The Zombie Classical

by Colin McGowan

I’ve written for several sites that have passed beyond the veil. I would prefer that my work be easily accessible somewhere, but I know that digital media is fragile. The late Steve Albini was right: if you want your expression to last, inscribe it on a physical object.

By the time The Classical shuttered, it had developed a real sensibility and mission, which is no easy thing for a publication to achieve, online or off. It was a sports site launched in late 2011, high on the fumes of the prestige-publication demi-boom of its era, brought to you by folks who had written for the New York Times, GQ, and Sports Illustrated, but in the looser, irreverent style of The Awl or FreeDarko. It borrowed its name from a Fall song; one of its founding members described it as “post-punk sports journalism.”