[{"id":259954,"date":"2026-09-24T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longreads.com\/?p=259954"},"modified":"2026-09-24T14:16:28","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:16:28","slug":"drug-dealer-trap-houses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/24\/drug-dealer-trap-houses\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two Trap Houses: Being Cuckooed Ruined My Friend\u2019s Life\u2014But Did It Then Help Save Him?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Duncan is a longtime friend of Max Daly, and a drug addict caught up in \u201ccuckooing,\u201d where dealers take over people\u2019s homes as drug bases in exchange for product. Daly offers a sympathetic portrait of Duncan\u2019s spiralling life, while opening a window onto a bizarre world where the most vulnerable exploit each other\u2014and sometimes even form bonds.<\/p>\n<span hidden class=\"__iawmlf-post-loop-links\" data-iawmlf-links=\"[{&quot;id&quot;:49084,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.theguardian.com\\\/society\\\/2006\\\/nov\\\/15\\\/drugsandalcohol.guardiansocietysupplement&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:49082,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.theguardian.com\\\/news\\\/ng-interactive\\\/2026\\\/sep\\\/22\\\/a-tale-of-two-trap-houses-being-cuckooed-ruined-my-friends-life-but-did-it-then-help-save-him\\\/?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.theguardian.com\\\/news\\\/ng-interactive\\\/2026\\\/sep\\\/22\\\/a-tale-of-two-trap-houses-being-cuckooed-ruined-my-friends-life-but-did-it-then-help-save-him&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the 2000s and 2010s, wave after wave of gangs fanned out from Britain\u2019s drug supply hubs \u2013 London, Liverpool and Birmingham \u2013 to set up shop in smaller towns and cities across the country. They took over the homes of drug users and young women who had been groomed by older male gang members. As early as 2008 Suffolk constabulary reported that more than a third of Class A drug dealers arrested in Suffolk were under 21, and the majority were from London. (Before this period, most crack and heroin dealers in towns and smaller cities were \u201cuser-dealers\u201d, addicted heroin users in their 30s or older, who were not as \u201cprofessionalised\u201d as the big city drug gangs.) Gangs often used sex workers, who targeted male tenants and moved in, bringing the young dealers with them. Community safety teams, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2006\/nov\/15\/drugsandalcohol.guardiansocietysupplement\">who rescued 80 tenants in London in 2005<\/a>, were the first to call the tactic \u201ccuckooing\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe48e5de wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div style=\"--wp--block-button--width: 50;\" class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width wp-block-button__width-50\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-primary-background-color has-background has-custom-font-size wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/news\/ng-interactive\/2026\/sep\/22\/a-tale-of-two-trap-houses-being-cuckooed-ruined-my-friends-life-but-did-it-then-help-save-him\/?src=longreads\" style=\"padding-top:15px;padding-right:15px;padding-bottom:15px;padding-left:15px;font-size:20px\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-gray-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\t<div\n\t\tclass=\"wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles is-style-borders wpnbha is-grid columns-3 colgap-3 ts-2 is-style-borders\"\n\t\tstyle=\"\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t<div data-posts data-current-post-id=\"259954\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-section-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>More drug-related picks<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"259954\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-addiction-and-recovery tag-cuckooed tag-drug-addiction tag-drug-dealing tag-drugs tag-longreads tag-max-daly tag-the-guardian tag-trap-houses category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/24\/drug-dealer-trap-houses\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">A Tale of Two Trap Houses: Being Cuckooed Ruined My Friend\u2019s Life\u2014But Did It Then Help Save Him?<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tMax Daly | The Guardian | September 22, 2026 | 5,799 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Drug gangs have moved off Britain\u2019s streets and into vulnerable people\u2019s homes. Addicts like my friend are easy targets, but the reality can be more complicated than it seems.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"259896\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-1843 tag-alexander-clapp tag-cocaine tag-crime tag-drug-trafficking tag-drugs tag-holland tag-jos-leijdekkers tag-sierra-leone tag-true-crime category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/23\/jos-leijdekkers-sierra-leone\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">He Was One of the World\u2019s Most Wanted Men. So He Bought a West African Country.<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tAlexander Clapp | 1843 | September 18, 2026 | 6,966 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;How Jos Leijdekkers turned Sierra Leone into a drug-dealer\u2019s paradise.