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. Rehearsals for departure
John W Evans on what happened before his wife, Katie, died (The Rumpus).
The ring that I lose is not Katie’s engagement ring; I keep that one in a box on a shelf. It is not even the ring Katie wore on our wedding day. The ring I never find is white gold, slender as a ring-tab.
2. We Are Alive
David Remnick on Bruce Springsteen at 62 (New Yorker).
When he takes in something new—a visitor, a thought, a passing car in the distance—his eyes narrow, as if in hard light, and his lower jaw protrudes a bit. His hairline is receding, and, if one had to guess, he has, over the years, in the face of high-def scrutiny and the fight against time, enjoined the expensive attentions of cosmetic and dental practitioners.
3. How I hacked my brain with Adderall
Trent Wolbe on his experience with America’s favourite prescription amphetamine (The Verge).
Just as Merck used to manufacture the best cocaine on the entire planet, Shire now produces the most reliable amphetamine money can buy. And it’s good shit, so good that it sits with opium and cocaine on the USA’s List of Schedule II Controlled substances.
4. What happened in the public private marriage of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise?
Benjamin Wallace asks what we really know in the world of celebrity journalism (NYMag).
“Who goes out and has a make-out session with their wife? I mean, really. It felt like a poorly directed love scene. It’s like you’re kissing your girlfriend on the subway—if you kiss her fifteen times, it starts to be less cool. By the end, I was just confused.”
5. Making a profit from human corpses
Kate Willson and others on the business of recycling dead people into medical implants (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists).
At Sergei’s funeral, his parents discovered deep cuts on his wrists. Yet they knew he had hanged himself. They later learned that his body parts had been recycled and shipped off as “anatomical material.”
6. Tracking the biggest star in the world
John Herrman on one man’s long, strange quest to get something from Jay-Z (Buzzfeed).
He understands how it all looks — the years of emailing, the personal tone of the messages, the fact that he sends from his wife’s email address — but it doesn’t bother him. “The reason why you think it’s creepy is because you’ve never suffered before.”
… AND A CLASSIC READ FROM THE ARCHIVES…
In 1896, Englishman GS Robertson wrote about the first ever modern-era Olympics. His work is reprinted in the Fortnightly Review.
The Germans displayed magnificent style in their squad exercises in the horizontal and parallel bars. In the former case they won without contest; indeed opposition would have been hopeless. In the latter set of exercises, they were opposed by two Greek teams.
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