State Fair Patterns

Our first two attempts to visit the state fair were aborted this year. On Sunday morning the line into the Larpenteur parking lot extended west beyond the University golf course. It was simply too long. On Monday morning we got a late start due to a dentist appointment; the line seemed manageable, but just as it we got to the parking lot entrance someone brought out the LOT FULL sign.

(There are other places to park, I know, but the "bloom" would be off the morning by the time we got inside.)

Wednesday  morning we left the house at 7:30, waited patiently in the long line stretching west down Larpentuer Avenue, and finally bought our tickets and entered the fairgrounds at 8:40. We had no trouble finding something to do for the 20 minutes before the Eco-Building opened, because we almost immediately ran into an old friend of mine, Jim Hoey, and his wife, Ann. Jim and I have done four books together, and I think he's cooking up a fifth. "But I can't write in the summer," he said. "I take care of seven properties for a realtor friend of mine and I have too much grass to mow."

I don't have that problem. I hired a lawn firm to kill the creeping Charlie in our yard, and when they were done eradicating it, it turned out I didn't have any grass.

The displays in the Eco-Building get better every year. Solar Power, wind power, clean water, recycling, agricultural runoff, bicycle transport, peace coffee, kobucha, composting, kayaking on the Mississippi, all presented in a cheery easy-to-read displays, interactive kiosks, and clever do-it-yourself demonstrations.

I talked at length to the woman at the Gitchi Gummi booth about Duluth, and she gave Hilary a rub-on tattoo of Lake Superior. The woman at the PCA booth told us a little about the challenges of dealing with the Trump administration. 

At the "water bar" we sampled tap water from St. Paul (which gets its water from the Mississippi), Duluth (which gets it from Lake Superior), and tiny Buhl (which gets its famous water from a deep aquifer). The differences were subtle—almost undetectable. I suggested to the young man pouring the samples that they serve crackers.

As we wandered the hall I ran into another old author-friend, Stew Thornley, with whom I've worked on several books. Though he's an official scorer for the Minnesota Twins, his day job is with the Department of Health, and  he was scheduled to give a demonstration about water quality that morning.

At one modest booth we spoke with the same tree "expert" who advised us  last year to cut down a big maple in our front yard because it had a few dead branches. "You never know," she said. "One might fall on you."

This year, I asked her what might be a good thing to plant under some malingering blue spruce in the back yard. "Nothing," she said. "Anyway, blue spruce don't live much more than 30 years in Minnesota." I happen to know that the trees in our yard are now 70 years old at least, because my neighbor planted them in 1948.

I told her we had some volunteer ash coming up in the understory. "Ash are not good; they'll get green ash borer."

The woman was pleasant to talk to, and it occurred to me only in retrospect that she had a rather negative view of plant life, generally speaking.

Out in front of the building we did a lot better, chatting with a garden expert who confirmed most of my ideas about our ailing yard.  "Moss? Lucky you! Why not add some clover?" But that's a story for another time. 

 The art building is always a highlight, for both the diversity of mediums and the wide range of styles on display, which you'll find at no other art exhibit that I know of. The  sheer volume of pieces eventually tends to numb the brain, yet it's a healthy challenge to see if you can plot a route through the many side halls that will allow you to see them all.

This year, as usual, there were many beautiful but generic travel photos, angst-ridden but mediocre self-portraits, and clever non-representational "concept" piece that relied on their titles to get the point across. As I shuffled from image to image along with all the other gawkers, I was immediately thrilled by the bright colors and the impressive frames and mounting techniques of the pieces. Presentation isn't everything, but it counts for a lot. In fact, the very first piece in the line-up, a bright yet rich and dense photo of a poor Cuban family sitting on a couch together, a few of them wearing boxing gloves, packed a punch. At the next turn I saw a piece that impressed because of the medium being used. "Wow! How did he do that with colored pencils?"

There are always a few watercolors with an Asian inflection—a few stylized branches, two cranes in the distance. There are plenty of North Woods scenes. And no exhibit would be complete without five or six paintings of cows—a subject which, like old boots, is hard to botch completely, but also hard to imbue with any kind of depth.