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"257807\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-cartels tag-disappearances tag-drug tag-drug-trafficking tag-eliezer-budasoff tag-equator tag-forced-labor tag-human-rights tag-investigation tag-marcela-turati tag-mexico tag-quinto-elemento-lab tag-slavery tag-thelma-gomez-duran category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/08\/04\/we-were-simply-animals\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">&#8216;We Were Simply Animals&#8217;<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tMarcela Turati, Thelma G\u00f3mez Dur\u00e1n, and Eliezer Budasoff | Equator | July 29, 2026 | 8,162 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;What happens to the disappeared in Mexico\u2019s narco-slavery camps.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"241527\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-canada tag-crime tag-drug-trafficking tag-el-chapo tag-mexico tag-olympics tag-ryan-wedding tag-simon-lewsen tag-sinaloa tag-snowboarding tag-sports tag-toronto-life tag-true-crime category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2025\/08\/18\/becoming-el-jefe\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Becoming El Jefe<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tSimon Lewson | Toronto Life | July 28, 2025 | 5,954 words\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Before Ryan Wedding landed on the FBI\u2019s Most Wanted list as a high-level associate of El Chapo, he was a bright-eyed kid from Thunder Bay. The inside story of how an Olympic snowboarding prodigy became one of the world\u2019s most dangerous and powerful drug lords.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"238586\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-5280 tag-5280-magazine tag-colorado tag-drugs tag-mushrooms tag-psilocybin tag-research tag-robert-sanchez tag-therapy category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2025\/06\/03\/i-tried-magic-mushrooms-for-my-mental-health-heres-what-happened\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">I Tried Magic Mushrooms for My Mental Health. Here\u2019s What Happened.<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tRobert Sanchez | 5280 | June 1, 2025 | 5,980 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;In Colorado, scientists and entrepreneurs are looking to bring psychedelic mushrooms to the masses. Could their purported healing properties help me?&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"238245\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-andy-greenberg tag-dark-web tag-dmt tag-drugs tag-hallucinogenics tag-wired category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2025\/05\/23\/dark-web-dmt-kingpin-wired\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The Epic Rise and Fall of a Dark-Web Psychedelics Kingpin<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tAndy Greenberg | Wired | May 22, 2025 | 12,182 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Interdimensional travel, sex with aliens, communion with God. Anything is possible with just a sprinkle of DMT. Akasha Song\u2019s secret labs made millions of doses\u2014and dollars\u2014until the feds showed up.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Drug gangs have moved off Britain\u2019s streets and into vulnerable people\u2019s homes. Addicts like my friend are easy targets, but the reality can be more complicated than it seems.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":698,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"scaip_prevent_shortcode_addition":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"Max Daly | The Guardian | September 22, 2026 | 5,799 words","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"republication-tracker-tool-hide-widget":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15973],"tags":[227,29340,229,29339,231,325,29333,154,29341],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[15376],"class_list":["post-259954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-pick","tag-addiction-and-recovery","tag-cuckooed","tag-drug-addiction","tag-drug-dealing","tag-drugs","tag-longreads","tag-max-daly","tag-the-guardian","tag-trap-houses","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Tale of Two Trap Houses: Being Cuckooed Ruined My Friend\u2019s Life\u2014But Did It Then Help Save Him? - Longreads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/24\/drug-dealer-trap-houses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Tale of Two Trap Houses: Being Cuckooed Ruined My Friend\u2019s Life\u2014But Did It Then Help Save Him? - Longreads\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;Drug gangs have moved off Britain\u2019s streets and into vulnerable people\u2019s homes. 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Melodic Strains"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Audiophiles are sometimes described in terms reserved for cults; a 1956 <em>New Yorker<\/em> story, referenced in Colin Vanderburg&#8217;s exceptional tour of extreme listening, refers to &#8220;a remarkably articulate group of zealots&#8221; and &#8220;an almost mystical reverence for sound.&#8221; Vanderburg travels among the believers, tracing the decades-long promise of &#8220;consumer audio innovations&#8221; to their technological apex: the New York International Audio Show, where audiophiles sample six-figure sound systems in pursuit of a signal as pure as the world they already inhabit.<\/p>\n<span hidden class=\"__iawmlf-post-loop-links\" data-iawmlf-links=\"[{&quot;id&quot;:49083,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.nplusonemag.com\\\/issue-54\\\/essays\\\/heavens-melodic-strains?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260924152755\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.nplusonemag.com\\\/issue-54\\\/essays\\\/heavens-melodic-strains\\\/?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.nplusonemag.com\\\/issue-54\\\/essays\\\/heavens-melodic-strains\\\/?