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.
Steve Kandell‘s sister died when the World Trade Centre was attacked. Now, 13 years later, he visits the new museum dedicated to the terrorist disaster. Memories and emotions collide when he looks inside.
(Buzzfeed, approx 11 minutes reading time, 2335 words)
The crowded memorial hall is lined with photos of everyone who died and touchscreen consoles that call up their obituaries; my sister is found, as she has been for 12 1/2 years and will be forever, between Gavkharoy Kamardinova and Howard Lee Kane. The names are read aloud on a loop in the adjacent darkened atrium lined with benches. My sister’s profile has incorrect information in it that we’d never signed off on or even seen, and the annoyance is tempered by the realization that nonparticipation in the pageantry has its drawbacks.
Olivier Laurent speaks to professional photographer David Guttenfelder (winner of Time Magazine’s Instagram photographer of the year title – and seven-time World Press Photo award-winner) about why he turned to the smartphone.
(Fltr, approx 8 minutes reading time, 1513 words)
I work for the Associated Press, where the parameters – what we are expected to do – used to be very narrow,” he says. “They needed one bright, tight and bold picture that said it all. And that can really take its toll on your photography. When you have to put 10 pictures on the wire every day, there’s an expectation that you hit the news every day; so it’s always good to have your own thing that no one is waiting for, that you can develop yourself. You have to find your own voice, and that’s why I’ve always carried another camera format with me.”
Amy Nicholson believes that Tom Cruise was our last real movie star – and the unravelling of his airtight public persona was due in large part to the internet.
(LA Weekly, approx 29 minutes reading time, 5951 words)
Around that time, Cruise linked his future with another woman: publicist Pat Kingsley. The media had started asking about his new religion, Scientology, which he claimed had cured his dyslexia. The highly secretive faith fascinated the press. How to field endless questions about his minority beliefs while still charming majority-Christian America? He needed the help of the tough-as-nails Kingsley.
David Kushner meets two Vine superstars who met online, fell in love, and then saw their romance fall to pieces once they had met in person.
(Rolling Stone, approx 30 minutes reading time, 5991 words)
As their online romance unfolded in daily updates, it became the biggest story Vine had ever seen, spawning countless hashtags, video tributes and talk of a reality show. When the couple Vined their plans to meet in New York, some 2,000 screaming fans mobbed Washington Square Park to watch their first kiss. But the fairy-tale romance quickly became a nightmare. A few weeks after their high-profile meet-up, Smiles pressed charges against Lepore for allegedly raping her.
Perry Anderson looks at Europe as it is now – taking in corruption, elections, oligarchs and bureaucrats.
(London Review of Books, approx 87 minutes reading time, 17509 words)
In Ireland, meanwhile, the Fianna Fáil leader Bertie Ahern, having channelled more than €400,000 in unexplained payments before becoming taioseach, voted himself the highest salary of any premier in Europe – €310,000, more even than the US president – a year before having to quit in obloquy for all-round dishonesty.
Charles Bethea talks to fugitive banker Aubrey Lee Price, a former preacher who is on trial for fraud.
(Atlanta Magazine, approx 51 minutes reading time, 10269 words)
When he made his first appearance before a judge on January 2, he looked nothing like the clean-cut man of God he’d been for so much of his adult life. He’d lost weight, let his hair grow long, and sported a beard, dyeing both black. Journalists from New York to Paris wanted to know: Was this a Bernie Madoff of the South? Was he a fall guy? Just who was Aubrey Lee Price?
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
In 2005, Michael Paterniti went to the Ukraine to meet Leonid S. Standing at eight and a half feet tall, Leonid is the world’s tallest man. Here’s a look into the life of a giant.
(GQ, approx 38 minutes reading time, 7620 words)
“Dobryi den,” the giant said from behind the gate, among the trees. He didn’t boom it out in some Fee-fi-fo-fum, he said it almost delicately, politely, so as not to startle anyone. He was behind the trees, and among them. Slowly, I could make out the low, interleaving branches and then some higher branches, with silver apples trembling there, on a level with the gutter of his stone house. And just above them, breaching, came the giant’s head. It was enormous, and he ducked down to come to our level.
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