This year there were a surprising number of photos of horses, in Wales or Iceland or wherever, and holy men from India or Thailand seemed to pop up at every turn of the labyrinth.     

My favorite piece was a photograph of men harvesting hay. It's a dark image, but it has the fury of desperation in it, as well as several marks of subtle artistry—the red hanky in one of the farmhand's back pocket, for example. The photo has a satisfying gravitas; It reminded me of the nineteenth-century French painter Géricault.

Another fine piece, a few walls down the way, was an oil painting of a vase of peonies. The subject is conventional, of course,  but in the folds of the petals and the shadows beyond the stems the artist takes us beyond appearances into melancholy depths that had me returning to it several times. Like Fantin-Latour, only better.

As we moved through the exhibition, I noticed at a certain point that the images I was drawn to most often presented patterns—usually organic—rather than representations.  I was mesmerized by drops of water on a dead leaf ...

and enthralled bye a Zen-like script that was actually a photo of bent reeds on a still pond.

One image offered a colorful vision of my favorite state in the manner of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, the sixteen-century master of vegetable art.

  Another consisted of three rows of individual tree leaves—aspen?—particularized by variations in shape and insect pattern.

Yet another piece consisted of an enormous zany doodle. Who knows? A section of it might show up one day on the masthead of the print edition of Macaroni!

I seemed to be taking a special interest in leaves, but this little piece had a subtle modulation between the various greens and a relaxed ambiance.

Alongside the zany, we also need to make room for the whimsical.

 And near the end of the show, I was impressed by a panorama photo of pre-dawn light on a frozen lake.

I happened upon my favorite political statement amid the cookies in the handicraft building.

 But here, even more than in the art building, it seemed that "pattern" was the order of the day. Well, that's what knitting and quilting is all about. Nez Pas?

Yet the works that I liked best often had a modern slant.

Back on the street, we stood  in line for 12 minutes to get our hands on one of the Star-Tribune's highly-rated new foods, the Heirloom Tomato and Sweet Corn BLT. Food critic Rick Nelson writes:

"The BLT is God’s gift to sandwiches. In the hands of Birchwood Cafe chef Marshall Paulsen — and his vast network of Minnesota organic farmers — it’s elevated into a heaven-sent fair experience. No detail is left to chance in this ingenious and obviously labor-intensive effort, from the swipes of basil-kale-sunflower seed pesto and chipotle-fueled sweet corn purée, right down to the sturdy focaccia, baked by Baker’s Field Flour & Bread in Minneapolis. Truly spectacular. $12."

Indeed, it was good.

We climbed the fire tower but skipped the all-you-can-drink milk stand, and later we ran into our friend Cindy Purser in front of the grandstand, where she was tending a booth for the public library association.

The day was cool and clear, and the scene was colorful and not too crowded. A perfect day. A heavenly day. We even bought some Norwegian cardamom cookies from a woman in the Osakis Bakery booth that we'd met this summer out in Osakis. (I can see this becoming a yearly tradition.)

We listened in passing to a hoe down violin-cello duet in front of the MPR building, and also endured some excruciating karaoke in a beer garden in the food building while we ate some delicious wood-grilled elote topped with jalapeno powder.

But we never made it to the animal barns and didn't see a single chicken or goat! 

The New Bell Museum

I learned it on a Byrds album. "Turn, turn, turn." There is a time for nostalgia, and a time for facing facts.

The new Bell Museum is much better that the old Bell. The best parts of the old Bell—the dioramas—were disassembled, cleaned, and brought along to the new building, where they were placed in rooms much more congenial to them than their old settings.

The old Bell Museum: nowhere to park!

The halls of the old Bell were made of stone with linoleum floors (later carpeted). They were brightly lit and echoed the voices of school groups all too well. I remember visiting with my third grade class back in 1961. My teacher, Mrs. Richter (later Mrs. Haas), must have thought I was one of the sharper kids: she encouraged me to ask the tour guide if bears were carnivorous or herbivorous.  

A hall at the old Bell

Years later, I gave tours at the Bell myself. I knew almost nothing about natural history, but I'd spent quite a bit of time in the woods, and somehow I got by.