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-24 16:05:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:202}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-24 16:05:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:202},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More than anything, I have spent long passages of this earthly life sitting on my ass, listening. I listen to music, but what I&nbsp;<em>hear<\/em>&nbsp;is sound. Texture, timbre, and tone; clarity and detail; space and depth. And I hear, even more acutely, what thwarts sound. Shrill treble, muddled bass\u200a\u2014\u200afor me these are worse than peeves. They offend hearing. They diminish the human sensorium. Earbuds repulse me; laptop speakers grate; a tabletop Bluetooth unit is a kind of vandalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The word&nbsp;<em>audiophile<\/em>\u200a\u2014\u200aetymologically, one who \u201cloves to hear\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200ahas a wine-sipping pretension that I hate, but sometimes an ugly shoe fits. Like similarly suffixed psychopathologies, the term suggests a state of warped dependence, of inbent sublimation. I didn\u2019t set out to be this way, but neither have I ever sought help. My symptoms are apparent, their causes obscure. What, after all, do we love when we love sound?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe48e5de wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div style=\"--wp--block-button--width: 50;\" class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width wp-block-button__width-50\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-primary-background-color has-background has-custom-font-size wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nplusonemag.com\/issue-54\/essays\/heavens-melodic-strains\/?src=longreads\" style=\"padding-top:15px;padding-right:15px;padding-bottom:15px;padding-left:15px;font-size:20px\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-gray-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\t<div\n\t\tclass=\"wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles is-style-borders wpnbha is-grid columns-3 colgap-3 ts-2 is-style-borders\"\n\t\tstyle=\"\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t<div data-posts data-current-post-id=\"259914\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-section-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>Long features for deep listeners<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"255229\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-health tag-misophonia tag-neurophysiological-disorder tag-sloane-crosley tag-sound tag-the-new-yorker category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/06\/09\/misophonia-sound\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">For People with Misophonia, Everyday Noises Can Be Agony<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tSloane Crosley | The New Yorker | June 8, 2026 | 4,660 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;The neurophysiological disorder is characterized by a severe aversion to sound\u2014and the struggle to convince others of the severity of that aversion.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"251552\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-conversation tag-dj tag-electronic-music tag-experimental-music tag-future tag-improvisation tag-innovation tag-interview tag-jeff-mills tag-music tag-pioneer-works-broadcast tag-russell-e-l-butler tag-sound tag-techno tag-time category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/03\/17\/jeff-mills-dj-sound-techno\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Jeff Mills Loves to Forget<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tRussell E. L. Butler | Pioneer Works Broadcast | March 11, 2026 | 3,316 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;How techno\u2019s most vaunted architect is still building sonic futures.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"240297\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-atlas-obscura tag-colin-dickey tag-mystery tag-oregon tag-sound tag-sounds category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2025\/07\/15\/forest-grove-mystery-sound-eerie\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Listening for Echoes of the Forest Grove Sound<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tColin Dickey | Atlas Obscura | July 11, 2025 | 3,466 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;A physics expert and audio engineer may have solved the mystery of a strange noise that rattled an Oregon town in 2016.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;From a certain height, the problem becomes one of knowledge itself: Do you believe what you hear, or do you hear what you believe?&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"scaip_prevent_shortcode_addition":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"Colin Vanderburg | n+1 | September 19, 2026 | 6,474 words","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"republication-tracker-tool-hide-widget":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15973],"tags":[23071,29336,29334,28742,55,110,25140,29335,21244,29338,1546],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[15505],"class_list":["post-259914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-pick","tag-audiophile","tag-audiophilia","tag-colin-vanderburg","tag-listening","tag-music","tag-n1","tag-noise","tag-signal","tag-sound","tag-speakers","tag-technology","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Heaven&#039;s Melodic Strains - Longreads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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Meaning, One Step at a Time: A Conversation with Earl Swift"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignfull has-background\" style=\"background-color:#f7f7f7\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-not-stacked-on-mobile