Letter Twenty | 12/9 | Ryan

Berkeley

Dear Russ,

When I was living in Forest Grove and working at the newspaper, you came to visit a few times, but I don’t think you ever came into the office, saw me hard at work. You’ll remember that I published some hard-hitting stuff over the stellar four months of my journalism career: the Oregon Cornhole Championships, the gerbil show at the state fair, the controversies and intrigues of the city parks board.

I was never a great journalist—I’m basically a writer, not an investigator, and I lacked the particular kind of ambition that I think is required. Air the dirtiest laundry! Uncover the nastiest secrets! Break a story so shocking Mark Ruffalo plays you in the movie! Also, as today has made evidently clear, while I can generate takes as quickly as they’re required, my thinking has become pretty thoroughly academic: I want to sit, think, reflect, unroll. And just too much has happened today for me to synthesize in eight hundred or a thousand words. I could never roll this out, every day, on deadline.

The two matches were—well, what were they? Remarkable, tense, poised with a downright geometric narrative precision. Both Croatia/Brazil and Netherlands/Argentina went to penalties; both produced the moments of radical reorientation, singularities, that in any other context—that is, in anything but real life—are totally cliché. In Netherlands/Argentina, the very last kick in regulation was a set piece, given away by Argentina defender and former Man Citizen Nicolas Otamendi in a poor moment, taken by the Dutch with a low hard pass under the wall, one-touch-two-touch from the wonderfully named Wout Weghorst, his second goal, 2-2, into extra time we go. Neymar scored for Brazil in the 106th minute after some downright Byzantine defending from Croatia, who sail after Petkovic’s 117th minute equalizer and some penalty heroics into the quarterfinals much like they did four years ago: on the leaden wings of some quality but unflashy defense and the much more feathery wings of Luka Modric.

Language really does begin to fail—at least, language that’s been simmering for only a few hours. Both penalty shootouts were (fantastic? extra? urgent?) in ways only quick, five-shot shootouts can be. Nothing, I think, will ever beat the Timbers’ 11-round showstopper with Sporting Kansas City, the double-post, which I followed on my phone outside of George Fox University’s performing arts center, having just watched a student production I remember literally nothing about. But these were prime examples of their own kind, dense and quick, a slugfest, a slap fight, square-jawed mind-games. Brazil are out (unforgivable!). Argentina are through (inevitable!). I have no idea where Messi’s capabilities stop. Twitter exploded after his pass to set up Molina’s goal, which I would humbly suggest reinforces my notion of Messi occupying a different distribution of spacetime.

But then, hours ago, the news that longtime soccer journalist Grant Wahl passed away during the Argentina match at his seat in the stadium. His brother, it seems, is adamant that something fishy is afoot; earlier in the tournament Wahl was detained for refusing to discard his rainbow shirt. This has upset me, his death, in ways difficult to explain and absolutely impossible to anticipate. I liked Wahl well enough but was never anything like a devotee, but—maybe in the way we were all unsettled with Christian Eriksen collapsed during the Euros, to see the absent center of all sports and all aesthetic projects (death as irruption-end-void-event) made suddenly visible and present; it’s not just a “bad reminder” but a violation of rules that were so solid and perfect they no longer registered as rules at all.

I hope to have more on this soon.

For now, England/France and Morocco/Portugal tomorrow. I have no strong opinions about the former; for the latter, I declare for Morocco.

Stay well,

Ryan