The halls of the new Bell are more like spaces than halls. They're dimly lit, and large murals of trees hang from the rafters, which gives them a warm, outdoorsy feel, while also helping the dioramas shine all the more. These spaces also contain plenty of Plexiglas kiosks focusing on mussels, plant communities, mushrooms, individual bird and mammal species, and more abstract ecological concepts. Everywhere you turn, there's something new to learn. It's exhausting.

It was only with the greatest effort that I made it all the way to the woolly mammoth exhibit. I was pleased to sit on a bench in a little theater in the northeast corner of the building and listen to photographer Jim Brandenburg's soporific voice describe his development from prairie farm boy to North Woods wolf photographer.

We skipped the astronomy, geology, and genetics halls entirely. They can wait for another time. As can the planetarium and the huge new touch-and-see room, which seems to occupy half of the first floor.

In the midst of all the talent and taste that went into this masterpiece, I noticed only one glaring defect. A huge concrete sundial sits right on the middle of the parking lot, taking up at least eight parking spaces. Meanwhile, the lot is often full and eager visitors are directed to an overflow lot three blocks away.

Canadian Border: Seagull Lake

The potential for salvation lies where there is danger.

At least, so says the German romantic poet Hölderin. 

When I head to the BWCA, I'm not looking for salvation or danger, but perhaps Hölderin's remark explains why Seagull Lake is among my favorites. It offers danger of the most serene and attractive kind. 

Its broad expanse of open water, three or four miles across, is rendered even more beautiful on a calm sunny morning in July by the numerous islands sitting at odd distances both along the shore and out in the middle. An island you take to be large and distant turns out to be rather small and close by. And vise versa. It's impossible to tell when you're halfway across the lake, but when you're out in the middle there is an enormous amount of water around and underneath you, powerful and threatening if you can wrap your head around it, like a clutch of distant galaxies on a clear dark night, yet also clear and clean and shimmering silvery blue. Seagull Lake offers an enormous space into which the heart can expand, and it comes with a soundtrack: ten or fifteen gulls squawking and screeching as they twirl in the cool morning air around the lump of bare rock well out in the lake that they call home.

     

Paddling across such immensity for an hour or two, watching the configuration of islands shift and the far end of the lake take on body by infinitesimal degrees, gives you a truly joyous feeling.

When the wind comes up, not so much. Therein lies the danger. On a windy day the lake can be impossible to traverse. This is especially troublesome when you're at the southwest end and need to get back to the landing.

One of the many great things about the computer age is that you can sit at home, call up the hour-by-hour weather forecast for Seagull Lake, (or any part of the world) and see how strong the wind will be blowing, and in what direction, ten days from now. I wouldn't put too much stock in such a forecast, but it gives you slightly more confidence, having booked an entry permit,  that you'll have a good time when you get there.

On our recent visit, we did. The weather was mild the entire trip, with a thunderstorm each afternoon to add some spice and cool the air.

On our first morning we hit the water at 8 a.m. (having camped at Trail's End the night before) and negotiated the labyrinth of islands at the north end of the lake without difficulty. 

After passing the Palisades, we decided to cut behind Miles Island, which would make it easier to move down the west side of the lake. In the back of my mind, I was also thinking about a campsite on a rock shelf down around that corner. I'd passed it many times—it looked fabulous from a distance—but I'd never seen it close up because it had always been occupied.

This time it was vacant. It was fabulous. We took it.

We'd been on the water for half an hour.

Once we'd set up camp, we headed back out down the lake for a mile or two, just to be out in it. Recreational paddling. We examined a few vacant campsite for future reference and arrived back at camp at 10:30. Perfect.

Camp life is often simple. When you think of something to do, you usually go off and do it, without a great deal of logistical analysis. For example: "I think I'll go out and get some water." So you paddle well out into the bay, beyond the beaver thoroughfares, throw the plastic bucket over the side of the canoe, and haul up some water. Or: "I think I'll go get some firewood." And off you go into the woods with your green aluminum saw. But you haven't actually assembled the saw. There's precious little firewood to be found in the BWCA these days. You might not need it.

In any case, it doesn't matter. You do your cooking on a stove, and staring into a campfire tends to be less interesting during the long days of midsummer than watching night descend.

