My latest magazine piece is an exploration of curling: its culture, origins, and play. The article was a gen-u-wine oblectation to write, as I’d long wondered about curling and leaped at the opportunity to have an excuse to check it out and report back with my findings.

It starts:

The world falls in love with curling every four years. A handful of American dudes, who often look like they’ve just been turned out of the Wooden Nickel on College Avenue, compete against teams of similarly constructed men to decide which country will earn a gold medal for accurately launching rocks and massaging them into position with brooms. Men on couches everywhere appreciate that their body type is represented on the screen, and the women beside them swoon at the spectacle of men voluntarily sweeping and communicating. Then the ceremonies conclude, the mustached faces disappear from our minds, and life returns to normal. But curling continues, existing every winter between the Olympics in aluminum-sided buildings. And not only does it exist, it’s thriving, with clubs popping up where men and women play every weeknight.

Read the rest here.