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 Magicians’ Honour System
Chris Jones on the illusionist Teller’s quest to stop people copying tricks (Esquire).
There’s a small pedal tucked into its base. When Houdini pressed his bootheel against it, three sets of blades hidden in the cross’s arms sliced through the ropes that bound him. Those blades still work today. Teller has a supply of rope to prove it, because he likes people to believe him.
2. John Gotti Jr goes to Hollywood
Steve Fishman on the former Mafia heir’s attempt to take over Tinseltown (NYMag).
This turned out not to be quite so easy. With the help of his Hollywood muscle—that would be Stuttering John, Howard Stern’s sidekick, whom Fiore had once helped to produce a straight-to-DVD movie, his only credit—he managed to wangle a few meetings. “They were favors, and you could tell,” said Fiore. “As soon as you’re sitting down, you’re getting up.”
3. The Lie Factory
Jill Lepore on the anatomy of a modern political campaign, and where it came from (New Yorker).
They read each other’s mail. They swapped jobs every year: one year, Whitaker was president and Baxter vice-president; the next year, the reverse. They made heaps of money. For, say, a referendum campaign, they charged between twenty-five thousand and seventy-five thousand dollars.
4. Where is Cuba going?
John Jeremiah Sullivan visits his wife’s family on the island as it adjusts to the new reality after Fidel Castro (New York Times).
People walking by on the street didn’t seem as skinny. That was the most instantly perceptible difference, if you were seeing Raúl’s Cuba for the first time. They weren’t sickly looking before, but under Fidel you noticed more the way men’s shirts flapped about them and the knobbiness of women’s knees.
5. Who wants to be a billionaire?
Randall Stross goes inside a Silicon Valley startup as a small team tries to win investment (Vanity Fair).
The Kalvins have found their new idea. They call their start-up Ridejoy, after trying out Ridebank, Ridetastic, and Ridebee. Jason Shen introduces the idea. “We’re everything for rides. We want to change the way people travel by making it super-easy and fun to share rides with other people.”
6. The last place you ever live
John Fischer takes his parents to choose a retirement home (Guernica).
I realize the stupid, obvious thing I should’ve seen the moment our trip started: The purpose of these places with their beautiful vistas and their endless amenities is not to make my parents young again. It’s to make them comfortable being old.
… AND A CLASSIC READ FROM THE ARCHIVES…
In 2010, acclaimed novelist Margaret Atwood wrote for the New York Review of Books about her experience joining the Twittersphere.
I was told I needed “followers.” These were people who would sign on to receive my messages, or “tweets,” whatever those might turn out to be. I hummed a few bars from “Mockingbird Hill”—Tra-la-la, twittly-deedee—and sacrificed some of my hair at the crossroads.
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