Such chores having been completed, you're free to immerse yourself in the changing patterns of color on the surface of the water, or go in for a swim, or pick a few blueberries—one of Hilary's specialties.

Sitting on coarse rock,

I splash my body with water.

They've known each other forever.

The clouds are a source of continual fascination. And there are a pair of eagles hanging around a large nest on the island just across the channel. Usually they're doing nothing, just like you. But they might do something soon. Just like you.

Nor is camp life quite so simple as it seems. As the sun moves across the sky, parts of the campsite that were in shade become bathed in sunlight. If you happen to be sitting in such a spot, you're going to have to move. Thus the day becomes a pageant of shifting locales and perspectives.  

Bright sun trying

to penetrate the white pine boughs

gentle breeze lends a hand

Two rangers stopped by to check our permit.

"Hey, we passed you two going the other way this morning amid the islands," I said.

"Yup. That was us." Discerning that we're experienced campers (or just OLD) one of them inquired if we'd been on the lake before.

"The first time I was on Seagull was 1964," I said.

"I was born in 1989, so you got me on that one," he replied with a wan smile. He had a long sandy beard that didn't look quite so Millennial out here in the brush.

"Do you mind if I go out and measure the depth of the latrine?" he said. (That line is always a good icebreaker, I have found.)

"By all means. Be my guest."

*   *   *

After a simple lunch of freeze-dried peanuts, some obscure hard Spanish goat cheese on coarse WasaBrot crackers, and Kool-aide, we settle in to do some reading. In Ernst Cassirer's An Essay on Man I almost immediately hit upon a pertinent passage.

In man we cannot describe recollection as a simple return of an event, as a faint image or copy of a former impression. It is not simply a repetition but a rebirth of the past; it implies a creative and a constructive process. It is not enough to pick up isolated data of our past experiences, we must really recollect them, we must organize and synthesize them, and assemble them into a focus of thought.

But this is a bit backward. We don't assemble memories into a focus of thought. Rather, we begin with a problem or issue, and comb our memories in an effort to illuminate or come to terms with it. That may explain why our humiliations tend to be more vivid in memory than our triumphs.

Often the constructive process Cassirer refers to results in a narrative—a story leading to a moral or an exclamation of wonderment. Or horror. If only we had time to tell it! If only anyone would listen!

The ranger had mentioned a shortage of campsites the previous night on Ogishkemuncie Lake, discomfitting four or five parties that had arrived at 5 p.m. hoping to camp there. I was reminded  of when I was a kid—the day we discovered Mueller Falls. I remember a shake-jar full of blueberries and the ominous, distant roar of we knew not what. Earlier in the afternoon, we had waded up the river, dragged our canoe over a short wide waterfalls and paddled around in the pool above it. Continuing upstream, we rounded a corner and there it was.

When we got back to camp, we told the adults excitedly about our discovery. "Oh, you found Mueller Falls," one of them said. They were amused, but not astounded. As a result, they became less godlike in my eyes.

Cassirer remarks that impressions have to be "ordered and located" and "referred to different points in time." This isn't exactly true, either. The older we get, the less solid the chronology of our memories becomes. If something happened three years ago or eight years ago is hard to recall. Often it doesn't matter. The memories have become narratives, then myths. Pleasant myths, if all has gone well.

Hilary and I have camped at ten different site on Seagull Lake over the years, maybe more. There was the supernova site, the gray jay site, the loon line site, the high wind site, the tiny island site, the spruce grouse site, and several others. I could point them out on a map and tell you the story that goes with each, though ti wouldn't be compelling. When were we at each site? I couldn't tell you.

*   *   *

I have noticed that sometimes the waterbugs cluster together, as if they're exchanging information, experiences, memories. At other times they skim across the water seemingly at random, widely dispersed ...

Dawn is great. It's the dawn of creation ... with granola and prunes and a second cup of coffee, very strong. It takes fifteen minutes to make, but we've got time. The wind is gentle, and it's at our back.

We'll cross the lake alright.