is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-8f761849 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:20%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"512\" height=\"512\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/longreads-logo-sm-rgb.png?resize=512%2C512&#038;quality=80&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-232091\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/longreads-logo-sm-rgb.png?w=512&amp;quality=80&amp;ssl=1 512w, 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19:15:30&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-23 19:15:30&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:49076,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/bookshop.org\\\/p\\\/books\\\/up-on-cove-mountain-adventure-tragedy-and-a-quest-for-meaning-on-the-appalachian-trail-earl-swift\\\/efc4ed61acba7b83?ean=9780063265431\\u0026bkshp-astro=t&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:80%\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:22px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400\">Thoughtful stories for thoughtless times.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:17px\">Longreads has published hundreds of original stories\u2014personal essays, reported features, reading lists, and more\u2014and more than 14,000 editor&#8217;s picks. <strong>And they&#8217;re all funded by readers like you.<\/strong> Become a member today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-primary-background-color has-background wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/join?src=top-promo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">I want to support Longreads<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Earl Swift was a reporter for <\/em>The Virginia Pilot<em> and has contributed to <\/em>Outside<em>. He\u2019s been nominated for a Pulitzer eight times. Among other books, he wrote <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/chesapeake-requiem-a-year-with-the-watermen-of-vanishing-tangier-island-earl-swift\/e767b0c62cdbd0d0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Chesapeake Requiem<\/a><em>, a <\/em>New York Times<em> bestseller that chronicles a year in the life of Tangier Island, located 12 miles out in the middle of Virginia\u2019s Chesapeake Bay. There, a dozen miles from shore, residents live a life with \u201cone foot in the twenty-first century and another in times long passed,\u201d he writes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Swift <a href=\"https:\/\/brendanomeara.com\/episode-542-earl-swift-and-the-battle-to-get-the-reader-to-the-last-word\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">spoke with<\/a> Brendan O\u2019Meara, host of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/brendanomeara.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Creative Nonfiction Podcast<\/a><em>, about reporting and writing his new book, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/up-on-cove-mountain-adventure-tragedy-and-a-quest-for-meaning-on-the-appalachian-trail-earl-swift\/efc4ed61acba7b83?ean=9780063265431&amp;bkshp-astro=t\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Up on Cove Mountain: Adventure, Tragedy, and a Quest for Meaning on the Appalachian Trail<\/a><em>. Swift hiked the 2,000-mile trail twice, 30 years apart, in order to write the book. He talks with O\u2019Meara about story structure, getting close to the truth, and why it\u2019s important to remove the speedbumps that might cause a reader to abandon your story before the end.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This conversation has been edited for pacing and flow.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u2014Krista Stevens<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Brendan<\/strong>: Much has been written about the Appalachian Trail, and you&#8217;ve brought a different kind of sensibility to it. How do you make your book fresh and immediate and yet able to sit alongside all the other titles about the trail?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Earl<\/strong>: I&#8217;m lucky, in the sense that probably the two best books about trail hikes were written by people who didn\u2019t finish them. Bill Bryson was one and Cheryl Strayed was the other. Most trail accounts are self-published and unedited, written by folks with relatively little writing experience. Not to sound highfalutin, but it shows. I also knew I had a story to tell with Molly and Jeff and what had happened there. [Ed: to say more about Molly and Jeff here would spoil the plot of Swift&#8217;s book.] I felt I was pretty well-suited to tell that story. The opportunity was to be that one rare book about a trail journey that stands apart, and I figured it was worth the risk to try to write that book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Brendan<\/strong>: As you hiked south, getting into Georgia, you started to experience congestion, more people. You noticed a generational divide at Low Gap and other campsites. Younger hikers seem predisposed to tenting, no matter what. Even in the middle of a downpour, they&#8217;ll choose their individual shelter over the communal. You also noticed isolation and phones, something you wouldn\u2019t see 30 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Earl<\/strong>: You didn&#8217;t see it 30 years ago because there were no phones. We forget that the smartphone didn&#8217;t come along until 2007, a full 17 years after I did that first hike. It was a very different environment back then. This was eight years before Bill Bryson wrote <em>A Walk in the Woods<\/em>. The trail did not occupy a spot in the collective consciousness. It was not part of American culture the way it has become since, and so you were dealing with people who were drawn from a much narrower band of society. There were people who were already outdoorsy, and that&#8217;s not necessarily the case now. All walks [of life] attempt a thru hike these days, but back then it tended to be people who were already part of the fraternity. If you wanted to make a call, you hitchhiked to the nearest town and went to a payphone. There was no other option. If you wanted a pizza, you had to hitch into town. Now you have people who will get on their phones when they&#8217;re two miles from the nearest road crossing, and they&#8217;ll arrange for a pizza joint to deliver a pie at the road crossing when they arrive, which would have been science fiction.