Sweet teeth

For the longest time, Abel had just two teeth, and then this week four more broke through the top gum. How long he’ll keep them is anyone’s guess. We trunk-or-treated last night at the school where my brother Stephen teaches, and I was amazed that so many of the teachers tried to give Abel candy. (He’s only ten months old.) Afterward, as we waited in the McDonald’s drive-thru, Samuel told us that children eat McDonald’s at school on their birthdays. I’m skeptical, but it’s within the realm of possibility. (For his upcoming birthday, he’s asked for McDonald’s, chocolate cake with icing, and a piñata.) Daniel ate sweet toast for breakfast today, like most days, and then asked for ice-cream. I held him off fairly comfortably by pointing out that he’d only eaten half of his toast.

Abel’s pediatrician told me that children’ll eat anything until they start eating sugar, and then that’s all they’ll want.

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Karin uses Duolingo (an app, if you didn’t know) to practice Spanish, Welsh, math, chess, and sometimes piano. The sentences for practicing Spanish are like a high school/​Almodóvar melodrama.

No saldré con él si usa ropa anticuada (I won’t go out with him if his clothes are out of date).

Todas mis amigas son lesbianas (all of my woman friends are lesbians).

Some Welsh sentences, translated:

Owen is eating parsnips in the rain.

After the dragon had eaten Owen, it went to Cardiff.

See this compilation. A literature grad student ought to publish a paper about national stereotyping in Duolingo. But isn’t that what the app is for? When, really, will we have occasion to meaningfully use Icelandic or Korean? Isn’t mental tourism the point?

More results

Copa América quarterfinals

Argentina 1 (4), Ecuador 1 (2). We outplayed the world champions but lost the shootout. Pity.

We almost were knocked out by soccer kindergarteners, one Argentinian journalist complained.

Our coach, Félix Sánchez Bas, a Spaniard, resigned afterward. Rumor has it, his wife and children have been unhappy in Ecuador; they may even have been bullied by fans. I’m very sorry if this is the case. Sánchez is likely to take another job in Qatar.

Brazilians and Uruguayans are scoreless as of this writing. Canada beat Venezuela in another shootout, and Colombia thumped Panama, 5–0, in the Darién Classic.

UK general elections

Labour thumped the Tories. No Tories won seats in Wales.

Euros

Türkiye 2, Austria 1. A good game. Afterward, the Turkish goalscorer, Merih Demiral, was suspended. The Dutch eliminated the Turks today.

Spain 2, Germany 1. A good game. Alas, yellow cards were distributed willy-nilly, and various players were suspended. Spain’s is the only pleasing team left in these Euros.

The French are still tedious to watch, and the English are still putrid. Both teams have reached the semifinal round. Both could reach the final. Wouldn’t that be nice.

I liked what the Mexican commentators said about the English and Dutch fans: For all their color, they’re tepid once the game starts, probably because they’re already soused.

This would explain why the Turks outcheer pretty much everyone during the games.

Wildflower

Another upset: the Welsh KO’d the Belgians. In their semifinal they’ll face the Portuguese, who’ve yet to win in 90 minutes.

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On July 8 the Avalanches will put out their first album since, what, 2000? – and to my great delight the tracks released so far are distinctly like certain passages of Since I Left You.

Ignore for a moment the sounds, the samples, and consider how, structurally and rhythmically, the new tracks parallel the earlier ones.

“Subways” condenses “Close to You,” “Diner’s Only,” and “A Different Feeling”;

“Colours” is like “Electricity”;

and of course in many ways “Frankie Sinatra” is like “Frontier Psychiatrist.”

(All these tracks – old and new – are mid-album. We’ve yet to learn how Wildflower will start up or wind down.)

I don’t think these parallels are accidental (“Fr”-“S”; “Fr”-“Ps”). The Avalanches have been trying for sixteen years to make something that approximates the feel, the mood, that was so loved about Since I Left You, and this goal has proved most elusive. And so here and there they’re making the albums’ similarities extra-conspicuous.

The new tracks are quite good in themselves, but they also show how difficult it is to re-do what first was achieved with comparatively little effort. It is no small victory to copy, accurately, what was done by free association.

The British situation

Is the UK doing away with council housing?

Farewell, then, to the Britain of my imagination. The UK’d might as well get rid of its fish-and-chips shops and its London fog.

Not all Britons are very keen on council housing. I even happen to agree with those who, in 2008, opposed the inclusion of council flats in luxurious buildings.

Council flats shouldn’t have a hint of luxury about them. They ought to be squarely on the dingy side.

If council flats weren’t dingy, we wouldn’t have such brilliant movies as the Mike Leigh-directed All or Nothing or Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank and Red Road …

or such brilliant songs as the Orb’s “Little Fluffy Clouds” …

(see these reminiscences of the Orb’s two members, Youth and Dr. Alex Paterson, about composing music, together with the KLF, inside a council flat).

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As I type this, Ireland Rep. are outplaying and defeating Sweden in the Euros. Yesterday, Ulster lost narrowly to Poland, and the day before that, Wales beat Slovakia. On the whole it’s been a good showing by the British Isles.

On the whole.

The English continue to disappoint their backers. During their game against the Russians, they were lions in possession but mouses in front of their opponents’ net. They squeaked in just one goal, a free kick, only for the Russians to equalize at the death. Then the Russian supporters chased the English supporters up and down the stadium and beat them up.

The Swedes have just equalized against the Irish.

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“I’m looking forward to Belgium’s game against the Italians,” I tell Karin. “The Belgians have been playing wonderfully these last few years.”

“Yes,” says Karin. “It must be because of Poirot.”