Camp Stoves

Approaching the checkout counter at the supermarket today, I realized suddenly that every item in my cart had a bar code. That's a rare event, but there's a simple explanation: we're going camping in the BWCA soon. Thus, my cart was full of things like M&Ms, raisins, spice drops, dried soup mix, powdered milk, freeze-dried peanuts, Quaker Oats Old-Fashioned granola, and a huge resealable bag of Asian hot-pepper cracker snacks. Non-perishables, I think they're called.  No meat, no produce.

Man, it's going to be fun.

I also stopped at Hoigaard's to pick up a new butane fuel canister,  and it got me to thinking about camp-stove technology. I'd like to announce that a revolution has taken place in that field, but if so, it has passed me by. All the stoves I've owned have been the same. Fuel spurts out, gets lit, and burns.

The oldest stove we have I never used. It looks like a glorified cigarette case, though in its day I'll bet it was the coveted possession of a small and privileged group of elite Alpine  trekkers.

The first stove we actually bought wasn't bad, except for the fact that the fuel canisters were only good for about one and a half meals. Before long, this unit vanished from the market. Maybe I bought the last one. (I still have it!)

For a while we tried to get excited about the Whisper-Light from Mountain Science Research. Ever popular with backpackers, this stove has the advantage of functioning with a wide variety of liquid fuels. This can be handy when you're in the habit of flying into places like Albuquerque and Reno, bringing your camping gear with.  They don't like pressurized fuel canisters on airplanes, for some reason, and it's a drag hunting down a sporting goods store to buy some fuel before heading off into the desert. Finding fuel for this little number is easier. Trouble is, it's the kind of stove you have to prime first, letting a trickle of fuel dribble into the pan and then lighting it with a   match. That's a real bother.

We thought we had a winner with the MSR Super-fly, a unit no bigger than my fist that could be threaded onto a butane canister. The problem with that one was that the collar holding the stove in place above the threads often popped over the bead, breaking  the connection to the fuel. When the stove did hold its position, the connection was so tenuous that the cooking pot teetered back and forth above the flame, threatening at any moment to crash off the burner into the dirt. (You can see it leaning in the photo below)

A few years ago I went to REI to see about fixing my Super-fly, and the salesman said, "Oh, you have one of those? They're horrible. Why not get the newer version with tight threads and no need for a collar?" Good idea.

I love my new Super-fly. It's sturdier, heats things faster,  and uses less fuel.

Yet for car camping, the one-burner Coleman stove remains Old Reliable. Too big for a canoe trip, but you can get the fuel canisters at any hardware store, cheap. I think they're make out of cast iron.

***

There was a time when traveling in the BWCA involved a route. Nowadays, for us, it merely involves a lake. You go in, you camp for a few days, and then you come back out. Sometimes the biggest issue isn't even which lake, but which aspect. Do you want to be on the east or the west shore? In the midst of islands or staring across an expanse?

Though they don't mention it in the Boy Scout manual, perhaps the most crucial issue is which books to bring. They have to be small, light, and wide-ranging in subject matter. Here's what I've got lined up for the upcoming trip: A Book of English Essays for good-natured  browsing; Little Misunderstandings of No Importance by Antonio Tabucchi for fiction; The Rig Veda for poetry; and a weather-beaten copy of Ernst Cassirer's An Essay on Man to stimulate thought. You can open that book to any page and hit upon a singular judgment to ponder while you watch the water-beetles scurry by.

Shall I put that theory to the test? OK. On page 112 Cassirer writes: "Parmenides declared that we cannot separate being and thought, for they are one and the same."

That is a very stupid notion. It's easy to separate being and thought ... Or is it? Well, thought requires differentiation. Otherwise, there wouldn't be anything to think about. But you can think about history, which has no being. But ... Oh, did you hear that loon?

Bastille Day Revolutions

Bastille Day is the finest international holiday, and the fact that we can turn it into pretty much whatever we want to exemplifies what we're celebrating—unbridled personal exuberance and creativity—while the holiday's French overtones insure that the end result is something a little more than just another lazy day at the beach.

Hilary and I had planned to play tennis and then watch the World Cup consolation match between England and Belgium, but it was a sparkling morning and by 7:30 we were on our bikes peddling downtown to wander the Walker's arty new sculpture garden.

