more about Novak Djokovic, a tennis champion

 

On Sunday, July 16, 20-year-old Carlos "Carlito" Alcaraz defeated the dominant Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon men's final.

 

Seven of Djokovic's all-time record 23 Grand Slam tournament wins are at Wimbledon. This was Alcaraz's first time winning the tournament.

 

Tennis has buzzed about Alcaraz for almost two years now. He is the latest young talent believed capable of ending Djokovic's reign.

 

Nevertheless, I, like most tennis fans, believed Djokovic was still too great too consistently to lose this match. But he did, and Alcaraz is the top-ranked player in men's tennis now.

 

The fans cheered on Alcaraz, celebrating not only every winner he smashed across court, but also every Djokovic error. It could have been Alcaraz playing, it could have been Kim Jong Un—the crowd always roots against Djokovic. I wrote a little about this before.

 

Why do people root against him? 

 

I think the first reason is timing: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal came first, and fans fell in love. Djokovic emerged after fans built relationships with them, and then he was beating tennis fans' heroes.

 

Second, people are shallow. Federer and Nadal are handsome and look like heroes. Djokovic does not look like a hero. He looks like the villain. Maybe part of that is because, in Western culture, villains are often Eastern Europeans.

 

Third—my armchair psychologist's opinion—Djokovic, 36, leans into conflict because he grew up in Serbia in the 1990s. Maybe that plays into the complicated Djokovic-crowd dynamic.

 

Finally, Djokovic really cares whether the crowd likes him, and that is unforgivable. Roger Federer never had to worry about it. Rafael Nadal never seemed to worry. And neither does Alcaraz.

 

Alcaraz's win was the big. Tennis does feel different now. How will fans respond to Djokovic if he falls?

 

From The New Yorker:

Whether this outcome represented a changing of the guard—the vanquishing, finally, of a generation that has ruled men’s tennis since Alcaraz was a toddler—remains to be seen. Djokovic appeared far from finished. What the final showed for sure is that, when it is all on the line, Alcaraz will decide to play his game and be himself, and that what he can bring in those moments is the stuff of greatness.

Notes:

• When the match began, most people, including commentators John and Patrick McEnroe, believed Djokovic would win. But an IBM modeler—supposed AI—predicted Alcaraz, 55-45.
  
• Relevant posts from me: something about Novak Djokovic and his 2022 Australian Open quest and about tennis and a new piece in The New Yorker.

about a sunrise in July

The sunrise set alight the purring strip of river reaching across to me from the far banks. I felt as though I had for the first time in years the patient attention of some beautiful stranger. But the orange was, I knew, mistaken about me and very soon to pass, and the next week would resume in the bright blur of faces on sidewalks and the dark reluctance of the few fading hours of breathing room inside at night.

a revised note from a friend

The weapon is hand-held and fires with applied force. The round will run backward and forward, execute a sequence of programs and multiply, expand in mass and weight and enter hyper-velocity. It will stretch to follow you home and explode directly. I will not turn it off. Who builds an automaton armed with this weapon? An evil person. One is by force of will an evil person. That cannot be disputed.

about an EP from some former members of aughts metalcore bands

New music from former members of Every Time I Die and The Dillinger Escape Plan

 

Whoa! Here is an EP by Better Lovers, a group combining former Every Time I Die members Jordan Buckley, Steve Micciche, and Clayton “Goose” Holyoak with former The Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato, plus producer and member of Fit for an Autopsy and END, Will Putney.

 

The four-song EP, "God Made Me an Animal," opens with “Sacrificial Participant,” and immediately Puciato’s manic, veiny-neck vocal fills the room. At 1:10, the song spins melodic with a fretboard-tapping, cymbal-riding passage under Puciato’s rubbery and subtly R&B-influenced vocal, "You got manipulated, told lies behind my back / I’m not the one you hated, you’re just looking to unpack.”

 

At 2:13, the song downshifts, freeing reverb-heavy notes and splashy cymbals to run with the falsetto—“You’re losing time to move, outcomes keep you second guessing / entombed still inside the womb, and I’m not sure you’ll get the message.”

 

Every Time I Die and Dillinger toured together years ago, but in 2022 Buckley saw Puciato performing in Las Vegas, and one thing led to another. Puciato says, “We’ve all hung out, gotten to know each other, and it’s all fire now. Everyone has already been through shit. You know yourself better. Your ego isn’t as big as it used to be. You can share your opinions. It’s a cool dynamic.”

 

Buckley says likewise: “This is my life’s work. I learned all of my lessons, passed all of the tests, and took all of the right turns and the wrong turns. It turns out what I thought were wrong turns got me here, and that’s all that matters. I have no regrets. I know this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

 

In April, Better Lovers put out a single, “30 Under 13”—right away, you hear an aughts-era breakdown move into a glazed-thicc riff. At 2:08, the song drops into speed metal topped off with a virtuosic little guitar solo. Puciato often dominates songs, but the rhythm section gets time in the spotlight on this one. The finalé crushes with breakdown-style riffing and the attention-seeking vocal, "How far are you willing to reach? You can’t become like this fucking machine! Oh, you shouldn’t hold onto me, hold onto me, let go of me, let go of me, try to hold on to me, hold on to me, try to let go of me, let go of me, of what you’ll never be!"

 

It shows lots of Puciato’s nose in your face, but the video looks good. The dark background and red and warm-white lights burn and reflect off instruments and faces, all stars in a dying galaxy.

“For some reason, this song got me,” says Puciato. “Once that happens, you have the toe of the dinosaur skeleton in the dirt. You start brushing it away, and soon you have a fucking T-Rex.”

 

Drums hop ahead as the guitar and bass move with wild agility on the EP’s title track, “God Made Me an Animal.” At 1:25, the song hits fault-line-grooving riffs. At 2 minutes, a melodic muted-metal sequence jets, the vocal crooning, "Deny your skin and bone, pretend the flesh hides stone / I’m sitting here, we’re talking, but we know we have to go / and I’m afraid there’s nothing that can make this clearer / I wish that we could be nearer / anything to get you here or closer—anything to get you closer, anything to get us closer, anything to get us closer!"

 

Puciato describes the project: “Better Lovers definitely feels like its own thing. I’m in so many lanes right now, so it was important that one lane didn’t step on another. However, nothing I’m doing is this vicious. This is full-on scathing. It’s been really fun. I forgot how much I liked that.” Buckley also comments on what the project means to him: “Greg and Will rejuvenated me and made me even more confident.”

 

Putney mixed and mastered the EP; it sounds crisp and clean. "God Made Me an Animal" was released July 7, 2023. Better Lovers are about to tour, sometimes headlining, sometimes backing.