That's My Word: Fungibility

Obviously I apologize for putting Mike Francesa's nightmare face and voice in front of your face. But I would be, as they say, "amiss" if I did not highlight Francesa's vocabulary lesson from today's show in re: Cliff Lee. Hat tip to Gerard at CSTB, who put this up first (and presumably suffered through The Francesa Experience in order to find it).

Obviously I like words, and type them and use them and sometimes miss use them. But I've got to bow down in the presence of a player who is greater. No one gets a word wrong as proudly, as loudly, or as repeatedly as Francesa does here. It's so unique and distinctive, it's downright fungible.

Swift Kicks To Wherever

I'm going to fight the urge to provide director's commentary on everything I write, and just link, here, to a new piece I have up at The Awl. The piece is about the odd and unfortunate emotional distance I feel from the rest of the world's wild, loud absorption in the World Cup -- which, as you might've noticed if you've gone outdoors anywhere in the world over the last few days, is happening right now. I'm pretty happy with the piece, if not necessarily at peace with the sentiment that inspired it, both because I want to join the globo-soccer party for real and because my ambivalence about/inability to do so means that I wind up providing a (stunningly well-written, obviously) tour of my own sports navel in the piece. I'm especially wary of putting myself on the Who Cares side of things when it comes to the World Cup, too, since other members of said coalition include Newsbusters asshats and nightmarish human ulcer Mike Francesa.

I may write more on the Cup for The Awl, if they'll have me back on this topic, and I may write more about it here, too. For now, though, I'm about to go take a really long subway ride to watch as much of USA/England as is left when I finally get to Bay Ridge, and that should be fun. Just, you know, not as fun as it maybe is for other people. In the rest of the world. All of the people in the rest of the world. Actually, you know what, pass the Diet Coke, Francesa. Oh... no, it's cool, I didn't realize that two-liter was all for you. Sorry.