Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
“The following citing is taken from an essay about the 1980s rivalry between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association. I quote: ‘Scrabble is a game. Popomatic Trouble is a game. Major League Baseball is a game. But any situation where [Larry] Bird is boxing out Magic [Johnson] for a rebound that matters is not. That is a conflict that dwarfs Dante.’ (NY: Scribner, p. 104)” –Cody Reis
Contributed by Cody Reis (NYU)
“. . . Beasley was soon headed to Europe, and [Jay] DeMerit would even beat him there, but Beasley’s career was flying first class while DeMerit’s was stowed in baggage. He had a gnawing feeling that he could be a professional, but while Beasley ended up first at PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands in 2004, DeMerit alighted in 2003 at Southall, a semiprofessional team outside of London. If Dante had a seventh circle of soccer hell, this was it.” [. . .] –Jere’ Longman, The New York Times, June 27, 2009
“Piazza is one of four American coaches on the staff with varying levels of the Italian language at their disposal. As they sat in the dugout before the game, they spoke to one another in English, with one even floating a ‘Godfather’ reference in the spring breeze. Once the game started, they showed some genuine command of the language of Dante, Calvino and Boccaccio, particularly when they made references to pitches they nicknamed il cambi (the changeup) and il slider (well, the slider).” [. . .] –Joshua Robinson, The New York Times, February 27, 2009
“No one knows that better than Lewis. In less than two years, the 5’8″, 165-pound bayou waterbug has gone from driving a beer truck, schlepping kegs for a Budweiser distributorship two doors down from the Saints practice facility, to leading the NFL with 1,950 total return yards (1,504 kickoff, 446 punt). At the NFL-ancient age of 29, with just a year of JV high school football and no college experience, Lewis began his journey through the darkest recesses of professional football like some kind of Dante character in shoulder pads. Now he’s 31, and fans have made him the leading vote-getter among kick returners in this season’s Pro Bowl balloting.” –David Fleming, ESPN Magazine, December 10, 2002