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Brendan<\/strong>: There&#8217;s a balance in what to include, so that it doesn&#8217;t feel repetitive. You need to pick high intensity moments, be it the physical experience of a gnarly section of trail, or the three siblings from Kentucky who are assholes with no etiquette. You pick these moments so it&#8217;s not front-loaded or middle-loaded or back-loaded. There is a delicacy in how you deploy various elements throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Earl<\/strong>: For any storyteller, proportionality is the key ingredient. You must figure out how much of each piece you share with the reader. If there\u2019s one fatal flaw in most trail chronicles, it&#8217;s that writers don&#8217;t make enough of a distinction between telling moments and untelling moments. They just throw everything at you, and it gets boring.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are relatively few classic books about the Appalachian Trail, but one of them came in the late \u201970s. It&#8217;s this two-volume, 1,000-page book called <em>Hiking the Appalachian Trail<\/em>. It gives you first-person accounts of the first 50 or so thru hikes. By 100 pages into the first volume, you&#8217;ve gone numb because every story is exactly the same. Part of the problem is that the whole tenor of the story is <em>This happened, and then this happened.<\/em> There&#8217;s never a moment&#8217;s pause to reflect on what it means and why I should care as a reader. Everything&#8217;s treated as equally important, and therefore nothing is important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>Job one, for anybody writing a book\u2014for anybody writing a story of any kind, of any length\u2014is to get the reader to that last word. If you don&#8217;t do that, it doesn&#8217;t matter which pretty words you drop in the middle of the story.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Brendan<\/strong>: You\u2019re the tour guide and you\u2019re going to point to what matters. That degree of authorial authority is integral to any narrative, especially something like this, because otherwise it would just be so rote and boring. You have to imbue it with a pulse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Earl<\/strong>: Job one, for anybody writing a book\u2014for anybody writing a story of any kind, of any length\u2014is to get the reader to that last word. If you don&#8217;t do that, it doesn&#8217;t matter which pretty words you drop in the middle of the story. It doesn&#8217;t matter how brilliantly conceived it is. The story has failed because you have failed to get the reader to the end, to the finish line.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The whole process of structuring a story, and strategizing about a story comes down to, <em>How do I remove all the speed bumps that will encourage the reader to set this aside<\/em>? If you can do that effectively, then you win, you get the reader to finish the story. The reader can badmouth the story after the fact. If the reader&#8217;s reached the end, you as the writer have achieved what you set out to do. All you can ask is for them to finish the story. You can&#8217;t ask them to like it. That&#8217;s up to them. But you can get them to finish it if you do it right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We make decisions about what we include and what we leave out. We decide where we start a story, which is not always at the beginning. We decide where we&#8217;re going to end it, which is not always at the ending. You hope that in making those decisions, you get the reader to the truth, or pretty damn close to it, as close as you can, given the facts that you&#8217;re working with. But it is a construct, and it is your responsibility. Structure your story in such a way that the story will achieve what it sets out to do. That it will succeed in terms of incorporating enough propulsion to get the reader to the end.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I probably spent three months doing nothing but cutting. Most of the writing of this book was cutting. I wrote a journal while I was hiking, and then I did nothing but cut when it came to writing the book.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Brendan<\/strong>: In what ways did the hike change you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Earl<\/strong>: In 1990, the big takeaway for me was that I could do anything. It boosted my confidence to the point where I&#8217;m sure I was pretty obnoxious in the months immediately after. God knows I must have been difficult to deal with. I could do anything! It made me Superman. Part of that was seeing something demonstrated daily that my dad had been saying to me for years. He was always big on saying, &#8220;How do you eat the elephant? One bite at a time.