The Universal Terror of “Unknown Number” A dispatch from the global frontline of unsolicited anxiety By the time you finish this sentence, roughly 47,000 smartphones will vibrate with the same three-word epitaph: “Unknown Number.” From Lagos to Lisbon, the reaction is synchronized: a micro-flinch, an audible sigh, a thumb hovering like a reluctant executioner. The…
Montreal, Wednesday—Somewhere between the racket-smashing melodrama of the Balkans and the polite Scandinavian welfare-state forehands, Felix Auger-Aliassime has emerged as the polite Canadian compromise: a tennis prodigy who apologizes after aces and thanks the net post for cooperation. In a world that can’t decide whether to blow itself up or binge another season on Netflix,…
In the grand theatre of American baseball, where the grass is greener than a Swiss bank vault and the hot dogs cost more than a week’s rent in Lagos, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Baltimore Orioles are currently engaged in a pas de deux that has the international commentariat choking on its own metaphors. One…
Twins vs Royals: The Eternal Cage Match Between Genetics and Genealogy By Our Correspondent in the Republic of Slightly Unhinged Democracies If you’ve spent any time on social media this week, you’ve seen the memes: a pair of identical toddlers in matching rompers squaring off against a pair of middle-aged heirs in identical navy suits,…
Tonight, while most of the planet sleeps or pretends to, a small but disproportionately loud slice of humanity will gather around glowing rectangles to watch American college football. From Lagos to Lahore, expatriate alumni bars will swell with the nostalgic aroma of overpriced wings and the quiet desperation of mid-level executives clinging to alma-mater identity…
In Naples, the line for confession now snakes past a hologram of a 15-year-old in sneakers, while in Manila his pixelated face beams from LED billboards above traffic that hasn’t moved since the last papal conclave. Carlo Acutis—nerd, gamer, and freshly minted “millennial saint”—has achieved the kind of omnipresence that Silicon Valley can only envy…
Mariners vs. Braves: A 7,000-Mile Proxy War for the Soul of Late-Stage Baseball Somewhere between the Space Needle and the Chattahoochee, two ball clubs—one named after 19th-century sailors, the other after Confederate infantry—are locked in a contest that feels less like sport and more like a blue-screen error in globalization’s operating system. The Seattle Mariners…
From the bustling newsrooms of São Paulo to the fluorescent-lit offices of Seoul, one name has flickered across screens with the faint buzz of a dying neon sign: Kendra Licari. At first glance, she is merely a 42-year-old former basketball coach from Michigan who, in 2022, pleaded guilty to cyberstalking her own daughter and the…
The Phillies and Marlins, two clubs whose combined payroll wouldn’t cover Mbappé’s weekly dry-cleaning bill, squared off again last night in South Philadelphia. From an international vantage point—say, a cramped sports bar in Naples where the espresso is stronger than the Wi-Fi—this NL East tilt carries all the geopolitical weight of a UN resolution on…
YouTube TV: The Planet’s Couch Potato Imperialism (Dave’s Locker International Desk, 14 June 2024) From the smog-choked high-rises of Jakarta to the one-bar villages of rural Moldova, humanity has finally agreed on something: the best way to see the world is to sit perfectly still and let Google beam it into your retinas. YouTube TV—Alphabet’s…
JAMES MADISON 34, LOUISVILLE 33: A MICRO-DRAMA THAT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED IF EVERYONE JUST DRANK MORE ESPRESSO By Our Man in the Departure Lounge, Dave’s Locker Global Desk Doha airport, 03:47 local. The duty-free TVs are tuned not to Gaza, nor to the G7, but to a college football scoreboard flashing “FINAL—JAMES MADISON 34,…
Détente at 95 mph: How a Blue Jay–Yankee Grudge Match Quietly Runs the Planet By Elias Moreau, International Correspondent, Dave’s Locker TORONTO—Every August, diplomats in Geneva pretend to argue about carbon credits while the real negotiations unfold 550 kilometers northwest under retractable roofing. In Section 235 of the Rogers Centre, a man in a Che…
