What? The Copa Mundial, the World Cup, is over?
It must mean the end of the world is not far behind.
Soccer, not very popular in America, is nevertheless the world’s sport. I imagine it was invented by a mom, the world’s first soccer mom, living long ago in the cradle of civilization, trying to work with kids under her feet. She wound reeds into a ball, threw it outside, and said, “Go play.”
The kids were gone for hours. The game has hardly changed at all. All you need is a ball or, if you are a solo, a ball and a wall. Scoring would not have come along until the dawn of the socio-political era, when it became important that somebody win. Still the kids were gone for hours, because it was hard to kick a ball into a goal through a crowd of kids using only your feet. And mom said, “No hands!” She knew a good thing when she saw it.
Soccer is also the world’s natural sport. It follows, even derives from, the pace of the universe. On the seventh day, God rested, and dreamed up soccer as the earthly symbol for a divine design in which things happen slowly. The universe is 12 billion years old now, and still expanding. It has taken human beings millions of years of evolving to become smart enough to know they have been evolving for millions of years. God is not in a hurry, and neither is soccer.
Millions of Americans love soccer; for awhile, in the 1600s and 1700s, it must have been the only sport in town. But Americans developed a natural impatience, with a tyrannical government to overthrow, a Constitution to get up and running, and a continent to conquer. Europeans, Africans, Asians, have had centuries to settle in; Americans for the last 200 years have been damned busy, and it has made us impatient. We want results. We want scoring.
Scoring is inevitable – witness the “survival of the fittest” evidence – but too much scoring is unnatural. That is not an American failure; cricket is a revered, old-world game in which scoring goes into the hundreds. That is clearly unnatural. In soccer, meanwhile, scoring more than a goal a week starts to strain the ancient, natural cause and effect balance, and most of the world’s population understands that. Points are not scored in soccer; they evolve, like the first mutation in a salamander’s gill from which buds an air sac, leading to a couple of brain cell changes indicating to the salamander that life on land might not be so bad, and then vestigial leg and arm buds follow, the first micro-inch of tail disappears, atoms clump into molecules forming a hair follicle, and so on, until finally Italy takes a shot on goal.
Americans are too impatient for that, unaware that in turning their backs, they are ignoring their own history. And, yet . . . . Watching Italy and France in the championship game – was it only three days ago? – there was the strongest desire, in our living room, to let them play on. They had played for 90 minutes, then 30 minutes of overtime, plus minutes lost to penalties, injuries, etc., and there was a nobility of purpose, and a divinity in the design, that begged to be honored, asking them to play on until the last man standing toed in a goal with his last breath, and God applauded.
Instead, they decided it in 10 minutes, on penalty kicks. Americans like to say that a tie is like “kissing your sister.” To soccer fans, penalty kicks must be like getting Sophia Loren into bed, and then her father walks in.
July 11, 2006
July 03, 2006
A flair for brunch
For the brunch of a lifetime, go to JRDN’s with Patricia and Rod Wright.
JRDN’s, which is coolchic for “Jordan’s,” is a stylish angular dining cave facing the San Diego oceanfront that has in a short time developed a reputation for ambience (ambience always comes first these days), food, and an inside-outside bar. It is the ground floor of the Tower 23 Hotel, in the beach community of Pacific Beach, and the rooms feature the same angular, sunlight-fueled austerity as the restaurant.
Patricia and Rod invited us there for brunch. JRDN’s gave us a nice outside table, and Patricia brought the flair. JRDN’s possesses some flair – I ordered a Bloody Martini and they didn’t bat an eye – but it isn’t in their DNA, whereas Patricia was born with it.
Our waiter was tall, slender, all in black, sunglasses pushed up on his wavy hair, and he moved with busy intent, very cheery. Between his physical presence and his brain, there existed a vast carnival of private sights and sounds through which he romped for 20-odd minutes between our asking for drinks and receiving them, except for a quick appearance to drop off pancakes at the next table. We had also asked for coffee and water, and cream, and those arrived 10 minutes after the drinks.
It was during those 10 minutes that Patricia’s flair DNA started to wiggle. She left the table for a few minutes and then returned. Right behind her came a busboy with the coffee and the water, the coffee in slender, stylish cups), and right behind him, our carnival man appeared with one of those same cups with about three-quarters of an inch of cream in the bottom. Patricia’s second bellini remained back up the trail somewhere.
