Sitdown Sunday: A spooky visit to a real-life ghost town

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. Death at home

Shutterstock / Kamira Shutterstock / Kamira / Kamira

In the first of our Pulitzer Prize winning selections this week, this is the first part of the Post and Courier’s series on domestic violence against women, and how little is being done to prevent it in South Carolina. It won the Pulitzer public service award.

(Post and Courier, approx 16 mins reading time)

The beat of killings has remained a constant in South Carolina, even as domestic violence rates have tumbled 64 percent nationwide over the past two decades, according to an analysis of crime statistics by the newspaper. This blood has spilled in every corner of the state, from beach towns and mountain hamlets to farming villages and sprawling urban centers, cutting across racial, ethnic and economic lines.

2. Scenes from the Dust Bowl

AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

This report by Diana Marcum won the Pulitzer for feature writing. She visited six communities struggling as they deal with extreme drought. Here’s one of her stories.

(LA Times, approx 8 mins reading time (per story), 1606 words)

“He’s never tired. Never angry,” Gricelda, 30, said, her eyes wide with amazement. “I say to him, ‘Aren’t you stressed?’ and he always tells me, ‘Stress is a rich man’s disease. I don’t have time for it.’” Toledo, feeding their goats, chickens and cow, had to raise his voice to be heard over the farm animals’ greetings.

3. The tragedy of a landslide

AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Seattle Times won a Pulitzer for this series on the Snohomish county landslide, talking to survivors and rescuers involved in the incident for a wide-ranging selection of articles.

(Seattle Times)

Since the 1950s, geological reports on the hill that buckled during the weekend in Snohomish County have included pessimistic analyses and the occasional dire prediction. But no language seems more prescient than what appears in a 1999 report filed with the US Army Corps of Engineers, warning of “the potential for a large catastrophic failure.”

4. Free-range parenting 

Shutterstock / Deviant Shutterstock / Deviant / Deviant

Kim Brooks was arrested for leaving her son in a car – with the windows down – for a few minutes. She believes that parenting has changed utterly, but what does that mean for parents?

(Buzzfeed, approx 13 mins reading time, 2762 words )

After my legal troubles resolved, I wrote about the particulars of the experience and, more broadly, about the atmosphere of fear and anxiety in which so many parents (including myself) now live. I wrote about what seems to be the almost universal desire parents experience to protect their children from all harm, the pain and helplessness we endure when we fail to do so, and, ultimately, the arrogance we display when we begin to see ourselves as our children see us — as omnipotent beings.

5. The joke whisperer

Anchorman Anchorman

Meet Brent White, the editor who makes jokes better and funnier. This is a really fascinating look at how comedies are edited.

(New York Times Magazine, approx 26 reading time, 5321 words)

When Apatow and McKay began directing movies, they used a technique that others have adopted: They shoot a scene once or twice as written, then subject it to a number of improvised variations in which the actors deliver lines of alternate dialogue (“alts”) that either they devise or the director supplies.

6. This town is a ghost town 

Centralia Navy 2004 Navy 2004

A visit to Centralia, an old Pennsylvania coal town that has lain empty since a devastating mine fire. 1,400 people used to live there – at the last count, six people called it home.

(Narratively, approx 31 mins reading time)

I walk to the end of the street in the damp and cold air. An acrid smell drifts with the slight breeze. Sulfurous, it comes from the bowels of the earth – the pungent smell of burning coal. Steam is rising over the bare ground, freezing the grass in thin layers of brittle ice. Smoke wafts are growing between small cracks in the bedrock and I can feel the heat under my feet when I climb up the rubble to get a better view of the place.

…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…

Shutterstock / Anki Hoglund Shutterstock / Anki Hoglund / Anki Hoglund

Back in 1887, writer Nellie Bly went undercover to spend time in what was then called an insane asylum, on an island.

(Nellie Bly, approx 176 mins reading time, 35317  words)

I should pass under the pseudonym of Nellie Brown, the initials of which would agree with my own name and my linen, so that there would be no difficulty in keeping track of my movements and assisting me out of any difficulties or dangers I might get into. There were ways of getting into the insane ward, but I did not know them. I might adopt one of two courses. Either I could feign insanity at the house of friends, and get myself committed on the decision of two competent physicians, or I could go to my goal by way of the police courts.

More: The best reads from every previous Sitdown Sunday >

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