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. An unsolved murder at a notorious tower block
The remains of a teenage girl were found near the Italian building Hotel House, which is largely lived in by new immigrants. This article asks if prejudice hampered the investigation into the the girl’s death.
(The Guardian, approx 26 mins reading time)
There are 480 apartments, but nobody knows how many people live here. In the summer, when large numbers of Bangladeshi and Senegalese people come to the area to work as beach vendors, the number probably surpasses 3,000. There are only a handful of Italians still living in the block. All eight of its lifts are broken, there is no piped drinking water, the sewage is backing up and there are holes in the walls and floors on every level.
If you’re interested in the beauty industry, then Beautycon (which takes place in the US), is your Superbowl. Elizabeth Holmes went there to see what it says about the beauty industry today, how women spend their money, and who’s jumping on the beauty bandwagon.
(New York Times, approx 16 mins reading time)
Beautycon is a festival, yes, but it’s also a data-gathering machine. Two hundred beacons sprinkled throughout the floor in Los Angeles allowed organizers to heat-map the crowds, showing where the largest groups of attendees were congregating. Beautycon held eight focus groups each day that weekend, talking to 320 consumers about their shopping habits and attitudes on health and wellness. Each wristband was equipped with radio-frequency identification (R.F.I.D.) technology, allowing the organizers to monitor the path people took, how long they lingered, and if they visited a booth multiple times.
Art mogul Forrest Fenn set out a puzzle, telling people that he had buried treasure and giving them clues to find it. This set off a chain of events that included death,
(Wired, approx 49 mins reading time)
One summer afternoon that year, Fenn drove into the Rockies—for how far and how long, he won’t say—with the chest and the treasure in the trunk of his sedan. He made two trips to his destination. First, he loaded the empty, approximately 20-pound bronze box into a backpack and lugged it into the mountains, breathing heavily. He stashed it in a spot dear to his heart. Then he returned with the gold and jewels and filled the chest.
Mike Africa was born in a cell 40 years ago, and grew up knowing that his parents would be in jail for decades. Then, this June, his mother was released.
(The Guardian, approx 12 mins reading time)
The placenta was the trickiest part. How to dispose of it without it making a mess that would alert the guards that a child had just been born in a prison cell? There was no medical equipment, no painkillers, no sterilized wipes or hygienic materials of any sort. When it came to cutting the umbilical cord in the absence of scissors, well, that was the easy part: just use your teeth. But Debbie Sims Africa was more stressed about the placenta. It was 1978, she was 22 years old and five weeks into what would turn out to be a 40-year prison sentence.
Fertility isn’t all about women, and now companies are recognising this. Some men’s rights activists are too, which makes the whole topic a thorny one at times.
(New York Times, approx 12 mins reading time)
According to Mr. Tomassi, many men are starting to look into testosterone replacement therapy (T.R.T.). “T.R.T. — it’s a big deal in the manosphere right now,” Mr. Tomassi said. “That’s the real health news: There’s this sudden revelation and guys are saying, ‘Oh man, my sperm count is hella low, how can I fix this?’ Then they realize their testosterone is lower than it should be.”
6. How Fortnite captured teens’ hearts and minds
You might have heard of Fortnite, the game that a lot of teenagers have been captivated by. But what the hell is it, and how have they become so obsessed with it? Here are your answers.
(New Yorker, approx 20 mins reading time)
At times, there have been more than three million people playing it at once. It has been downloaded an estimated sixty million times. (The game, available on PC, Mac, Xbox, PS4, and mobile devices, is—crucially—free, but many players pay for additional, cosmetic features, including costumes known as “skins.”) In terms of fervor, compulsive behavior, and parental noncomprehension, the Fortnite craze has elements of Beatlemania, the opioid crisis, and the ingestion of Tide Pods.
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
Back in the late 1980s, the Menendez Brothers were big news. Lyle and Erik were accused of murdering their parents at the Beverly Hills mansion, but denied it. In 1990, Vanity Fair carried a story based on audio recordings made by the men’s therapist.
(Vanity Fair, approx 70 mins reading time)
It wasn’t until a hysterical 911 call came in to the Beverly Hills police station around midnight that there was any indication that the sounds had not been made by firecrackers. The sons of the house, Lyle and Erik, having returned from the movies, where they said they saw Batman again after they couldn’t get into Licence to Kill because of the lines, drove in the gate at 722 North Elm Drive, parked their car in the courtyard, entered the house by the front door, and found their parents dead, sprawled on the floor and couch in the television room.
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