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. Into the wilderness
Jacob Baynham goes on the trail of a dangerous drifter in the Utah wilderness. The subject of an admiring Facebook page, would Troy James Knapp ever be brought to justice? (Men’s Journal)
Many in this part of Utah found something to admire in the Mountain Man. He used his wits to survive the most inhospitable environments. He broke into vacation homes, many owned by wealthy weekenders from Las Vegas. He took only what he could carry and rarely anything of value. Occasionally he did the dishes after helping himself to a meal and once even left a note thanking a cabin owner for his hospitality. He stole a .22-250 rifle but left a .308 carbine in its place.
2. The final round
Jay Caspian Kang meets the infamous boxing promotor Don King, and looks back at his life to date. (Grantland)
King smiled, but not the smile you remember. That smile – the screwed-on mask of boundless optimism – had been on full display throughout this week of promotions, but at the Carnegie, King had finally succumbed to exhaustion. “When I’m doing good, the hair goes straight up,” King said, a bit wearily. “Now that things are difficult, the hair has gotten a little flatter.”
3. Hunting Mladic
Justin Borger details the near misses that kept the former Bosnian Serb leader Ratko Mladic at large for 14 years. (The Guardian)
In a now notorious raid in April 2006 men in 4x4s swept up the narrow country lane. Mladic, looking down through the wooden-slatted shutters of his second-floor window, must have thought his time had finally come, but officers of Serbia’s BIA intelligence agency went to the wrong brother, Vukasin.
4. Gucci galore
Buzz Bissinger is addicted to buying clothes. Really addicted to buying clothes (GQ)
I own eighty-one leather jackets, seventy-five pairs of boots, forty-one pairs of leather pants, thirty-two pairs of haute couture jeans, ten evening jackets, and 115 pairs of leather gloves. Those who conclude from this that I have a leather fetish, an extreme leather fetish, get a grand prize of zero. And those who are familiar with my choices will sign affidavits attesting to the fact that I wear leather every day. The self-expression feels glorious, an indispensable part of me. As a stranger said after admiring my look in a Gucci burgundy jacquard velvet jacket and a Burberry black patent leather trench, “You don’t give a fuck.” I don’t. I finally don’t.
5. The aftermath
Susan Svrluga talks to Kevin Lunsmann and his mother about the trip to the Philippines that they’ll never forget. (The Washington Post)
It was still dark when Kevin woke up and heard his mother shouting at him to run. She had gotten up early on their departure day and suddenly spotted more than a dozen silhouettes running toward their hut. Even in the dark, she could tell they were holding long guns. “I thought it was some kind of robbery,” Gerfa said. “I thought, ‘We will run, they can have the house.’ But they surrounded us.”
6. The athletic man
Jada Yan tries – and fails – to keep Chris O’Dowd still as he runs wild in New York. (Vulture)
O’Dowd squeals as he leaps over a huge puddle. “Did it. That was a strong jump,” he declares. He says he’s wearing sneakers instead of boots to maximize his jumping ability. “With me, athleticism always comes first. Always has. And always will.” How athletic is he? “I’ve just got really strong calves. When I go to the gym, that’s all I work on. I know what chicks dig, and it’s calves.”
… AND A CLASSIC READ FROM THE ARCHIVES…
In 2012, the late Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times about the love he had for his now-widowed wife, and all that she had helped him through.
How can I begin to tell you about Chaz? She fills my horizon, she is the great fact of my life, she has my love, she saved me from the fate of living out my life alone, which is where I seemed to be heading. If my cancer had come, and it would have, and Chaz had not been there with me, I can imagine a descent into lonely decrepitude. I was very sick. I might have vegetated in hopelessness. This woman never lost her love, and when it was necessary she forced me to want to live. She was always there believing I could do it, and her love was like a wind forcing me back from the grave.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say