Volume 3, Issue 87: I'm Always in Love

"Why, I wonder, is my heart full of holes. And the feeling goes but my hair keeps growing."

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We had all just arrived at my father-in-law’s timeshare in Jupiter, Florida, said our hellos, unpacked all our stuff and cleaned ourselves up after a long, somewhat stressful flight from Atlanta. We were polite, but we were in a hurry. The Illini were on.

This was not the Illini men’s basketball team from last year, the one that was in the top five all season, earned the No. 1 seed and lost a crusher to Loyola of Chicago in the second round. This was the insurgent team of the year before, the one that got hot down the stretch and appeared primed to make a deep run into the tournament. This night, they had one regular season game left, against hated rival Iowa, one last game in front of the raucous crowd at State Farm Center in Champaign. Illinois basketball fans are as passionate about their team as any in American sports—a desperate, pleading passion that, one must confess, doesn’t always manifest itself in the most productive or commiserative of ways—and this night was a culmination of 15 years of frustration, of a decade-plus in the wilderness. It was a goodbye to star Ayo Dosunmu (so everyone thought, anyway), who had been the recruit who arrived explicitly to return Illinois basketball back to the glorious perches where it rightfully belonged, and it was a way to show appreciation, delirious, high-decibel appreciation, to a team that had provided so much joy, one that pointed to a long-delayed, joyous future. And it was a chance to stomp those Hawkeyes in the face.

My sons and I gathered around my laptop, all wearing orange and blue, and watched one of the classic Illini games, one that has only grown in stature since it was played. It was taut, hard-fought, close and, more than anything, loud. It reminded me of the Illini games of my youth, the ones where walking into the Assembly Hall felt like being plugged into some powerful collective force, like you were connected to something larger than yourself—like you might just all rise up at once and just fly away. My Dad, watching back home of course, texted me: “Theyre going nuts.” They really were. The crowd vibrated; the crowd soared.

Four days later, they canceled the NCAA Tournament. College basketball would return later that year, as would Ayo Dosunmu, but with no fans in the stands: It was a terrific year, but one that, if we’re being honest with ourselves, will mostly be remembered for the eerie sounds of empty gyms, the constant squeaking of sneakers, the disturbing drone of manufactured crowd noise, the uncanny valley of playing in a 16,000-person gym that was currently holding about 45. It was one of the best Illini teams of my lifetime, and there was no one there to see it.

But tonight: Tonight there will be. Illinois men’s basketball plays its first exhibition game tonight, 8 p.m. CT, against St. Francis (Ill.), an NAIA school in Joliet. It’s an exhibition game, so State Farm Center won’t be sold out, and it won’t be a close game or even particularly competitive. It’s a practice game. It doesn’t mean anything. But there will be people in that arena for the first time since that Iowa game on March 8, 2020, and that is the only thing that matters.

Tomorrow morning, I am running a half-marathon. This will be the ninth half-marathon I have ever run, and my eighth AthHalf, the annual half-marathon here in Athens, with a course that begins at the Classic Center downtown, ends in Sanford Stadium with a shot of your haggard, panting ass on the Jumbotron and is monstrously hilly at almost every moment in between. It is a uniquely Athens event: There are bands playing live music ever three miles or so, there’s always some sort of political component but no one loses their minds about it (I wore a Stacey Abrams hat while running three years ago and had a playful series of mini-races throughout the races with a guy in Kemp shirt, ending with a high-five at the finish line), college students keep offering you beers, and it ends at the football stadium.

And everyone is screaming for you, oozing positivity—right there with you on every step. It is the event where I feel perhaps most connected to this town I now call home, where I see old friends, colleagues and neighbors, where everybody comes to their front porch or out onto the street to make sure you have their support: The whole place lifts you up and carries you.

Last year, though, because of the pandemic: There was no AthHalf. Well, there was, officially, but it was virtual, which meant that you had a certain span of days to put together a 13.1 mile run and then you logged the time with the race organizers. And with all due respect for all the hard work that people put in under impossible circumstances to make that “race” happen, a virtual half-marathon is no half-marathon at all: You’re just running alone, like you always are. It was the worst race of my life, not the celebration that it had always been but instead a reminder of what was gone, another thing we’d lost.

All I could see were things that were no longer there. It was reasonable to wonder if they would ever return.

But this year it is back. It has indeed returned.

Throughout the depths of the pandemic, at its worst moments, it was normal, probably even therapeutic, to dream of what would happen when it was over. Maybe not over. But that time when we could return to all that had been taken away from us. When we’d get to gather with our friends again. When we’d hug our parents, or our grandparents. When our children would be back in school. When we’d go to a grocery store without feeling like we were heading off to war. When we’d go see a movie again. When we’d watch our favorite sports teams play in person. When we’d run 13.1 miles surrounded by our closest friends and closest strangers. When we’d have our lives back.

There are still battles left ahead. There are still 1,500 people dying of Covid-19 every day. There could still be spikes ahead of us, particularly during the holidays. It would be foolish and premature to pretend that Covid is over. Remember: No one knows anything, and don’t trust anyone who claims they do.

