LAST SUMMER, I reached a grudging conclusion about myself: I’d been playing fantasy sports for too long. It had been 12 years since I’d married my love of NBA basketball to a fixation on stats and petty feuds with my friends, which seemed charmingly zany at age 22 but was getting to be exhausting by 34. My enthusiasm had started to wane a few Octobers earlier, between catching my orcish reflection after staying up until 2 a.m. to draft and collapsing into bed to wait for my toddler’s screams to wake me up. The high jinks depicted in The League, FX’s sitcom about fantasy football, used to spark amused recognition. Now they were a warning that my pastime was becoming neurotic.
Somewhere in the course of this realization, I met Martin. He was a drummer from the Bay Area who’d relocated to Los Angeles, my hometown, and had been invited to join my fantasy basketball league by our mutual friend, Jonathan. Jonathan is the league’s commissioner—alternately a benevolent steward who settles disputes and builds consensus around new rules and a menace to my inbox who triumphantly signs emails with “2016 League Champion.” It was a special occasion: the league’s draft, in which we choose players for the upcoming season. The pomp that goes into this yearly event is embarrassing to admit. I remember trying to imagine how it must have looked to Martin, the only first-timer, and couldn’t avoid the takeaway that we were all unhinged, including him for sticking around.
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin June 06 - 19, 2022 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin June 06 - 19, 2022 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
The Water-Tower Penthouse
Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.
