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Three Percent #110: The Weight of Things

Adrian Nathan West joined this week’s podcast to talk about Marianne Fritz and his translation of The Weight of Things, the first novel in the recently launched Reading the World Book Clubs. Additionally, we talked about Twelve Stations by Tomasz Różycki (the RTWBC poetry selection this month), the ABA Winter Institute, this great article about Chris Jackson and how he’s building a black literary movement, and an awful article in Wired by Steve Rushin in which he imagines Super Bowl 100. (There’s some static in this one that pops up a bit. Nothing too bad, but, unfortunately, we couldn’t edit all of it out. Not to worry, though, we’re getting a fix ASAP for the mic glitch.)

Because the Wired piece isn’t online, I want to share a few paragraphs so that we can collectively wallow in the crap:

For its centennial Super Bowl, the NFL returned to its favorite host city, Las Vegas, which first staged the title game 45 years ago. Super Bowl LV shared its initials with Las Vegas but also with Louis Vuitton, the luxury brand that paid handsomely to cover game balls in its handbag leather, embossed with its famous logo. And though that game is now ancient history, 2021 remains important as the year the NFL—following the lead of the rest of the country—abandoned its nominal objections to sports gambling and awarded Steve Wynn the expansion franchise that became the Las Vegas Centurions. [. . .]

Barcelona brought its usual continental flair to the Super Bowl, running a variation of the Left Bank offense made popular in Paris in the 2030s, and it took a 7-0 lead on a leaping catch by All-Pro receiver Michael Davis, whose 60-inch vertical from a natural surface is among the best in the league and whose knees are among the highest-rated by J.D. Power and Associates.

And there’s so so much more to hate on . . . CTE cured by Harvard! People watching from Mars! Ref-bots! Biometric ticketing technology! Ugh. I just pissed off Nate and Kaija by reading too much of this garbage aloud.

This week’s music is Let it Happen by Tame Impala.

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And, as always, feel free to send any and all comments or questions to threepercentpodcast@gmail.com.



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