I never know how to start these things, so I’m going to tell you about how I love iconic banners at sports events. ‘Now I can die in peace’, when your team finally wins a championship? Excellent, one of my favourites, put it on the cover of Sports Illustrated. At the top of the list, though, is a banner with a simple ask from Liverpool fans: make us dream.
I love it because I think the dreaming — whether it’s just for a week or two, or a deep, months-long run to a final — is the best part of being a sports fan. The dreaming, the joy of each step that gets you closer, and the hoping. I used to think that it’s the hope that kills you (see: The Slip, 2014), but I’m trying not to think that anymore, because Ted Lasso told me not to, and because there’s no point choosing to be sad when you could choose to embrace the joy:
All of this is to say that Italy’s doing well at Euro 2020+1, and it’s only been two games, and they were expected to be good going in, but it’s actually fun to wake up in the middle of the night and watch this team. Make us dream. Meanwhile, the Montreal Canadiens are — 🤞🤞at the time of writing, plz don’t let this jinx game 4 on Monday🤞🤞 — up two games to one vs Vegas in the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, enjoying a Cinderella run literally no one expected. There’s something about this run that feels vaguely magical, or like there’s some kind of fate behind it, because advanced stats are unable to explain it. But the team believes and dreams, so we do too, and we hope, and you know what? It’s nice.
Now, onto your regularly scheduled programming.
Song of the week is a new one from Gang of Youths, whose 2018 MTV Unplugged live album got me through months of working from home last year:
The links:
This is not that deep, just some good celeb gossip-adjacent info that will be interesting to you if you also went through a two month period of obsessively reading DeuxMoi’s instagram stories.
This, on Australian swimmer Cate Campbell, is just simple and lovely and it made me cry (you don’t have to like sports or swimming to enjoy it, I promise!).
It was during an interview with Seven, alongside sister and fellow Olympian Bronte, where Campbell’s distress was most visible. With tears streaming down her face, she declared: “I am overwhelmed with embarrassment and shame.” It was her lowest point in the public eye. It was also the moment that set another pair of sisters into motion. Elin and Nele conferred and decided they could not sit back and watch a heartbroken Campbell beat herself up any longer.
If you’ve been Online over the last few years, you’ll have seen Lin-Manuel Miranda’s star rise and fall, from the heights of Hamilton’s original run on Broadway to the lows of tiktok teens tearing his performance apart when the show launched on Disney+ and more people starting to question what it means to enjoy a musical that in many ways venerates questionable historical figures. This article doesn’t really come to any conclusions but it’s an interesting exploration of Lin’s place in the culture nonetheless.
I’m sorry (I’m not) to link you to Jonathan Liew on football for the second issue in a row, but he is just too good and this article, on supporting the national team of a nation that doesn’t always represent your values, a team that some of its other fans think shouldn’t belong to you, is very affecting:
I’d like to tell you that I support England as an act of progressive defiance, as a means of reclaiming the cursed red-and-white flag from the reactionaries and the hooligans and the white supremacists. But this would be twisting facts to suit a narrative. The truth is I support England because I’ve known nothing else. I support England because I loved Gazza and Teddy Sheringham, because Ronald Koeman should have been sent off for fouling David Platt in 1993, because of Jonathan Pearce’s commentary on the France ‘98 version of Three Lions. I support England because it’s what you did, because supporting England has given me some of the greatest happiness I’ve ever known.
Ok, as always, @ me or email me with any thoughts, good links, etc!