Keep your Maldinis, your Pirlos, your tailored trousers, your Gucci shades, your cologne samples, your jackets with the collars turned up. To me, AC Milan is Gennaro Gattuso, the world's smallest ton of bricks. Without Gattuso, the Milan squad is civilization itself, or at least civilization as filtered through the late-90s archive of Esquire. Click to continue reading...

[Visit the post to hear the audio track.] Click to continue reading...

Start with his motile, princessy, yielding and absolute face, which is never only itself, but always itself smiling, itself sulking, itself exulting, itself wincing, itself coming apart in some goofy expression of praise. Look at the strange lacquer of serenity that shines on him, that mutes his nervous vitality and creates the odd illusion that everything [. Click to continue reading...

I realize that this isn't the obvious word, but there's something ethereal about him. Arguing that he's "a smart, strong player with an unfortunate temperamental streak" misses the point completely, since there's every reason to think that his temperamental streak is also the raw fuel of his will. Click to continue reading...

Points of reference: we tend to read footballers as falling somewhere along the same crazy/sane and weak/tough axes we also use for rock bands, where "crazy" means some combination of inspired and unconventional, "sane" means operating according to consistent and more or less socially acceptable logic, "weak" means what it sounds like it means, and [. Click to continue reading...

The causes of landslides are complex and correlative, and their effects range dramatically, from the sudden release of a wave of mud down the side of a sheer cliff face to the massive structural collapse that causes a hillside to buckle and give way beneath a sea of falling trees. Typically, the landslide requires both [. Click to continue reading...

[Visit the post to hear the audio track.] Click to continue reading...

O what am I that I should not seem For the song's sake a fool? Yeats It's impossible to separate Ray Hudson's appeal as a sportscaster from his appeal as an object of mockery. But because even most of the people who mock him basically like him, no one ever quite acknowledges this, and a strange situation [. Click to continue reading...

You probably imagine the voice of God as an awesome, floor-shaking baritone, resonant with majesty and wisdom, like ten million History Channel narrators speaking at once. I'm not so sure. It's easy enough while watching, say, a tree tossing in the wind, or the space shuttle taking off, to think that God is deeply in [. Click to continue reading...

I'm interested in the bones of Michael Ballack. I don't know why. They're prominent but not expressive, like the aristocrats in Proust. They demand to be noticed, like a pipe wrench, but have nothing to say, like a supermodel. They're functional, like a supermodel, but insentient, like Tyra Banks. Anyway, I'm interested in them. Click to continue reading...

[Visit the post to hear the audio track.] Click to continue reading...

[Visit the post to hear the audio track.] Click to continue reading...