It was that, and the eyedropper of cream, that touched off Patricia’s deeper flair artistry. She rose once again and left the table. Several minutes later, she returned with a white plastic grocery bag in hand. From these she withdrew a bottle of Cordoniu champagne, and a quart container of half and half, and sat them on the table. The next table had turned over, so the new guests missed the context, but put two-and-two together easily enough, and smiled.
“The best champagne they had was only $7,” Patricia said, disappointed. She had walked over to a Smart & Final a block away. I told her that Cordoniu was a perfectly acceptable Spanish champagne, and at that moment our food arrived, with Patricia’s second bellini. Our waiter did not acknowledge the towering white-and-yellow container of half and half in the middle of the table, but said of the bottle of Cordoniu, “Would you like me to open that, and put it on ice for you?”
She smiled at him across a distance of her own and said, “A little later, perhaps.”
The food was good. I had a seafood cobb salad, Karen and Patricia had crab cakes benedict with a light, subtle citrus hollandaise, and Rod had an omelet. We opened the champagne and drank it along with our food. When we were finished, about a inch was left in the bottle. Our waiter appeared with a trendy, sculpted aluminum bottle cooler that sat on the table at an angle. He swooped up the inch of champagne and placed the bottle in the cooler and asked if we had any requests. “Just the check,” Rod said.
Patricia said it’s fun to go the JRDN’s after work and watch the coolchic crowd and sit and nibble at the bar. “They have a fried lobster roll to die for,” she said, “that they don’t serve on weekends for some reason.” I do love a fried lobster roll, even if I know it is going to be anticlimactic.
JRDN’s, which is coolchic for “Jordan’s,” is a stylish angular dining cave facing the San Diego oceanfront that has in a short time developed a reputation for ambience (ambience always comes first these days), food, and an inside-outside bar. It is the ground floor of the Tower 23 Hotel, in the beach community of Pacific Beach, and the rooms feature the same angular, sunlight-fueled austerity as the restaurant.
Patricia and Rod invited us there for brunch. JRDN’s gave us a nice outside table, and Patricia brought the flair. JRDN’s possesses some flair – I ordered a Bloody Martini and they didn’t bat an eye – but it isn’t in their DNA, whereas Patricia was born with it.
Our waiter was tall, slender, all in black, sunglasses pushed up on his wavy hair, and he moved with busy intent, very cheery. Between his physical presence and his brain, there existed a vast carnival of private sights and sounds through which he romped for 20-odd minutes between our asking for drinks and receiving them, except for a quick appearance to drop off pancakes at the next table. We had also asked for coffee and water, and cream, and those arrived 10 minutes after the drinks.
It was during those 10 minutes that Patricia’s flair DNA started to wiggle. She left the table for a few minutes and then returned. Right behind her came a busboy with the coffee and the water, the coffee in slender, stylish cups), and right behind him, our carnival man appeared with one of those same cups with about three-quarters of an inch of cream in the bottom. Patricia’s second bellini remained back up the trail somewhere.
It was that, and the eyedropper of cream, that touched off Patricia’s deeper flair artistry. She rose once again and left the table. Several minutes later, she returned with a white plastic grocery bag in hand. From these she withdrew a bottle of Cordoniu champagne, and a quart container of half and half, and sat them on the table. The next table had turned over, so the new guests missed the context, but put two-and-two together easily enough, and smiled.
“The best champagne they had was only $7,” Patricia said, disappointed. She had walked over to a Smart & Final a block away. I told her that Cordoniu was a perfectly acceptable Spanish champagne, and at that moment our food arrived, with Patricia’s second bellini. Our waiter did not acknowledge the towering white-and-yellow container of half and half in the middle of the table, but said of the bottle of Cordoniu, “Would you like me to open that, and put it on ice for you?”
She smiled at him across a distance of her own and said, “A little later, perhaps.”
The food was good. I had a seafood cobb salad, Karen and Patricia had crab cakes benedict with a light, subtle citrus hollandaise, and Rod had an omelet. We opened the champagne and drank it along with our food. When we were finished, about a inch was left in the bottle. Our waiter appeared with a trendy, sculpted aluminum bottle cooler that sat on the table at an angle. He swooped up the inch of champagne and placed the bottle in the cooler and asked if we had any requests. “Just the check,” Rod said.
Patricia said it’s fun to go the JRDN’s after work and watch the coolchic crowd and sit and nibble at the bar. “They have a fried lobster roll to die for,” she said, “that they don’t serve on weekends for some reason.” I do love a fried lobster roll, even if I know it is going to be anticlimactic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)