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.
The book Don’t Ask Alice purported to be the real-life story of a young girl addicted to drugs. But none of it was true.
(The New Yorker, approx 17 mins reading time)
The narrator is unidentified, too. She is not named Alice; the book’s title, chosen by a savvy publishing employee, comes indirectly from a reference in the diary to “Alice in Wonderland” and more directly from the lyrics of the Jefferson Airplane song “White Rabbit.” Early entries dutifully record the nothing-everythings of teen-age life. The narrator frets over diets and dates; wishes she could “melt into the blaaaa-ness of the universe” when a boy stands her up; and describes high school as “the loneliest, coldest place in the world.” She’s from a middle-class, overtly Christian, ostensibly good family, with two younger siblings, a stay-at-home mother, and an academic father whose work takes the family to another state.
In this audio ‘longread’, a look at what happened when a crude oil tanker sent out a distress call about stowaways.
(The Guardian, approx 28 mins listening time)
By mid afternoon, coastguard helicopters were circling over the ship, and by about 7pm, there was a full-scale military operation. Suddenly, a story that should have been about the asylum claims of seven desperate stowaways had been recast as a national security incident. Behind the political posturing and the media commotion, however, there remained seven men looking for a new start in life.
A man named Glen McCurley strangled a young woman in 1974, but was she his only victim?
(Texas Monthly, approx 41 mins reading time)
He seemed to be a good man leading a quiet life. One woman had even sent a letter to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram praising him and Judy for returning her lost wallet. “The world needs more folks like this,” she wrote. But detectives had developed an entirely different perspective on McCurley. They had compelling evidence that he was responsible for the notorious unsolved murder of a teenage girl in 1974. And they suspected that wasn’t McCurley’s only heinous crime. They considered him a “person of interest” in at least three other killings of young women during the seventies and eighties.
Is there an ‘exercise gap’ between the genders, and if so, why?
(Women’s Health Magazine, approx 6 mins reading time)
A Gyms and swimming pools can also be intimidating places – I know from experience. I find it daunting to go to these places as a relative novice and a beginner, someone who is not very fit and cannot pound the treadmill or do countless miles in the pool. Unless you have the right clothes, and the right body, it is very easy to feel like an outsider. And this lack of inclusion – in activewear design, and the culture that has developed in some of the gyms and pools- can lead to not only embarrassment but also lack of motivation to go to the gym, go running or swimming.
A look at the actor Bruce Willis’s career, and how his roles in later life might have contributed to his aphasia going unnoticed on set.
(Vulture, approx 13 mins reading time)
Over time, though, Willis started moving away from the thoughtful Everyman action hero he had incarnated in Die Hard and toward more retrograde macho-man roles. The Die Hard sequels were far more typical of the era’s R-rated action blockbusters, stressing McClane’s sour cynicism and lethal skills instead of his humanity. It was hard to tell if Willis was trying to put Moonlighting even further in the rearview mirror, if the stone-faced-killer parts spoke to some need in him as an actor, or if he was just doing the thing he knew audiences would pay to see.
The story behind the 1968 episode of Star Trek where the late Nichelle Nichols kissed William Shatner, in the first onscreen kiss between a Black woman and white man on US television.
(The Conversation, approx 5 mins reading time)
The episode’s plot is bizarre: Aliens who worship the Greek philosopher Plato use telekinetic powers to force the Enterprise crew to sing, dance and kiss. At one point, the aliens compel Lt. Uhura and Capt. Kirk to embrace. Each character tries to resist, but eventually Kirk tilts Uhura back and the two kiss as the aliens lasciviously look on. The smooch is not a romantic one. But in 1968 to show a Black woman kissing a white man was a daring move.
…AND ONE FROM THE ARCHIVES…
Love Island finished up last week. (We took a look at it for this week’s The Explainer podcast). Here’s a story from Vanity Fair in about the many controversies that have dogged the show.
(Vanity Fair, approx 28 mins reading time)
On the season four premiere of Love Island, an effervescent Flack arrived with an engagement ring, which the islanders oohed over. The next season, Flack’s diamond was gone. Though her success grew as the show’s did—she was able to renegotiate her contract every season—at 40, her colleague says, “She was desperate. Desperate to settle down, desperate to find the right person. It just didn’t happen. I don’t think she had the emotional makeup to deal with a grown-up relationship.” Love Island made Flack’s fame, and the attendant interest in her personal life, explode. It was the perfect match.
Note: The Journal generally selects stories that are not paywalled, but some might not be accessible if you have exceeded your free article limit on the site in question.
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