THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

And so it goes, for 40 minutes every night, seven games a week, month after month.  One week the red, white, blue and yellow uniforms are in Florida.  The next week in New England.  The next week in Ohio.  The next week in Texas or California.  The Trotters do not play in a regular league.  They are a touring exhibition team.  Their life is a series of one-night stands in cities and towns all over the country, and the fans are always waiting.  They can never get enough of the Trotters.

Vecsey/Globetrotters, 1970

In the actions of these Americans I see the hand of Kutkh, the trickster raven of the Koryak peoples in far Kamchatka: while sometimes cunning and victorious, his is just as often the domain of the foolish, the thieving and the selfish.  By relying on hoax and chicanery, these Globetrotters have surely become beholden to deception at the expense of their competitive spirit and industriousness (a more apt team of representatives from America this reporter cannot think of…). While the final score was 98-42 in favour of the Globetrotters, it is better to go to bed supperless than to rise in debt.

Vasily Gricorevich, Pravda, 1959 in Glaser/Medium, 2018