This week, we’re sharing stories from Shannon Gormley, Jasmine Sanders, Esmé Weijun Wang, Kevin T. Baker, and Gabrielle Bellot.
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1. Into the Dark
Shannon Gormley | Maclean’s | January 25, 2019 | 48 minutes (12,246 words)
There were four options for getting the trapped Thai soccer players out of the flooded cave: the unrealistic one, the deadly one, the torturous one, and the mad one. Sometimes, madness works.
2. A Black Legacy, Wrapped Up in Fur
Jasmine Sanders | The New York Times | January 31, 2019 | 12 minutes (3,221 words)
Jasmine Sanders writes a cultural history of Black women and fur.
3. I’ve Been Committed To A Psych Ward Three Times — And It Never Helped
Esmé Weijun Wang | BuzzFeed News | January 29, 2019 | 19 minutes (4,988 words)
“As Bly’s anecdotes, and my own, indicate, a primary feature of the experience of staying in a psychiatric hospital is that you will not be believed about anything. A corollary to this feature: Things will be believed about you that are not at all true.”
4. Model Metropolis
Kevin T. Baker | Logic | January 30, 2019 | 9 minutes (2,377 words)
You probably haven’t read Jay Wright Forrester’s dubious ideas on how cities work (and why they die), but if you played SimCity you’ve had more firsthand experience with them than you realize. Historian of science Kevin T. Baker explains why.
5. When Even The Greatest Of Writers Grapples With Self-Doubt
Gabrielle Bellot | LitHub | January 28, 2019 | 9 minutes (2,435 words)
For anyone that does creative work, Gabrielle Bellot’s poetic piece at LitHub is a salve for the times when we’re plagued by artistic self-doubt. In relaying her own struggles and in deconstructing the work of W.B. Yeats and Derek Walcott, Bellot finds solace and inspiration in two other writers who also sought to shed the “thick coats of impostors.”
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