George Clark Strictly and the Global Choreography of Ambition By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, Somewhere Over the Atlantic LONDON—When the BBC announced that George Clark—yes, that George Clark, the man whose Wikipedia page is still fighting off an edit war over whether he’s a “visionary dance auteur” or “the bloke who once dropped…
Jazz Chisholm, the Bahamian-born infielder now doing his best impersonation of a human highlight reel for the New York Yankees, has quietly become the Caribbean’s most effective cultural export since rum and existential dread. While diplomats argue over tariffs and TikTok dances, Chisholm has smuggled a slice of Nassau into every living room from Tokyo…
Ross Strictly and the Global Glitterball: How a British Dance-Off Became the Planet’s Favorite Guilty Pleasure By our London Bureau Chief (who has seen empires fall but still can’t Cha-Cha) LONDON—As the northern hemisphere slouches toward another winter of discontent, the United Nations Security Council has, predictably, failed to agree on anything beyond the catering…
George Clarke and the Global Architecture of Regret From Glasgow to Guangzhou, the man who made “ugly” a spectator sport has quietly become the unofficial therapist for a planet that can’t look away from its own reflections—especially the mirrored ones that should never have been built. Every Wednesday night from Reykjavík to Riyadh, insomnia sufferers…
Dianne Buswell and the Glittering Geopolitics of the Cha-Cha-Cha By our correspondent who once saw a Bolivian trade minister do the salsa on live television and therefore claims immunity to surprise SYDNEY—MELBOURNE—LONDON—THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (if you believe the Wi-Fi rumors). The red-haired Australian whirlwind known to passport control as Dianne Buswell has, without asking…
From the banks of the Potomac to the back-alleys of Bangkok, the words “Howard vs Richmond” are being whispered in the sort of hushed tones normally reserved for tax audits or out-of-season karaoke. One might assume the planet has bigger headaches—nuclear sabre-rattling, inflation that behaves like a sugar-addled toddler, or that peculiar modern ritual where…
Lincoln Riley, the man who swapped Oklahoma’s endless horizon for Los Angeles smog like a pilgrim chasing cheaper botox, has become an unlikely barometer for the planet’s collective neuroses. From Abu Dhabi boardrooms to São Paulo sports bars, his career pivot is less about football and more about the universal human urge to trade integrity…
Vijay, the Mononym that Ate the World By Our Correspondent, still jet-lagged in three time zones PARIS—In the duty-free labyrinth of Charles-de-Gaulle last week, a Chinese tourist asked me if “Vijay” was a new airline. Ten minutes later, a Senegalese street vendor in Montmarte offered bootleg T-shirts emblazoned with the same single word, right between…
Satellite dishes bloom like metallic mushrooms on rooftops from Lagos to Lima, all pointed skyward in the same devotional posture: seeking tonight’s televised scripture. In an age when glaciers file for divorce from ice shelves and trade wars are started by typo-prone thumbs, humanity still agrees on one planetary ritual—consulting the sacred scrolls known as…
Will Best, or: How the World Decided One Man’s Ambition Was a Perfect Mirror for Its Own Absurdity by Our Correspondent in the Cheap Seats GENEVA—Somewhere between a Swiss bank vault and a pop-up NFT gallery, Will Best—British broadcaster, festival impresario, and walking LinkedIn profile—has become the planet’s latest Rorschach test. To Londoners he’s the…
Wake Forest University, an emerald outpost of red-brick collegiate Gothic tucked into the Piedmont of North Carolina, looks at first glance like the sort of place where tomorrow’s hedge-fund demigods practice lacrosse between networking brunches. Yet the school—named for a village that itself was named for the simple act of waking up near trees—has quietly…
Ann Arbor, Michigan – Population: 118,000, optimism: 8.3 billion. While half the planet negotiates grain corridors and submarine cables, the other half has already circled six autumn Saturdays in maize-and-blue ink, convinced that cosmic balance depends on whether 19-year-olds from Florida can outrun 19-year-olds from Ohio. Welcome to the 2024 Michigan Wolverines football schedule, a…
