Coloured Glass

chills

So, I guess this it what it takes to end a 1-year-plus drought:

Well done, swoosh people. Fine music, fine balling, doesn't have to be more complicated than that.

It's amazing how consistently b-ball ads get it right, where the media covering the sports get it wrong, wrapped up in convoluted storylines. This is the perfect blend of the 3 elements that set (the NBA brand of) basketball apart from other sports: first: the playful be-bop-y-ness, ball flowing, beat rolling, mind letting go. It's CP3 pressing up court, D-Wade gambling on the impossible steal, Lebron throwing down in traffic. Call it the improvisational, or the instinctual quality of basketball. What hiphop dancers call being in the pocket. It's Marvin hanging back on "star-spangled" and "home of the brave", almost making you think he might have missed the beat, then hitting it, unexpectedly, but exactly right, leaving you to wonder how anyone could have sung it differently. And why you only knew after the fact.
Then, the undeniable charisma of superdupermegastars, working the camera, a sport made for tv, everything right there for a simple pan and zoom.
And lastly, the unapologetically quasi-homoerotic body worship, the sheer exasperation of seeing impossible beings do impossible things with their impossibly perfect bodies. It's improv ballet, if only dancers were stronger, taller and faster. And jumped higher.
This ad, quite simply, gets it.

hurricane reggie

The feel-good story of the year so far in American sports is the way post-Katrina New Orleans' NFL team, the Saints, have resurrected themselves. Tipped by many to be the worst team in pro football, the Saints have started with 5 wins in 6 games (for 3rd best of 32 teams), including an unbeaten 3-0 at home in the rebuilt Superdome, the nightmarish home of thousands of hurricane refugees last year.

At the center of New Orleans' sports hopes stands superstar rookie Reggie Bush; if there was any doubt about how New Orleans fans feel about Bush, check out the reaction as he scores his first NFL touchdown on a punt return:

forza italia

A much-deserved win yesterday for our beloved Italians. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. The only thing bothering us is that we're not back in campo de fiori celebrating. Or at least having a drink while ridiculing the drunk Italian slacker kids hanging out at the Bruno-monument.

But then, we're probably better off here in Copenhagen, as this is what the win looked like in Rome: