Here are some classic articles I’ve re-read recently that I think you’ll enjoy + some pieces from the last month that you might have missed.
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1. The truth about those men
Justin Myers for
This is vital and urgent writing:
The trouble is, like many watching the horror from the sidelines, I feel powerless. Prominent men will clamber onto soap boxes and demand more police or tougher sentences in one breath, yet in the next, they’ll defend and employ known sex pests, and espouse misogyny, homophobia and transphobia. The constant noise and the determination to divide us get in the way of the rising tide that will lift all our boats.
Many men don’t understand – not because it’s complicated, but because it’s inconvenient. To change the world seems like an insurmountable challenge, and no man wants to feel like a failure; we can be sore losers. Why fight for something that, on the surface of it, will make you worse off? The bigger picture, the greater good – both involve ceding that vice-like grip. But it’s not just up to those men, the mythical and distant others who must be persuaded to fight for change. It’s men. All men. Us. Me.
2. Witness
Nicholas Spangler for Columbia Journalism Review, December 2001
A student journalist who found himself reporting on the ground during 9/11 reflects on that experience, just a few months later. Spangler is now a staff writer at Newsday, where he’s been for 13 years:
Somebody opened the door to a Starbucks. About twenty people were inside. The manager told us all to drink water and handed out bottles, telling us to take juice instead if we wanted it. The windows turned opaque and we heard things bouncing off the glass. The manager told us all to get into the basement. “Does anybody need anything? Is everybody all right here?” he asked. We crowded into the basement. A woman in a Starbucks apron was sobbing uncontrollably; someone she knew named Aaron worked at the towers. The phone rang. The manager answered. “Hello, Starbucks Coffee.”
3. DogTV Is TV for Dogs. Except When It’s for People.
Austin Considine for The New York Times, October 2023
DogTV relies on teams of directors, camera operators, composers, editors and dogs. But if DogTV has a single mad wizard behind the curtain, it is Levi. Before DogTV, he worked in human TV in Israel, including as a writer for that country’s version of “The Amazing Race.” He doesn’t miss it. “This is totally better because the dog is really the director,” he told me. “He teaches you also to be a little bit modest.”
During an editing session at a Manhattan studio in August, Levi, who is also the chief content officer, acknowledged tailoring the content in recent years to appeal more to humans. That wasn’t true of just the new “Tips & Tricks” videos, or of reality shows like “Farm Girl,” starring Joy and her dogs. Just as a good children’s show must be semi-tolerable, if not enjoyable, to adults, TV for dogs must bow to a simple truth: The primary viewers aren’t the ones who shell out $9.99 a month.
4. The full, bloody story behind the closure of Hidden Corner Cafe
Sean Morrison for The Bristol Cable, October 2023
A tale of a horrendous landlord from a truly brilliant publication — I’m a supporter — The Bristol Cable. The detail that really makes this horror story is that the landlord, now with criminal convictions, owns a yacht called... Miss Conduct:
Aaron Onuora and Sophia Khan, the cafe’s owners, said at the time that they had been turfed out illegally and without proper warning. They said the landlord – owner of Bristol harbour’s ‘Miss Conduct’ yacht, Thomas Flight – had falsely claimed that they hadn’t been paying their rent on time and were in breach of their lease. More than that, they said he had been harassing them and taunting them by washing his Rolls Royce outside their home.
… Aaron said he told Flight that he would not pay for the damage he did not cause and that the landlord told him, in a threatening and aggressive tone: “If you’re not careful I’ll get the boys round.”
Flight, giving evidence in court, denied this. He said that he did not threaten Aaron, and that by “offering to get the boys round” he meant that he would get his maintenance employees to help resolve issues at the premises. He said his words had been “twisted” to make him sound like a “mafia don”.
5. Cruising Low ‘n Slow with the Women Shaping New Mexico’s Lowrider Scene
Vanita Salisbury for Thrillist, June 2023
The Buick may be her first foray into lowriding, but Simpson’s been fixing up cars since that first one in high school. And it’s her stunning, non-lowrider 1985 Chevy El Camino that initially led me to her work. Maria, as she’s called, sports a black-on-black paint job inspired by traditional Tewa pottery made by Maria Martinez of San Ildefonso Pueblo. When Simpson talks about the car she’s affectionate, switching from discussing the technical aspects of buffing paint to describing her as a nurturing vessel in the vein of Nicolas Bouriallard’s Aesthetics of the Everyday.
Despite her owner’s dotage, Maria is temperamental, and will sometimes burst into flames if she doesn’t like where she’s being driven. “She’s a character,” says Simpson. “I think she’s a piece of me because, like, if I take her to the grocery store? She’s good, we’re good. But if I take her to a car show, a parade, or she has to go get filmed, she breaks down.”
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