Weekend Round-up

This past weekend was the kind there should be more of: full of friends, full of food, and peppered by not a little sports action on the television. The best part of the sports bit was that Jess and I got to watch the women of NC State show Duke who's boss, only to have them lose the ACC finals to UNC (the highs...the lows). The NC State coach, Kay Yow, is apparently a real trailblazer (a precursor to Pat Summit, even) and has spent this entire season battling breast cancer while continuing to coach. And when I say "battling" I mean "BATTLING": she's had to be carried off the court in a stretcher after practice, and has been hooked up to an IV in her office--just to be there, just to show a group of girls what determination means. It really was unbelievable to see her sitting there on the bench during that semi-final match, still there, still with them, after all that. As I said to Jess after their win brought Duke's unbeaten record to an end, "Well, how mad can Gail Goestenkors be at that?" Some things are bigger than basketball and from where I sat, this sure looked like one of them.

In other news, here are the articles of note from this past weekend:

The Science Behind God: I'll admit that I haven't had time to finish this one yet, but given that a variant of this debate took up a good portion of a small dinner party's attention on Saturday night, I figure it's a hot topic. Why we believe is at least as important an inquiry as whether we believe, right?

Jeff Wall at MoMA: The New Yorker review of the installation may be middling, but I think this exhibit is still worth seeing, 1) because most folks don't know who Wall is and 2) his work is startling and profound, in a way that stays with you for hours after you actually see the work. I can't even recall how long it's been since I first saw his "After: Invisible Man" piece, and I can still conjure the image in my head in an instant, so deep did it burn into my mind's eye. Well worth the $20 ticket.

Hillary & Barack March on Selma: Is it wrong that seeing Hillary turn up here, on Barack's heels and with Bill at her side, after being "non-committal" for weeks, makes me feel a little queasy? I cannot stand the thought that this is going to devolve into one of those internal wars that leaves everyone on this side bleeding and everyone on the other side laughing at us from the winner's circle, but it looks almost inevitable, doesn't it? (Except for that winner's circle bit--I'm not quite ready to concede that much yet.)