There was dew on the wildflowers—bee balm, vervain, purple clover. It's only a mile or two from Cedar Lake to the sculpture garden, and soon enough we were wandering inside a brick tower dedicated to St. Lawrence, the patron saint of librarians. The Basilica of St. Mary loomed pleasantly in the distance, exuding a Franco-American Beaux Arts elegance that none of the sculptures in the garden possess. But why should they? Today we have a giant blue chicken and an even larger cherry on a spoon to draw inspiration from.

Be that as it may, the garden is a nice place to wander. But a trip across Hennepin Avenue to Loring Park returns us to a richer past. There's a lake, a bridge ... and the gardens have flowers. We biked our way around the park to the Dunn Brothers Coffee on the south side and picked out a chocolate-filled  pastry to eat on a bench with our take-out coffee au lait. It wasn't pain au chocolat but it was in the vicinity.  

Winding back through the central garden we came upon an old colleague, Lee Frelich, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Forest Ecology and Institute on the Environment. He lives nearby and is on the board of the Friends of Loring Park.

"The garden looks pretty good," I said.

"Yes, but there are two dead trees over there in the central hub." I hadn't noticed.

They were having an all-volunteer Saturday morning garden clean-up. (We would have volunteered ourselves, but we had other fish to fry.)

"You've got a Zen-like job for yourself," I said to one of the volunteers.

"Haven't I, though," he said, trying to crack a smile.

Then it was downtown to the Local to see how the match between Belgium and England was going. The English coach had been quoted as saying, "Who wants to play for third place?" But one thing about the athletes themselves is that they don't like to LOSE.

Considering that Nicollet Mall has been under construction for the past two years, it didn't look all that different to me.

We traversed the mall to Washington Avenue, then on to the Guthrie Theater on the spur of the moment to check out the prospects for rush seats to West Side Story.

I'm glad we headed down that way because, although the ticket prospects were nil, the Saturday Mill City Farmers' Market was in full swing right next door. I talked to the authors of a new book about mushrooms at their booth sponsored by the Minnesota Historical Society: "What about pheasant-back mushrooms?" I said.

"Delicious, and unmistakable," they replied.

At the booth next door I sampled some ginger-lime marmalade, and told the vendor I'd had some Smucker's Orange Marmalade on toast for breakfast, in honor of Bastille Day. He smiled, but I had the feeling he was not impressed. The marmalades he was offering were $12 a jar. But it's that kind of market. One woman was selling big bags of flax seed. We bought a few pastries at the Salty Tart booth and listened to a solo cellist trying to buck to animated conversations and the urban breezes.

Our ride back to Cedar Lake was uneventful. There were fewer cyclists, though they tended to pass in large groups--Saturday cycling clubs, no doubt.

We got home just in time to see the recap of Belgium's win over England. Then it was off again to St. Anthony Main to see a French film called Á Voix Haute. It's one of many films about disadvantaged kids being inspired by talented teachers to fulfill their potential, but in this case the kids are already in college, and the skills they're trying to develop are oratorical. One is from Syria, several are from Africa, one walks twelve miles a day from a small town to attend classes. The kids are diverse but uniformly earnest and likable. And there are lessons to be learned about what makes an argument sound or a word or a phrase effective. It choked me up on more than a few occasions.

But Bastille Day would not be complete without some food and wine. Nez Pas? On our way home from the theater we stopped at Surdyk's and picked up some Camembert, a slice of country paté, and a baguette, then sat on the deck with Ravel's piano music wafting out from the stereo through the screen door: Miroir, Le Tombeau de Couperin, Gaspar de la Nuit. I can no longer tell them apart.

I had opened a bottle of cheap white Burgundy, and a copy of Cubist Poets of Paris was sitting on the table beside us. 

The windows of my poetry are wide open
on the boulevards and in the shop windows
Shine     
The precious stones of light
Listen to the violins of the limousines and the
xylophones of the linotypes
The sketcher washes with the hand-towel of the sky
All is color spots
And the hats of the women passing by
are comets in the conflagration of the evening...

