IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
1. From basement to secret fantasy room
The pandemic has given some people time to transform their basements into the rooms they’ve always wanted.
(The Guardian, approx 10 mins reading time)
Step inside Shron’s basement today and you will be greeted by a 200lb blue-and-yellow train door. As you pass through it, an MP3 player will hiss the sounds of air circulation accompanied by the squeaking of gangway connections. Inside the carriage there are rows of vintage reclinable red-and-orange-striped seats, luggage racks, a real VIA garbage can removed from a scrapped train and a metal sign instructing passengers that smoking is indeed permitted. What Shron couldn’t find on the scrap heap, he made. He printed out orange litter bags, custom-printed napkins and engraved wine glasses.
The Star Wars star speaks candidly about racism, and his experiences so far in the movie business.
(GQ, approx 20 mins reading time)
He is on a breathless roll now, breaking his long corporate omerta to touch on the unthinking, systemic mistreatment of black characters in blockbusters (“They’re always scared. They’re always fricking sweating”) and what he sees as the relative salvage job that returnee director JJ Abrams performed on The Rise Of Skywalker (“Everybody needs to leave my boy alone. He wasn’t even supposed to come back and try to save your shit”). Even though he also acknowledges that it was an “amazing opportunity” and a “stepping stone” that has precipitated so much good in his life and career, he is palpably exhilarated to be finally saying all this. But to dismiss these words as merely professional bitterness or paranoia is to miss the point. His primary motivation is to show the frustrations and difficulties of trying to operate within what can feel like a permanently rigged system. He is trying, really, to let you know what it feels like to have a boyhood dream ruptured by the toxic realities of the world.
A look at what lies beneath New York City.
(Pocket, approx 17 mins reading time)
Because of data from satellites, we can now map the world down to about 6 inches. We’ve almost reached the point Jorge Luis Borges describes in his short story “On Exactitude in Science,” in which cartographers built “a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it.” But the world beneath our feet remains shrouded in darkness. “Light and radio waves don’t go through dirt like they do air,” says George Percivall, chief technical officer for the Open Geospatial Consortium, which is helping to develop global standards for underground mapping. “The next frontier, in both a literal and figurative sense, is underground.”
4. The dirty race for the Covid-19 vaccine
How the global race for a vaccine is going.
(The Guardian, approx 12 mins reading time)
Political pressure has been mounting for scientists to deliver an economy-saving result, and reports of corner-cutting emerge daily. Two days before his Republican party’s national convention began last week, president Donald Trump accused the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of dragging its feet, delaying approval of any experimental vaccine until after November’s presidential elections. When the FDA then gave “emergency use” authorisation for blood plasma treatments for Covid-19 patients before such treatments had shown any clear benefit in clinical trials, fears grew that it would do the same for a vaccine candidate before that candidate had been put fully through its paces – just to suit the presidential agenda.
5. The life and death of Breonna Taylor
Breonna Taylor’s life was changing – then the police came to her door and she was killed. No one has been brought to justice over her death.
(New York Times, approx 29 mins reading time)
Breonna Taylor has since become an icon, her silhouette a symbol of police violence and racial injustice. Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris spoke her name during their speeches at the Democratic convention. Oprah Winfrey ceded the cover of her magazine for the first time to feature the young Black woman, and paid for billboards with her image across Louisville. Beyoncé called for the three white officers who opened fire to be criminally charged. N.B.A. stars including LeBron James devoted postgame interviews to keeping her name in the news.
The phenomenon of ‘Satanic panic’ began in the 1980s, when some of the world’s most powerful institutions were taken in by stories about an alleged global Satanic underground.
(Capital, approx 26 mins reading time)
Born of a genuine historical injustice — society’s neglect of childhood sexual abuse — this was a panic that saw some of the world’s smartest minds taken in by accusations, that, at their root, were as preposterous as any raised during medieval European witch hunts. It was legitimized by a professional class, captivated law enforcement and proved itself a lucrative grift for fraudsters and attention seekers. Worse, as the conspiracy grew under its own weight and influence, the hysteria inspired real and horrific crimes — usually by disturbed teenagers who claimed they were sacrificing humans to Satan.
…AND ONE FROM THE ARCHIVES…
The actor Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer aged just 43 last week. From 2019, here’s a profile of the actor.
(New York Times, approx 10 mins reading time)
Lupita Nyong’o, Boseman’s co-star and love interest in “Black Panther,” described his career choices as those of a socially conscious history buff. She recalled a working session with the film’s director, Ryan Coogler, and Boseman that he turned into a mini lecture on the ancient Egyptian iconography and spiritual customs that had informed the original comic book. “He’s very keen to put human experiences in historical context,” she said. “Even with a world that was make-believe, he wanted to connect it to the world that we know and could try to understand.”
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