Four for the Fourth
Chrissie & Martina, Nora from Queens, and a long-ago World Series hero walk into a bar...
The Best…
…Article I Read This Week
“Bitter Rivals. Beloved Friends. Survivors.” — By Sally Jenkins, The Washington Post, July 3, 2023
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When I first became aware of the outside world, around 1984, the two biggest stars in women’s sports were tennis players Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. They had been battling each other for more than a decade by that point, and for many, their rivalry defined women’s sports.
After Navratilova beat Evert in the 1984 Wimbledon final, their head-to-head record was fittingly even: 30 wins apiece. That’s the context for the era when I started paying attention. (Each player would win 18 Grand Slam singles titles in their careers.)
To experience their rivalry through the media was to see them as polar opposites. “Chrissie” was the All-American girl, the pretty blonde with the steely groundstrokes, and the famous gentleman callers. Martina was the muscular Eastern European whose serve-and-volley game overpowered her opponents.
Naturally, as an elementary school-aged consumer of media and these storylines, I became a Chrissie fan. (I tried not to be starstruck when I worked with her almost 20 years later at Wimbledon.)
Evert and Navratilova’s relationship had its ups and downs, depending largely on who was performing better on the court. But as we learn in this comprehensive and moving piece by Sally Jenkins, the two have far more in common and a much deeper bond than we ever knew.
…Series I Watched This Week
Awkwafina is Nora from Queens — Created by Awkwafina and Teresa Hsiao
Streaming on Max
Since I’ve gotten glazed looks from a couple people that I told about Awkwafina is Nora from Queens this week, let me get some key biographical information out of the way first.
Awkwafina is a comedian and actress (real name: Nora Lum). She was in Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean’s 8, and she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her performance in the 2019 film The Farewell.
In 2020, she got her own Comedy Central sitcom, about an under-employed 27-year-old woman named Nora who lives with her father and Chinese immigrant grandmother in Queens, New York.
Nora loves to smoke weed and watch TV in bed on her laptop, but she also knows deep down that she needs to grow up. How exactly to do that and whether she’s even capable are two key questions the show asks across its three seasons. The answers come via an array of wacky jobs, crazy adventures, and family hijinks.
The show looks and feels a lot like an outer borough version of Broad City, from the perspective of a second-generation Chinese-American woman.
Though the stories can sometimes be thin, I found the show to be a breezy and enjoyable watch. Awkwafina is charming in her, yes, awkwardness, and Lori Tan Chinn steals most of the scenes she’s in as Nora’s foul-mouthed but loving grandmother.
I’m also a sucker for surrealist comedy, and several episodes — while silly and completely ridiculous — scratched that itch for me.
…Daily Online Game I Played This Week
We all have our daily rituals. Two elements of mine are games on the New York Times website and app: Spelling Bee, which I do when I wake up in the morning, and the NYT Crossword, which I do when I’m getting ready for bed.
I didn’t know I had room in my life for another daily game, until reader Aaron C. sent me a link to Immaculate Grid.
This challenge is for hardcore baseball fans only, and I love it.
At the start of the game, you are presented with a blank 3x3 grid. You then have to fill in the nine squares based on that day’s unique criteria. Here’s an example:
So in this grid, you have to come up with a current or former MLB-er who played for both the Tigers and the Orioles, another who played for the Padres and the Orioles, another who pitched for the Orioles and had at least 200 strikeouts in a season, etc.
The trick is that you only get nine guesses, so if you get one wrong, you won’t be able to complete the puzzle. (The game’s title comes from the term immaculate inning, in which a pitcher strikes out the side on exactly nine pitches.)
Every day there’s a new grid with a new set of criteria.
Part of the fun is coming up with the most obscure correct answers possible. Three days ago, one of the squares required someone who played for both the Cardinals and the Reds. My choice: John Stuper.
Unless you remember the 1982 World Series, in which he pitched the Cardinals to victory in Game 6, you’ve probably never heard of John Stuper. You’re not alone. In that day’s Immaculate Grid, only 0.02 percent of the 110,866 entries put him in the Cardinals-Reds box like I did. (That’s roughly 22 people — I’m honestly curious who those others are.)
How did I come to put his name in that box? Well, for 30 years, he was the head baseball coach at Yale before he retired last year. I went to his summer camp when I was 14, and I later got to know him when I was a student working in the Yale Athletic Department. He’s probably the only former major league baseball player I can say I know personally, and I’m well aware that he pitched for both the Cardinals and Reds.
So now, thanks to John Stuper, I’m a proud member of the 0.02 percent.
…Podcast I Listened To
24 Question Party People — Hosted by Yasi Salek
Available on Apple Music, Spotify, and the other usual podcast apps
Back by popular demand, it’s a podcast featuring Yasi Salek! Yes, the host of Bandsplain, which I highlighted a few weeks ago, has a new show. And this one is perhaps a bit more accessible and certainly less time-consuming.
While Bandsplain offers extremely deep dives into cult bands like Depeche Mode (5+ hours) and Smashing Pumpkins (6+ hours) and the Cure (7+ hours), 24 Question Party People is a more manageable, 90-minute weekly interview show.
The hook is that Yasi asks (variations of) the same 23 questions of each guest artist, with one wild card question. This could be repetitive over time, we’ll see, but in the first episode — with Liz Phair, currently celebrating the 30th anniversary of her album Exile in Guyville — the questions led to a fun and intimate conversation.
Did I think I’d ever recommend an interview podcast in which the first question is, “What’s your sign?” No. But I make lots of exceptions for Yasi.
(Note: Episodes for the new show appear to be available in the Bandsplain queue in the various podcast apps.)