The ramp they skated on was in the back corner of the city’s zoo, which hosts more than 150 animals. There is also an entire exhibition of taxidermy mounts, paying tribute to the animals killed by the Israel army during the Second Intifada. Zoo-goers would pause to watch Eihab and Abdullah skate, as if they too were part of the exhibit.

“You should see my kids,” Issam continued. At his home in La Capelette, a neighborhood in the tenth arrondissement, one child had been wearing face paint in the colors of the French flag, the other face paint in the colors of the Moroccan flag. “It’s 50-50,” he said with a smile. “For French-Moroccans we will win no matter what.”

Rather than height or leaping ability, Curry creates spatial advantages by simply shooting from farther away than ever before. To prevent taller defenders from closing the distance, he speeds up his shot and increases the arc without losing efficiency, simulating the play of someone much bigger and bouncier than himself. He has collected an arsenal of different shooting forms: going left or right, backward or forward, shooting over or underneath defenders, off one leg or two, spotting up or off the dribble. It only works because of the dexterity and control of his fingertips, providing airtight ball handling abilities and freakish accuracy.

Something rekindled; baseball seemed all of a sudden a dramatic sport, filled with intellectual intrigue: the chess-like plots of the pitcher-batter duels, the way individual specializations harmonized with collective effort. I became the wearer of a White Sox hat, the austere black and white a sort of neighborhood camouflage, and then also an Astros hat, a commemoration of my years lived in Houston, the US’s most interesting and comfortless city. There was no better way to close out my day than by traveling to the Reddit thread with all the baseball streams. Or so it seemed until I watched Craig Kimbrel pitch and grew worried that what everyone else thought might in fact be true.

Every two years, when the Olympic institution plants its flag in a new city, speculators from metropolitan Lausanne meet with profiteers in the new athletic colony. They hover over the city map with carving knives, repurposing public spaces and re-zoning residences. Together, for the sake of a two-week event, they take over the territory, line their pockets with public resources, bring in outside workers, and push long-established locals aside.