This week's Top 5, chosen by the #Longreads editors:
-The people who love the “pests” of New York.
-The racism that exploded a high school baseball team.
-The forces behind a cult that starved themselves to death.
-The mentality of a champion bull rider.
-The power of silence.
In order to treat his Crohn's disease, writer Andrew Chapman had to stop eating for three weeks and get all his nutrition from an IV bag. He writes for @longreads about what he missed in his time without food — social contact, black pepper crabs, roast chicken — and why he became obsessed with watching cooking shows.
"There was something “honorable” in the way Mauney always chose the hardest ride, Murray observes, even though he didn’t need to." —Sally Jenkins for The Washington Post. #longreads
"Silence has been framed as society’s enemy. It broods, holds hostage, cannot be trusted. Worst of all, it spells boredom. We are accustomed to entertaining ourselves by filling all the empty space with noisemakers and firecrackers. Yet nothing is more boring than a lot of noise." —Jeanette Cooperman for The Common Reader
"The Appeal's investigation reveals that incarcerated people in many states are charged significantly more for essential items than those outside prison even though they typically earn pennies an hour—or no wages at all."
"What does it feel like to speak your primary language in an accent from your secondary one? I would later find out."
In today's new Longreads essay, Montserrat Andrée Carty writes about growing up with different languages and cultures—and embracing different versions of herself.
"Inflammation from Crohn’s disease had connected the tissues of my small intestine and my bladder together via fistula, and I did not want to pee out a roast chicken."
What do we lose when we can't eat? Andrew Chapman proves food is about more than nutrition in our powerful new #Longreads essay:
"The maxim 'money doesn’t buy happiness' starts to ring in my head. Not because I actually have money, but because I’m living with the material comforts of someone who does, and it doesn’t seem to make me feel any better."
"To survive, they would need to rely on the skills and generosity of native Inuit families, and the determination and bravery of a young seaman who would set off on an epic journey to escape the Arctic..." —Paul Brown for Singular Discoveries https://singulardiscoveries.shorthandstories.com/the-snowdrop/?src=longreads
"The work is taxing. I stand all day, or walk around and around the worktable. I carry huge sheets of glass to a cutting machine and cut them. I smash unusable pieces loudly into a metal bucket, then tote the bucket to the dumpster out back. My hands grow strong and scarred." —Wendy Brenner for Oxford American
"The reason websites continue to load, bank transfers go through, and civilization persists is because of the thousand or so people living aboard 20-some ships stationed around the world, who race to fix each cable as soon as it breaks."
"But without radical intervention, whether by the government or the workers, the industry will become unrecognizable. And the writing trade—the kind where one actually earns a living—will be obliterated."
-Displacing the #Maasai (The Atlantic)
-The death of an #Alabama#pastor (Esquire)
-Alaska's little brown #bats (Hakai Magazine)
-A dispatch from an #AI conference (n+1)
-Remembering #ShaunOfTheDead (British GQ)
"Reimer has spent over a decade specializing in chiropterology, the study of the species with 'winged hands.' She was drawn to study bats, in part, because of the way they’ve evolved to fill ecological niches, pollinating specific flowers, distributing fruit and tree seeds that help sustain and regenerate forests, and regulating insect populations." —Trina Moyles for @hakaimagazine
"Like many urban dwellers, he fantasized of returning to the land, of building something with his own hands. 'I’m not meant for the suburbs,' Overton says. 'I need to have a big dream.'"
"But a few months in, his supervisor started calling him 'boy.' Keys heard white coworkers use the N-word and call people 'monkey.' There was a swastika drawn with a black marker near where he clocked in to work every day."
"This is a story about just that—what God thinks. It’s also a story of identity and exposure, of revenge and public humiliation. Of deep love and senseless loss, and the unending grief of a small town."