\u201d It had just been \u201cdad talk\u201d to me until this hike, when I realized part of being able to do anything is knowing how to bust it up into its components, and then bust those components up into their individual ingredients. How to take each little bite-sized fragment in sequence, and pretty soon you&#8217;ve accomplished the whole thing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That dictated my approach to big assignments at the paper and in magazines, and certainly it has informed every book effort. It&#8217;s a stupid amount of work to write a book. I wouldn&#8217;t recommend this line of work to anybody. It&#8217;s a ridiculous way to try to make a living. So uncertain, so filled with terror, and so potentially without reward of any kind. But breaking the 2,200 miles into daily doses of 14 to 17 miles describes perfectly how I go about writing a book now. You don&#8217;t sit down to write 105,000 words. You sit down to write 1,200 words a day. That&#8217;s my daily quota. Do that over enough days, and pretty soon you have the 105,000 words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Brendan<\/strong>: How did you settle on 1,200?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Earl<\/strong>: Early on, with my first couple of books, it was 2,000, and I just whacked it down. My first hike, I had no trouble banging out 17 to 20 miles a day. Now, 14 miles feels like a pretty tough day at the office, a long day.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s the same with writing. Twelve hundred words takes as much out of me now as 2,000 used to. I&#8217;ll probably drop it down to 1,100, maybe even 1,000 with the next book. I&#8217;d like to think that the words are better than they used to be. I still find that I spend the first hour or two every morning, in the middle of a book project, going back through what I thought were perfect words laid down the day before. Invariably, when I wake up, I find that they weren&#8217;t so perfect after all. In fact, they need a lot of fixing and so I do repair for the first couple of hours, and then try to make something out of the rest of the day with new stuff.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Listen to the full conversation below.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-pocket-casts wp-block-embed-pocket-casts\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div style=\"width: 100%; max-width: 500px; max-height: 100%; position: relative;\">    <div style=\"padding-bottom: 56.25%;\"><\/div>    <iframe title=\"Episode 542: Earl Swift and the Battle to Get the Reader to the Last Word - The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O&#039;Meara\" src=\"https:\/\/pca.st\/embed\/9c994ugm\" style=\"border: 0; border-radius: 8px; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Strong pacing and flow gets your reader to the finish line. The author of Up On Cove Mountain explains why they\u2019re so important.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":259865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"scaip_prevent_shortcode_addition":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"Strong pacing and flow gets your reader to the finish line. The author of Up On Cove Mountain explains why they\u2019re so important.\u00a0","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"republication-tracker-tool-hide-widget":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15974],"tags":[1675,5387,25881,1680,196,29322,489],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[15713],"class_list":["post-259863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","tag-appalachian-trail","tag-craft","tag-creative-nonfiction-podcast","tag-hiking","tag-murder","tag-proportionality","tag-writing","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Making Meaning, One Step at a Time: A Conversation with Earl Swift - Longreads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/24\/proportionality-earl-swift\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Making Meaning, One Step at a Time: A Conversation with Earl Swift - Longreads\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Strong pacing and flow gets your reader to the finish line. 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Was One of the World\u2019s Most Wanted Men. So He Bought a West African Country."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just a few years ago, Jos Leijdekkers was a gangster in Antwerp, working for a major drug lord. Today he&#8217;s the most powerful man in Sierra Leone, which he&#8217;s single-handedly turned into a crucial port in the transatlantic cocaine trade. European authorities haven&#8217;t been able to track him down. Can a journalist? Alexander Clapp details Leijdekkers&#8217;s remarkable, violent rise to power, while looking for the man himself:<\/p>\n<span hidden class=\"__iawmlf-post-loop-links\" data-iawmlf-links=\"[{&quot;id&quot;:49080,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.economist.com\\\/interactive\\\/1843\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/18\\\/cocaine-trafficking-sierra-leone?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThese kinds of people, we are always seeing them in Africa. They come, they disappear. But the moment we learned who he was, it freaked me out,\u201d a local car-dealer who was one of the first people to sell a motor to Leijdekkers, told me. \u201cI left Sierra Leone after finding out. I became really scared. Not small scared.\u201d Sophie van Leeuwen, a Dutch correspondent for\u00a0<small>RTL<\/small>\u00a0News, told me she \u201chad the strong feeling I was being followed by the secret police\u201d during the first days of a reporting trip she took to Sierra Leone in February 2025. She was arrested outside a villa where Leijdekkers was believed to reside, informed that she had intruded upon a \u201cspecial security situation\u201d, and questioned for 15 hours. Her camera and computer were searched and scrubbed. The Flemish owner of her hotel was interrogated over her alleged role in seeding a European spy network in Sierra Leone.