But I also find the evidence that we are through the worst of this, and that a clear corner has been turned, to be rather overwhelming. Everything is falling rapidly: Cases, hospitalizations, deaths. Vaccination rates are so much higher than is widely appreciated: 78 percent of people aged 12 and up have received at least one shot. (You cannot get 78 percent of Americans to agree that grass is green.) Almost all schools are open: We’re even having PTA events and fundraisers again. Our children are likely to be approved to receive the vaccine next week. Next week!

I understand why the events of the last 18 months, and really the events of the last five years, have conditioned us to be immediately suspicious of positive news and progress, why they have put us in a perpetual defensive crouch. But this is good news. This is progress.

And I am trying to remember, this morning, tonight, tomorrow morning, moving forward, that the things that have returned, to me, to my loved ones, to all of us, are in fact perishable. There is no guarantee they will always be there—we have palpable, frighteningly recent proof. I know that it is not human nature to walk around in constant appreciation of the gifts bestowed on us simply for being alive. We were always going to adjust to the level of water we find ourselves in; most of us are already back to canceling plans and complaining about long lines like we never left.

But I still believe there to be considerable value in remembering how fortunate we are to have these parts of our lives back, to look back on how we told ourselves how happy we’d be when we could do Normal Things again, to soak them in and lap them up the way we would have when we were most famished, and most scared that we wouldn’t have them again. I’ll see my extended family at Thanksgiving and Christmas soon. I’ll eat great sushi in a crowded restaurant soon. I’ll take an airplane to see people I care about soon. I’ll watch my Illini soon. I’ll run, lifted by the people who weren’t there a year ago, soon. I’ll end up getting used to all those things, and I won’t appreciate them as much as I should. But now? I’m so grateful. I think maybe we should all be.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. The NBA Would Like You to Stop Talking About Kyrie Irving, New York. I have actively surprised myself with pleased I’ve been to have the NBA back.

2. The Children’s Vaccines Are Almost Here, Medium. About goddamned time.

3. Remembering the Colin Powell Satire in "Mars Attacks!” Medium. A satire no one remembers but happened years before the Iraq War.

4. The Mt. Rushmore of This Week’s Newsworthy Humans, Medium. People People People.

5. Matt Damon Movies, Ranked and Updated, Vulture. Updated with The Last Duel.

6. Previewing Wednesday’s LCS Games, MLB.com. This is obviously outdated considering these games happened five days ago.

7. Previewing Tuesday’s LCS Games, MLB.com. But not as outdated as this.

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, discussing “The Last Duel,” “Halloween Kills” and “Bergman Island.”

Waitin' Since Last Saturday, we reviewed Kentucky and then took a needed week off.

Seeing Red, Bernie and I are in offseason mode until the Cardinals hire a manager.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“An Oral History of Nirvana’s Lone, Near-Riotous St. Louis Show at Mississippi Nights,” Jon Scorfina, The Riverfront Times. An absolutely delightful read from St. Louis’ alt-weekly about the only ever Nirvana show in St. Louis. It sounds like a wild one:

Tommy Wieprecht, former Mississippi Nights security and bartender: This kid gets on stage. He gets in the front of the stage a little bit off center. Kurt Cobain was the center guy. The kid’s on stage jumping around, dancing around on stage left. One of the other security guys, he goes out and grabs the guy by the arm and says “Let’s go.” He gets him in a bear hug and they start scuffling. Somehow they both fell face first on the floor. Kurt Cobain was watching it and all the sudden he stops and says, “What the hell are you doing? Let that kid go.” Kurt looks at the crowd and says, “Fuck security. Everyone on the stage now!”

GREAT MOVIE THAT’S NOT AVAILABLE ON STREAMING

Dawn of the Dead (1978), directed by George A. Romero

This is the original Romero one, not the Zack Snyder one. (Which is actually my favorite Zack Snyder movie.) This is my favorite of the Romero movies, though, to be fair, it has been about 30 years since I saw it. This is nearly impossible to find on DVD even, let alone streaming.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

These are all headed your way, if you’ve been waiting for one, finally.

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“Monsters,” Band of Horses. Band of Horses has a new album coming out in January called “Things Are Great,” and I cannot wait. It’s their first album in six years, which in absurdly long time between albums, particularly when their albums are all, like, 42 minutes a piece. God they’re so good, though. The first single is out, called “Crutch,” but I’m gonna shout out what’s actually my favorite Band of Horses song ever, the one that should be listened to at the end of a long emotional night while driving alone on an empty Midwestern road on a cold November night with the windows down.

In fact, while I have you:

Band of Horses albums, ranked

1. Cease to Begin (2007)

2. Everything All the Time (2006)

3. Infinite Arms (2010)

4. Why Are You OK (2016)

5. Mirage Rock (2012)

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section.

Also: I’ll be writing a daily column for the MLB.com Morning Lineup newsletter after every World Series game this week. If you want to get it in your mailboxes, just sign up here.

Until then:

Have a great weekend, all …

Best,
Will