Hump day recommendations 11/16/2022

Listen/watch/dance: Shakira at the World Cup! Although its official title is "This Time for Africa," for me the best World Cup theme song of all time is better known as "Waka Waka," performed by Colombian superstar Shakira at South Africa 2010. It also gives me goose bumps because that's when my native Spain won the tournament for the first and only time with the tiki-taka generation led by Andrés "Happy Feet" Iniesta, who scored the winning goal in the final against the Netherlands. Enjoy! — Carlos

Read: "Imran Khan: The Cricketer, The Celebrity, The Politician,” by Christopher Sandford (2011). Yes, it’s a decade old, but Sandford’s biography is worth revisiting after the recent assassination attempt that injured the former Pakistani PM. Sandford, who writes about complicated men – Kurt Cobain, Roman Polanski, Alexander McQueen, and Mick Jagger are among his other subjects — drills down into the psyche, rise, and drive of the man who is often called an Islamist Donald Trump. Bonus reading if you’re a cricket fan, or if you want to learn more about how a Pashtun schoolboy came to conquer the “gentleman’s game” and British high society. – Waj

Watch: “Kedi.” Have you seen this astonishing 78-minute documentary about the street cats of Istanbul? If you have seen it, see it again. How did these filmmakers capture all this? It’s a miracle of documentary camera work, and you don’t have to be an over-the-top cat-lover like Signalistas Sparks and Kliment to be mesmerized by it – Willis

Read: “Manhood for Amateurs.” If you’re a parent, you’ve definitely at some point thrown out your kid’s art and felt bad about it. This is one of dozens of subjects — along with smoking weed, the patriarchal double standards of parenting, circumcision, the disappearing “wilderness of childhood,” and the problem with new Legos — that Michael Chabon, one of the great living novelists, addresses in this hilarious and perceptive essay collection about parenthood, marriage, and family. His broadside against the conformist indoctrination of “Toy Story” is an early hit. — Alex

This was featured in Signal, the daily politics newsletter of GZERO Media. For smart coverage of global affairs that normal people can understand, subscribe here.