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 some of the week’s best reads for you to savour.
Mortician-turned-scientist Alexandra Morton-Hayward has amassed the world’s largest collection of ancient brains, with some dating back 8,000 years. This is a fascinating look at her research and what it reveals about our noggins.
(The Guardian, approx 21 mins reading time)
At her lab in Oxford, Morton-Hayward keeps two refrigerators full of brains, housed in takeaway containers and plastic bags. More specimens sit in crates at room temperature. Above her desk, she keeps brain samples in cookie tins, vials and on glass slides. So vast is her collection that she has moved some specimens to off-site storage – enough to fill another three refrigerators. Mindful of tragic losses elsewhere, she bought a generator in case of a power cut. (In Florida, in 1986, one collection of brains from an 8,000-year-old burial site was destroyed when a freezer lost power.)
A riveting profile of Glenn Horowitz, a dealer of rare books and manuscripts who has made millions by selling the papers and possessions of famous writers and celebrities like Seamus Heaney, Vladimir Nabokov and Bob Dylan. Then Don Henley sued him.
(The New Yorker, approx 53 mins reading time)
Bill Kelly, who retired two years ago as the director of the Research Libraries of the New York Public Library, admires Horowitz’s protean talents. “For grifters, Glenn’s a scholar, and for scholars, he’s a grifter,” he said. “But, really, he’s an impresario. He brought me some Virginia Woolf correspondence and first editions, knowing well what we might need in our collections, and we wound up acquiring it for about half of what I expected”—$750,000, with an equal amount credited as a charitable gift. “Glenn even suggested two or three admirers of Woolf who could fund the purchase for us. The deal was all tied up in a bow before he came into my office.” Kelly went on, “Pretty much all of my colleagues in the book world and the library world regard Glenn as Satan, and the Henley matter just intensified the contempt: I’m never going to do business with Glenn again. Well, who are you going to do business with, then? Who else does business at that level?”
Screenings of old films are becoming more and more popular in cinemas trying to stay afloat amid the popularity of streaming services. Could they be the way forward?
(The Ringer, approx 25 mins reading time)
The challenge that has always faced repertory cinema is access—the perception that if people have an easier, more convenient way to see a film, they will take it. Going to the movies is a hassle and an expense, no matter where you live. If your goal is to take in a piece of content, why subject yourself to that schlep when you could simply watch it at your own pace, in peace, at home? From virtually its inception, repertory has faced existential threats from a series of at-home viewing options: television, cable, VCRs and DVD players, today’s digital streaming apps. But each time, repertory cinema has proved its resilience, its demand, and its financial viability in spite of these inventions. Its survival speaks to the essence of cinema and what many want out of it—not to simply consume a piece of content, but to get something deeper, richer, and more communal.
Over a million children in the US participate in cheerleading every year, an industry dominated by one company: Varsity.
David Gauvey Herbert looks at how its founder turned it into a billion-dollar business, how it became more dangerous, and the scandals surrounding it.
(The New York Times, approx 41 mins reading time)
To maintain his influence, lawsuits have alleged, Webb lobbied against categorizing scholastic cheerleading as a sport at the high school and college levels. Had the N.C.A.A. recognized cheer, it might have protected Jennings in college, limiting her practice hours and ensuring that she got a hearing if her scholarship were threatened because of an injury. Instead, Varsity founded governing bodies whose representatives sometimes downplayed safety concerns in the media as flyers like Jennings returned to the mat again and again after serious concussions. Competitive cheer is shockingly dangerous: In the past 40 years, the number of catastrophic injuries sustained by cheerleaders is greater than those sustained by female athletes playing all other high school and college sports combined. For many years, those same governing bodies failed to comprehensively track and ban problematic coaches, who bounced from gym to gym. Sometimes they did more than yell or throw things: Cheer is now dealing with a sexual-abuse scandal with parallels to that of USA Gymnastics.
An interview with Stevie Nicks, in which she speaks about the US election, abortion, her enduring career, Lindsey Buckingham, and why Fleetwood Mac are done.
(Rolling Stone, approx 29 mins reading time)
The word “icon” is difficult for me, because I think of “icon” as a big Greek statue of a girl in a cape. But I’m good with it, because I’ve worked hard to be whatever everybody thinks that I am. I wrote a song once, it’s called “Sweet Girl,” and it says, “I chose to dance across the stages of the world.… Many are the cities that I never saw at all.” That’s what I feel like I’ve done, just dancing across the stages of the world. That’s why I appear to be a lot more youthful than I am, because my spirit is youthful. As long as you can dance, you are youthful. I’m 76, but I’m just incredibly limber. The dancing really comes from that. What I wanted to do my whole life was affect people. I love telling my stories onstage. That is what makes me happy, and that’s why I’ll never stop touring. Because if I stop touring, then I’ll stop dancing. I go on a summer tour next year, and I [will] do 40 shows. That’s what Fleetwood Mac used to do.… And you know there is no more Fleetwood Mac now, because when Christine [McVie] died, Fleetwood Mac died. We cannot replace her.
Katherine Eban investigates how the US is failing to handle an outbreak of bird flu in dairy cows and workers.
(Vanity Fair, approx 22 mins reading time)
With continued spread amongst cows, or to another “mixing-vessel” species like pigs, the virus “could mix and match, then you get a whole new genetic constellation,” says Jürgen Richt, regents and university distinguished professor at Kansas State University. Experts are hesitant to speculate about what could happen if the virus were to begin more widely infecting humans, for fear of spreading panic, but the toll could, in the worst case, dwarf that of COVID-19. If the virus “infects a person infected with a human flu strain, and something comes out that is reassorted and adapted to humans? I don’t even want to imagine,” Richt says. “Not good.”
The Institute for Disease Modeling, a research institute within the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has estimated that a global flu pandemic could kill close to 33 million people within six months. At that existential moment back in March, when the virus was first detected in cows, veterinarians involved in the response had every expectation that a well-honed network of experts, led by USDA scientists, would immediately rev to life. But it didn’t. “Nobody came,” says one veterinarian in a Western state. “When the diagnosis came in, the government stood still. They didn’t know what to do, so they did nothing.”
As Halloween approaches, here’s a longread about why people believe in ghosts.
(The Atlantic, approx 7 mins reading time)
Normally, a paranormal story wouldn’t catch my attention, but a few months before the story came out, a Spanish friend of mine named Laura showed me a weird image she found on her phone while I was traveling in Madrid. The photo, taken on her iPhone while on a trip to Ethiopia, shows a boy looking down at leaves he is holding in his hands. Seemingly superimposed onto the boy is another image of the boy, hands in a different position and eyes looking straight at the camera. Laura was convinced she captured an image of a ghost.
Note: The Journal generally selects stories that are not paywalled, but some might not be accessible if you have exceeded your free article limit on the site in question.
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