Golf — Basketball — Coronavirus — Books About Crime — 5/17/25

by Nate

Nate told a friend—partially in jest at the time but as he reflects on it there’s a lot more truth to it than he first thought—that these four topics are the only things he reads about online. This friend told him that, surely, there must be a website that speaks to these niche issues at the same time. WELL THERE IS NOW, BABY.

GOLF

It warps the mind, it does. Driving past a large field or a wooded area will never be the same. Where once the eye and the mind would register nothing regarding the landscape, or perhaps settle on a idle consideration of a pasture or a leaf or what have you, where once that simple biological auto-pilot would carry one moment to the next, now instead is a deep and rumbling urge to look upon god's land and think to oneself, without control or consideration, "I'd bet they could put a sick golf course here."

BASKETBALL

Steph Curry is the greatest shooter of all time and he is out of the playoffs, potentially for the last time. Perhaps the end of that previous sentence is unfair, since he's continued to produce at a high level well into his mid-to-late 30s. Nothing to suggest he wouldn't be good again next year. But the gravity will go away, eventually, and the injury luck that has landed so heavily on his side pushes up against longer odds the older his body becomes. Perhaps this speaks more to the hater's heart at the core of the G, B, C, BAC enterprise, but should the great man never make the playoffs again, the lasting memory of his awful and beautiful tenure at least around these parts will be when a gangly Californian put him into the torture chamber at the most crucial moment. 

CORONAVIRUS

Looking at the list of albums released 2020, it isn't shocking what is forgotten, because almost everything was forgotten during that whirlwind two years (in the Northeast, anyway). What stands out is what was able to rise about the fray, to still remain itself despite the conditions into which it was released. For better or worse, Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia exists not as a "pandemic album," but as an "above-average pop album that pushed Lipa into America." Fetch the Bolt Cutters is not a time capsule, it's a celebration and recognition of an American poet. RTJ4 is a document of a different type, tied not to chemical illness, but spiritual illness. The rest of these albums? Tears in the rain, man, drops on a test-strip absorbed and discarded, telling us only what was happening in that moment, not the next one.

BOOKS ABOUT CRIME

James Elroy is a giant of the crime world, and his first novel is so bad it isn't worth reading. Blood on the Moon was ahead of its time in that it was a crime novel about a serial killer that either slightly pre-dated or was released concurrently with Red Dragon. Elroy has gone on record as to saying that he hates the novel himself, not because he made the main character as unlikable, cruel, and racist as he could, but because the writing and story aren't all that great. Having grappled with it recently, I more or less agree with him on that score. Our main is Lloyd Hopkins, who is The Smartest Cop of Them All, beloved by all women and admired by all men, expect for those too small and to cuckolded by his greatness. He's a rocky hang, and the story he finds himself in isn't as clever or as dark as it thinks it is. Elroy would go on to write great stuff, but this one wasn't.

INDIE ROCK

Cannot find a good cover of this song anywhere online. Its enough to make a person want to start a band again.