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. The crime wave at 312 Riverside Drive
Police in New York City had to field dozens of calls about crimes taking place at one address on the Upper West Side. But when they’d turn up, nothing could be found.
(New York Times, approx 15 mins reading time)
Again and again, police officers had raced to the tree-lined block of the Upper West Side, between West 103rd and 104th Streets. Firefighters and paramedics met them there. But the responses all ended the same way: The emergency vehicles turned and left, their sirens off. The police, over time, stopped responding to the calls at all. Because there is no 312 Riverside Drive.
Leslie Jamison writes about the fascinating choose your own adventure books – in a choose your own adventure essay.
(The New Yorker, approx 29 mins reading time)
In “The Cave of Time,” the first book in the series, you discover a time-travelling cave whose tunnels carry you to Colonial Massachusetts, where you become a soap-maker’s apprentice; or to the Titanic, where your attempts to warn the captain are futile; or even to a version of the year 2022 that does not look much like our version of 2022 (more bike trails). The stated desire of your character (to return to your own time) is at odds with the actual desire of a reader (to have as many adventures as possible). You want to die in the jaws of a T. rex, or change the course of history by eating a sandwich. The warning at the beginning of the book tells you, “Remember—you cannot go back!”
3. Mourning the queen – not her empire
This opinion piece by Maya Jasanoff discusses Queen Elizabeth II’s legacy in terms of the British empire.
(New York Times, approx 10 mins reading time)
We may never learn what the queen did or didn’t know about the crimes committed in her name. (What transpires in the sovereign’s weekly meetings with the prime minister remains a black box at the center of the British state.) Her subjects haven’t necessarily gotten the full story, either. Colonial officials destroyed many records that, according to a dispatch from the secretary of state for the colonies, “might embarrass Her Majesty’s government” and deliberately concealed others in a secret archive whose existence was revealed only in 2011.
A look at Crazytown’s massive number one single, Butterfly.
(Stereogum, approx 15 mins reading time)
Crazy Town are true one-hit wonders; “Butterfly” is the band’s only song that ever appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 in any capacity. But “Butterfly” also represents a kind of culmination. “Butterfly” is the only song that ever came out of the late-’90s rap-rock wave and topped the Hot 100. The biggest bands from that genre sold millions of records and packed arenas for years, but none of them — not Korn, not Limp Bizkit, not Kid Rock, not Papa Roach, not even Linkin Park — ever made it to #1. During that same era, the Creed-style post-grunge yarlers did a lot better on the pop charts. Rap-rock seemed to dominate the universe for three or four years, but as far as the Hot 100 is concerned, “Butterfly” is the only hit of its kind. It flutters alone.
How did so much strange content aimed at kids emerge on YouTube?
(The Guardian, approx 20 mins reading time)
This YouTuber never showed a face or a real name. A wildly popular video set the camera on two dozen toy eggs from Disney franchises. A quiet voiceover announces each egg methodically before she unwraps them: “Mickey Mouuuuse … ” She peels back the foil casing with a soft, crisp sound. Then the chocolatey layer, a satisfying crackle. Then the tiny plastic capsule holding a toy, a treasure. Then another.
6. My brother the famous rockstar
Ted Kessler writes about what it’s like to have a brother in a the band Interpol.
(The Guardian, approx 7 mins reading time)
As the volume went up, I involuntarily found myself rising from my desk. With an audible groan, I pushed through the swing doors towards the lifts before the chorus even arrived. I groaned with fear as I walked out, not loathing nor embarrassment. I was scared. I was too afraid to hear anybody in NME say they didn’t like Interpol, that they thought the music was bad. I didn’t want to witness mockery the like of which I’d heard so often in NME, that I’d dispensed routinely myself with great performative gusto. I wasn’t even sure at that stage if anyone knew my brother was in this band.
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
The strange story of the last true hermit, from 2014
(GQ, approx 34 mins reading time)
And there he was. Probably. The person stealing food appeared entirely too clean, his face freshly shaved. He wore eyeglasses and a wool ski hat. Was this really the North Pond Hermit, a man who’d tormented the surrounding community for years—decades—yet the police still hadn’t learned his name?
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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