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.
An interview with the one and only Dolly Parton about her career – and the pandemic.
(Mic, approx 8 mins reading time)
I’m not one to get in the middle of controversy. When I first donated my money to help with [the Moderna vaccine], and I got my shot, I thought everybody was waiting in line to get their shot. I didn’t realize there were people not wanting to do it whether for religious reasons, health reasons, personal reasons whatever it be. I’m not one to tell people what to do. But I was just happy to be part of that, and I think we all certainly need to do our part in being careful. Whether you get the shot or not, you need to be mindful. And I don’t think it’d kill anybody to wear their mask and to do their social distancing, especially now that we have new variants of the pandemic going around. So I really think people should just be very cautious, and careful and mindful, and like I said I’m not one to bother around in people’s lives, I just try to do my part the best I can.
An interview with Maggie Gyllenhaal about her directorial debut, The Lost Daughter.
(New York Times, approx 7 mins reading time)
I wanted it to be a thriller. The book is not really a thriller, but I amped that up because I thought it would ultimately give me more artistic freedom. I wanted to even dare myself to move it into horror, a horror movie about the internal workings of her mind. She’s not bad, she’s like you. And I liked the idea of having a classic structure to hang my hat on. I have found in the past that I get the most freedom of expression as an actress when there is really clear structure.
A look at the controversial medicine man’s attempt to enter politics.
(New York magazine, approx 36 mins reading time)
Dr. Oz had announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination for the open Pennsylvania seat with a glossy commercial produced by Jamestown Associates, once the ad-maker for once-president Donald Trump. He then appeared for lighthearted chats with Sean Hannity of Fox News, whom he had befriended at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when the men bonded over the discovery that they kept similar insomniac schedules and began talking often on the phone around 3 or 4 a.m., and with Greg Kelly of Newsmax, son of former New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly, also a personal friend.
A look at the brand Shein, and how it ushered in an era of ultra-fast shopping.
(The Guardian, approx mins reading time)
Shein’s fast growth has brought with it a series of controversies. Numerous designers accused it of stealing their work, and brands including Levi Strauss and Dr Martens have sued the company for trademark infringement. (The former settled for an undisclosed sum, and Shein said it doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation). It was also pilloried for selling culturally or historically offensive products, such as swastika necklaces. Most notably, advocacy groups and journalists have uncovered evidence that Shein’s $11 bikinis and $7 crop tops were being made by people working under brutal conditions, while environmental experts warned that those same items were often only being worn once before getting thrown away.
Here are nine mysteries that scientists haven’t solved (yet). With podcasts to match each question.
(Vox, approx mins reading time)
“Venus and Earth are planetary siblings,” Andrews says. “They were made at the same time and made of the same stuff, yet Venus is apocalyptic and awful in every possible way. Earth is a paradise. So why do we have a paradise next to a paradise lost?” There are two leading hypotheses. One is that the sun cooked Venus to death. The other is that volcanoes did.
A slightly different style of longread, but one that might be useful – how to use dialectical behaviour techniques to calm your emotions.
(Psyche, approx mins reading time)
When dealing with emotion dysregulation, one skill that everyone I work with finds helpful is the ‘states of mind’ exercise, which describes how we all have three different modes of thinking that we use to different degrees. Our reasonable mind consists of logic and facts – in this state, it’s hard to access our emotions, or we avoid or push them away. In our emotional mind, emotions control our behaviours – in this state, it’s hard to access reasoning. Finally, our wise mind combines our reasoning and emotion with our values, and a consideration of possible courses of action and consequences. Together, these culminate in that internal sense of knowing or wisdom we all have.
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
One of last year’s stand-out longreads: why did the journalist Christie Smythe up-end her life for Martin Shkreli?
(Elle, approx 20 mins reading time)
Over the course of nine months, beginning in July 2018, Smythe quit her job, moved out of the apartment, and divorced her husband. What could cause the sensible Smythe to turn her life upside down? She fell in love with a defendant whose case she covered. In fact, she broke the news of his arrest. It was a scoop that ignited the internet, because her love interest, now life partner, is not just any defendant, but Martin Shkreli, the so-called “Pharma Bro” and online provocateur, who increased the price of a lifesaving drug by 5,000 percent overnight and made headlines for buying a one-off Wu-Tang Clan album for a reported $2 million.
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