early red card against Japan.

Poland was upset by Senegal, who scored a wacky second goal.

Spain defeated Iran with another wacky goal.

Argentina was badly upset by Croatia.

I could discuss many more games, in minute detail. But I’ll leave it at this: general weirdness is this World Cup’s main theme.

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The trappings have been more wonderful than the games themselves. The crowds, in national dress, have lent their usual pageantry. The stadiums also have been lovely to behold – even on TV; even the one in Yekaterinburg, which has seats built on high stilts outside the stadium proper. (Yekaterinburg, I learned today, is east of the Urals, which makes this World Cup the second one held in Asia.)

And here is Telemundo’s rousing musical theme for the tournament. It’s played during every commercial break. It builds gradually. At the end, it introduces vocals, sounding very Russian.

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.