<br><br>One evening in the hills above Freetown I attended a cocktail party where Western diplomats mingled with aid-workers. \u201cCareful with that,\u201d a European mission head told me when I mentioned why I had come to Africa, swivelling her blue eyes round the room. A Norwegian mining investor assured me that there would only be one way of knowing whether I was making progress in my investigation: \u201cThe government will arrange a car crash for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe48e5de wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div style=\"--wp--block-button--width: 50;\" class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width wp-block-button__width-50\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-primary-background-color has-background has-custom-font-size wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/interactive\/1843\/2026\/09\/18\/cocaine-trafficking-sierra-leone?src=longreads\" style=\"padding-top:15px;padding-right:15px;padding-bottom:15px;padding-left:15px;font-size:20px\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-gray-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\t<div\n\t\tclass=\"wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles is-style-borders wpnbha is-grid columns-3 colgap-3 ts-2 is-style-borders\"\n\t\tstyle=\"\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t<div data-posts data-current-post-id=\"259896\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-section-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>More stories about drug trafficking<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"259896\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-1843 tag-alexander-clapp tag-cocaine tag-crime tag-drug-trafficking tag-drugs tag-holland tag-jos-leijdekkers tag-sierra-leone tag-true-crime category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/23\/jos-leijdekkers-sierra-leone\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">He Was One of the World\u2019s Most Wanted Men. So He Bought a West African Country.<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tAlexander Clapp | 1843 | September 18, 2026 | 6,966 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;How Jos Leijdekkers turned Sierra Leone into a drug-dealer\u2019s paradise.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"257807\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-cartels tag-disappearances tag-drug tag-drug-trafficking tag-eliezer-budasoff tag-equator tag-forced-labor tag-human-rights tag-investigation tag-marcela-turati tag-mexico tag-quinto-elemento-lab tag-slavery tag-thelma-gomez-duran category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/08\/04\/we-were-simply-animals\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">&#8216;We Were Simply Animals&#8217;<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tMarcela Turati, Thelma G\u00f3mez Dur\u00e1n, and Eliezer Budasoff | Equator | July 29, 2026 | 8,162 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;What happens to the disappeared in Mexico\u2019s narco-slavery camps.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"241527\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-canada tag-crime tag-drug-trafficking tag-el-chapo tag-mexico tag-olympics tag-ryan-wedding tag-simon-lewsen tag-sinaloa tag-snowboarding tag-sports tag-toronto-life tag-true-crime category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2025\/08\/18\/becoming-el-jefe\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Becoming El Jefe<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tSimon Lewson | Toronto Life | July 28, 2025 | 5,954 words\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Before Ryan Wedding landed on the FBI\u2019s Most Wanted list as a high-level associate of El Chapo, he was a bright-eyed kid from Thunder Bay. The inside story of how an Olympic snowboarding prodigy became one of the world\u2019s most dangerous and powerful drug lords.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;How Jos Leijdekkers turned Sierra Leone into a drug-dealer\u2019s paradise.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"scaip_prevent_shortcode_addition":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"Alexander Clapp | 1843 | September 18, 2026 | 6,966 words","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"republication-tracker-tool-hide-widget":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15973],"tags":[29329,29328,4786,219,3114,231,29332,29331,29330,351],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[16813],"class_list":["post-259896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-pick","tag-29329","tag-alexander-clapp","tag-cocaine","tag-crime","tag-drug-trafficking","tag-drugs","tag-holland","tag-jos-leijdekkers","tag-sierra-leone","tag-true-crime","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>He Was One of the World\u2019s Most Wanted Men. 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How do our broken pieces define us? For <em>The American Scholar<\/em>, Joshua Bodwell offers a brief autobiography in dental work, examining the ways in which a broken tooth and a handful of interventions shaped his self-perception over decades. He also chews over (sorry) a select literary history of teeth, from Chaucer to Raymond Carver, and seems to ask virtually everyone in his life about their own smiles. His essay is an engaging study of imperfection, of a type many folks live with but might easily hide. <\/p>\n<span hidden class=\"__iawmlf-post-loop-links\" data-iawmlf-links=\"[{&quot;id&quot;:49081,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/theamericanscholar.org\\\/my-two-front-teeth\\\/?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260923194600\\\/https:\\\/\\\/theamericanscholar.org\\\/my-two-front-teeth\\\/?