Good morning, good chatters, and happy Monday. I’ve got two quick links for you, but first, I spent the last few days listening to Rina Sawayama and think you should do the same:
William Shatner: My Trip to Space Filled Me With ‘Overwhelming Sadness’
I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.
The inscrutable intensity of Zinedine Zidane’s glare
Brian Phillips was one of the first sports writers I really loved, way back when he was writing at Run of Play more than a decade ago. He’s been writing for The Ringer for a while now, currently running a series called 22 Goals in the lead up to the World Cup; this instalment looks at Zidane in 2006 and it’s just so good.
Berlin. The Olympic Stadium. July 9, 2006. Before the match, Shakira and Wyclef Jean come out to perform their hit “Hips Don’t Lie.” The entire point of dribbling in soccer is that hips lie all the time. I’m stating facts.
Sixty-nine thousand people in attendance. One of them is the acclaimed Belgian novelist Jean-Philippe Toussaint, who will later write a celebrated lyrical essay called “Zidane’s Melancholy.” The surest sign that an athlete is an icon is that Belgian novelists become interested in their melancholy.
Famous belletristic writers don’t write poignantly intense belletristic essays about athletes all that often, with the obvious exception of George R.R. Martin’s blogs about the Jets.
alright, that’s it, have a good week!!! @ me or email me with any thoughts, good links, etc!