Good Long Reads

Somewhere in the last month or so, I discovered Longreads. Where have I been? It's a curated site that recommends the best long essays and articles from a wide array of magazines, journals, and newspapers. They link to the original article and even give the word count and estimated time it takes to read it. It's heaven--vetted to pass along consistently breathtaking writing + captivating topics. 

So, in an especially meta move, I offer you my best of Longreads' best, from recent weeks:

Fade to Light by Dave Cameron, published in Walrus Magazine: a poignant and insightful look at a couple who are living with Alzheimer's Disease. I dare you to read this and not fall a little bit in love with Lowell.

Coach by William Browning, published in SBNation: A real life portrait of a tough, beloved Friday-Night-Lights high school football coach, paralleled by a boy's search for himself.

At Home at the End of Google Earth by David Kushner, Vanity Fair: An amazing tale of how a young man used Google Earth to find his family he lost at age 5 in Calcutta.

The Dead are Real: Hilary Mantel's Imagination by Larissa Macfarquhar, The New Yorker: Fascinating interview with Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (for which she just won her second Booker Prize).

What are you reading lately? 

Hand jives

So fun.

. . .

Dear Dad,

You would be very good at this,

what with your whistle-and-clapping rhythms on the table,

on the steering wheel,

and as you climb up and down stairs.

Love, Annie

The Wilderness of Childhood

 

Well, I'm pretty much obsessed with this video project so I might as well share it here, too. Sam and I both love the band Arcade Fire so we were especially thrilled with their recent interactive music video. You enter the address of the home where you grew up and then your childhood geography becomes a part of the music video. (As well as some other nice interactive features.)

Very innovative and unexpectedly moving.

Try it for your own address but here's mine if you're interested.

p.s. Several windows (around 8) will pop up on your computer desktop but just leave them alone. They're all part of the thing.  Also, apparently you need Google Chrome to run it. 

Catalog humor

Have you had the chance to check out the very funny Catalog Living? Regular old catalog photos (so often ridiculous in their staging), captioned in the voices of Gary and Elaine, the supposed inhabitants of this catalog world.  A must-read, daily laugh for me. It's so hard to choose but here are a couple of favorites lately:

Gary, we were having such a lovely afternoon with the Andersons until you decided you just had to show off your string ball.

Elaine wasn’t about to let some hot flashes get in the way of balancing the checkbook with the abacus.

Elaine was not amused by Gary’s passive-aggressive response to her request to “garnish the cocktails.”

Final final

I am currently completing my final final, a take home test due tomorrow.

So I'm hitting the books and going to meetings today.

In the meantime, please enjoy this lovely video by Maggie Doyne

of her children in Nepal

(I wrote about her a few days ago...)

So inspiring.  

I needed to be reminded

why I'm studying and taking finals and putting myself through all this.

Everybody needs to love and be loved.

"open up your chest and let it in..."

Ah, perspective.