World Cup Runneth Over

One definition of the game of soccer goes like this: a bunch of men run around in shorts kicking a ball for ninety minutes, and then Germany wins.

Not this year. In the group stage Germany, who won the tournament four years ago, was stunned by Mexico 1-0, and eked  out a 2-1 victory over Sweden on a masterful free kick that ended the game, seemingly righting its wobbly ship. A few days later, however, it suffered a devastating 2-0 defeat to lowly South Korea, a team ranked 57th in the world whose hopes of advancing in the tournament had already been obliterated.

Why, you might ask, was South Korea even included among the 32 teams in the draw?  Because, although many of the world's best teams come from a few regions, for purposes of the tourney the entire world is divided into regions, each of which is given a certain number of slots to fill. That's why they call it the world cup. (It's sort of sweet, don't you think?)

Argentina, the other finalist from four years ago, fared only slightly better than Germany. After enduring a humiliating 1-1 tie with tiny Iceland and a crushing 3-0 defeat to Croatia, it crawled into the knockout rounds by means of a 2-1 victory over Nigeria. 

For many American soccer fans, it came as a great relief that the United States failed to make the tournament entirely, being edged out by Panama and Costa Rica during the regional qualifiers. There was no chance that they'd win it, and their absence allowed the announcers to avoid spending precious time discussing what the U.S. was doing wrong and what they'd have to do better to make the knock-out stage.

It also gave Volkswagen the opportunity to come up with some cute ads advising Americans which foreign teams to root for instead.

When played on the highest level, soccer can be a game of great artistry, vicious brutality, and absurd theatricality. The World Cup is not the highest level...but it's very good indeed, and all of those qualities are on display. After all, many of the stars of the European leagues are there, though they're playing with countrymen with whom they've shared a practice pitch only intermittently during the previous few years. Yet the concomitant rustiness is more than compensated for among fans by the passion aroused by nationalistic sentiments and the preciousness of a once-every-four-years tournament that many nations think they have a chance to win.

And these many nations are probably right. Even when played on the highest level, soccer is often a game of flukes. Let's get real. Deflecting a ball arriving at 100 miles an hour off the top of your head or the shank of your foot into a carefully guarded goal, on the fly, more than occasionally involves an element of luck. The fickle judgment of the referee also plays an important part in the result of many matches. He has the power, by calling fouls inside or near the box, to essentially award goals to either side. Or not.

Yet the actual results of World Cup tournaments have not varied all that much since WWII. Here are the winners: Uruguay, West Germany, Brazil, Brazil, England, Brazil, West Germany, Argentina, West Germany, Brazil, France, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Germany. Considering that more than two-hundred nations participate, that's a very small pool of winners. 

Among those still on their feet this year as we move into the knock-out rounds are Brazil, Spain, England, France, and Uruguay.

Matters of winning and losing aside, what everyone who watches the World Cup wants to see is a beautiful goal. Yet goals are so few and far between that whenever someone actually scores, an element of genuine disbelief is involved. What? It went in? That's amazing!

It's a beautiful emotion, something like finding a present under the Christmas tree ... in June.

Two of the three top stars in the world—Portugal's Renaldo and Argentina's Lionel Messi— were ousted during the first day of knock-outs. Brazil's Neynar, shadowed by his old pal Coutinho, continues his run to redeem Brazil from a devastating 7-1 lost to Germany in the semi-finals four years ago. In fact, Brazil's roster is packed with players that any follower of the Europeans leagues (where most of the world's "talent" plays) would be familiar with. With Germany out, Brazil is the clear armchair favorite.

As you can probably tell, I'm not a genuine soccer fan. I've watched quite a few matches in the last two weeks, ignorant of the subtleties that distinguish a brilliant defensive play from a flagrant foul,  mesmerized by the run of play, usually cheering for the underdog but appreciative of any combination that ends with a ball in the back of the net.

I wouldn't mind seeing Sweden win ... though there's little chance of that. I'd be pleased to see scrappy Uruguay, with Suarez and Cavani up front, knock off Brazil. A trophy run by Mexico would be amazing. Nineteen-year-old Mbappe has given life to a young and talented French squad.

Or why not Belgium? When was the last time Belgium won anything?