September 7, 2020
People are always accusing me of living in the n+1 office. Did I live there?
All articles by this author
September 7, 2020
People are always accusing me of living in the n+1 office. Did I live there?
Lizzy Harding, Juliet Kleber, Mark Krotov, Dani Oliver, Rachel Ossip, Francesco Pacifico, Kaitlin Phillips, Stephen Squibb, Will Weatherly
February 6, 2018
On Superbowl LIII
When it looked like the aging Brady might make good on the automaker’s threat, Artemis smiled, picked up her bow, and sent Brandon Graham to restore order to the universe. After the fumble, Brady still got the ball back once more, now down by eight with a little over a minute left and no time outs, but it was too much, even for him, and Pats fans watching knew it. Still I will always cherish the absolute reticence of the Eagles fans to declare it over when it was. The shot of Philly waiting in disbelief to start celebrating that they had, in fact, beaten Tom Brady and won the Super Bowl will go down in my mind as one of the highest compliments ever paid to a competitor. When Brady was on the field, it wasn’t over until it was over and sometimes not even then.
Get n+1 in your inbox.
September 25, 2017
The revenge of Colin Kaepernick
It will no doubt strike many as inappropriate, to say the least, to speak of Colin Kaepernick’s protest as a kind of revenge. Before this year, I would have agreed with them. Tactically it has seemed necessary to downplay the mounting evidence that not only was Kaepernick’s protest working, but that it was actually tearing the league apart. Letters poured in from aggrieved white patrons demanding an end to the protests, ratings started to drop and they’re still dropping, such that it now seems impossible to deny what the fascists have been saying for a while now, that Kap has succeeded where concussions, Deflategate, and roughly thirty thousand hours of advertisements per game had failed: it has given people a reason to give up the game for good.
February 7, 2017
The game’s sheer improbability made the whole thing impossible to take seriously until it was over.
It is a mistake to count on men like Belichick and Brady to understand the basic tenets of our shared world together. They know how to throw touchdowns and win football games, but not how to build or maintain a world in which it is possible to make millions doing so. For that, they rely on the rest of us, especially those long since priced out of their stadiums.
November 10, 2016
On what grounds should anyone accept the legitimacy of Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court?
It is easier to imagine a fair contest fairly lost by a bad candidate than it is to acknowledge an illegitimate process. It keeps the comforting fiction alive.
November 7, 2016
Colin Kaepernick has had his career compromised by the unchecked madness of white American privilege.
The playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” has gone from a boring, low-stakes ritual to a fascinating pageant, as players across the country and at all levels kneel, link hands, lie down, or otherwise take the opportunity to express themselves.
“You are the problem, Politician,” the Trumpian spat back.
June 20, 2016
LeBron knows that, win or lose, you’ll never get it; you’ll never forgive him for how he was born.
Everything that works as an excuse for everyone else has never worked for LeBron James, and so it’s no wonder why nobody understands when he tries to explain what that feels like.
January 26, 2016
The truth is that it is whether your win or lose, and it is also how you play the game.
November 21, 2015
Watching Peyton against the Colts, the same thought kept pushing itself into my mind, over and over: I’ll be dead someday.
November 9, 2015
Perhaps in the future men will simply become too large to play games like football without killing each other.
September 25, 2015
On rules, cheating, and Deflategate
Larry Warford is a guard for the Detroit Lions. He is six feet three inches tall and weighs 332 pounds. His job is to crouch, fifty to sixty times, one day a week, on a one-hundred-by-fifty-yard field, and then leap up, collide with men of similar size, and move them out of his way so that one of the smaller, faster men on his own team can run by them while carrying an American football. Or: his job consists of keeping those same large men from running past him long enough for his quarterback, Matthew Stafford, to throw the ball down the field, often to a man two inches taller and a hundred pounds lighter than Warford is, whose given name is Calvin Johnson, but whom everyone knows simply as Megatron, after a giant robot toy.