What I’m Reading
April 2, 2024
What I’m Reading returns in sporty fashion but includes an update on the more serious aspects of life.
I’ll wrap two sports stories — one a colorful Super Bowl cocktail of literature, sports, photography, and the American way of life, the other a dive into the sometimes bizarre world of drugs in sports — around a powerful Ukraine dispatch.
Fabulous sports journalism
The best sports journalism — if you ask me — explores the sidelines of the business while still hitting at the center of it. It sits outside the data, stats, figures, results, and reactions to the action of whatever playing field hosts the sport in question.
That type of sports writing isn’t much different from non-sports journalism. Sports is the arena, the human condition the actual topic.
One example is The Super Bowl in Las Vegas: What Would Hunter S. Thompson Think?
Writer Billy Witz and photographer Sinna Nasseri deliver what you could call an atmosphere piece. Published in The New York Times just before this year’s Super Bowl, it’s a fascinating melting pot of literature, sports, consumerism, the American way of life, and photography.
I sadly don’t have a gift article link, but if you can, I highly recommend you dive into the observations from the streets and establishments of Las Vegas. You’ll find personal reactions and many little things that define life in Las Vegas now and then.
I found the read to be a thought stimulus on consumerism and all its fascinating and off-putting characteristics, including poignant pointers on what has become of big sports.
As a bonus, one that’s intrinsically linked to the past and present, sports and culture, the details about Hunter S. Thompson, the colorful writer who helped launch the literary journalism niche in the 1960s and 70s and wrote about sports as well as politics, will hopefully prove as fascinating to you as to me.
Reading about “Nixonian similarities between politics and pro football,” as Witz described some of Thompson’s work, reminds me to make time for some “Thompson” and his “esoteric” writing style, as I’ve found it described once, on my reading list.
The sad necessity
Among the selective dispatches of the conflicts that plague this planet I’ve read recently are two updates from Ukraine that I’d like to highlight today.
Too Little Ammunition, Too Many Russians: The Harrowing Retreat From Avdiivka is a New York Times story written by Carlotta Gall and Oleksandr Chubko, with Lynsey Addario’s photographs (again: sadly no gift article link this time).
If you find your way to the article, you’ll relive the fall of the city of Avdiivka in February.
The reporting is impeccable, and the details are emotional. What struck me was the complexity of the suffering and the resilience. I found it an informative and moving read — worth spending time with.
As a bonus find on Ukraine, I highly recommend The Guardian’s A train through Ukraine: a journey into the stories of two years of war by writer Shaun Walker and photographer Kasia Stręk.
It’s a fascinating read — sad and powerful, offering a unique perspective on two years of war and the effects on a nation.
The journalists collected personal stories from and impressions of life at war during a 20-hour train ride from the east where war rages the most intensely to near the EU border.
The exhaustion of a reality dominated by war is a theme that runs through the entire piece, from the soldiers to the railway staff and from artists to tourism workers.
One quote in particular stayed with me. It’s this observation from a man who sees himself as a warrior, not a soldier, who turned from living on impulse to pondering essential questions of life: “A guy sleeps next to you for a whole month, and then suddenly he’s dead. What do you do with that?”
Besides the horrors of war, you’ll also find positive moments of coming home and enduring. And some observations point to “fault lines” in society, as Waker describes it.
Doping — from sad and bizarre to grotesque
Fault lines also exist in sports, especially when it comes to doping.
There’s your typical doping news. Lately, a world championship medalist in the 1,500 and 5,000-meter running events accepted a two-year ban for violations against the whereabouts regulations (which he initially denied). The athletics world is still waiting on the final CAS ruling in a similar case involving a 100-meter hurdler, which started creating waves shortly before last year’s world championships in Budapest.
A particularly bizarre case rocked the German athletics scene recently — a case of two sisters, EPO and testosterone findings, an alleged cancer ailment, and a search to find the truth that crossed borders and somewhat ended in a retirement statement.
To top it off, plans are afoot to host a competition free from any restraints. Meet the so-called Enhanced Games, a competition similar to the Olympics but without any doping regulations.
I found Grotesque Enhanced Games removes brain barrier in quest to get running in The Guardian. Barney Ronay’s take on the idea and the marketing machinery that tries to normalize doping is a curious read that outlines what the idea is all about, from capitalism and greedy big sports to freedom rights and what different people judge to be the essence of sports, competition, and achievement.
Those are my recommendations for this week. I’ll share an update that circles curiosity, creativity, and excitement on Thursday. Until then, enjoy your readings.