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-23 20:20:46&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-23 20:20:46&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I left my chipped tooth untouched for a long time. It continued to discolor. I suppose I accepted it. Maybe it did make me look, as my friend suggested, tough. At the very least, it gave me an air of wildness. Or maybe it was because I was without dental insurance and acceptance was the easiest path. For long periods, I forgot about my tooth entirely. Until, of course, I met someone new who would ask, assuming it was recent, \u201cWhat&nbsp;<em>happened<\/em>&nbsp;to your tooth!?\u201d With that I went tight-lipped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then a surprising thing began to happen. As I got older, became a father, moved into a more demanding career, I found that I thought about my tooth less and less. At least, I think I did. I mean, I must have: There are photos of me with friends from this period, laughing without reserve, my half fake tooth on full display. A strange thing was happening to my unchipped front tooth, too: It began to seem more perfect than it actually was simply because it shared the stage with a chipped partner.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe48e5de wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div style=\"--wp--block-button--width: 50;\" class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width wp-block-button__width-50\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-primary-background-color has-background has-custom-font-size wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/theamericanscholar.org\/my-two-front-teeth\/?src=longreads\" style=\"padding-top:15px;padding-right:15px;padding-bottom:15px;padding-left:15px;font-size:20px\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-gray-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\t<div\n\t\tclass=\"wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles is-style-borders wpnbha is-grid columns-3 colgap-3 ts-2 is-style-borders\"\n\t\tstyle=\"\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t<div data-posts data-current-post-id=\"259883\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-section-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>More stories about the body and the self<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"251848\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-art tag-babies tag-bodies tag-feminism tag-megan-ogrady tag-motherhood tag-photography tag-the-yale-review category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/03\/25\/the-body-i-couldnt-abstract\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The Body I Couldn&#8217;t Abstract<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tMegan O&#8217;Grady | The Yale Review | March 16, 2026 | 4,992 words \t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Motherhood reshaped how I see shame, art, and the female body.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"178065\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-afghanistan tag-al-jazeera tag-dentures tag-kandahar tag-profile tag-teeth category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2022\/09\/23\/the-teeth-makers-of-kandahar\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The Teeth Makers of Kandahar<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tLynzy Billing | Al Jazeera America | September 18, 2022 | 2,214 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Haji Muhammad Sultan owns a business in the center of Kandahar, Afghanistan\u2019s second-largest city, dedicated to handcrafting high-quality dentures.\u2026<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"239843\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-aeon tag-anthropology tag-bodies tag-culture tag-design tag-fashion tag-history tag-matthew-mccormack tag-shoes tag-society category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2025\/07\/01\/shoes-history-society\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Walk In These<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tMatthew McCormack | Aeon | June 30, 2025 | 3,205 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Shoes are deeply personal, literally moulded to our lives. But they create our social lives as much as express\u2026<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Reflections on a lifetime of dental 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is a Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a brief time, Sacha Jafri was both the creator of the world\u2019s largest painting and one of the world\u2019s most expensive living artists, after his 17,000\u2011square\u2011foot work <em>The Journey of Humanity<\/em> was theatrically &#8220;sold&#8221; for $62 million at a Dubai charity auction. The buyer, French &#8220;crypto billionaire&#8221; Andr\u00e9 Abdoune, never paid a cent and, given his history as a serial fraudster, almost certainly never will\u2014meaning no money ever reached the charities that were promised the proceeds. So what was the real story: a giant painting, or a giant scam?<\/p>\n<span hidden class=\"__iawmlf-post-loop-links\" data-iawmlf-links=\"[{&quot;id&quot;:49079,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/the-fence.com\\\/article\\\/impossibility-is-a-myth\\\/?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260922160242\\\/https:\\\/\\\/the-fence.com\\\/article\\\/impossibility-is-a-myth?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/the-fence.com\\\/article\\\/impossibility-is-a-myth?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-22 16:16:56&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-22 16:16:56&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many of Jafri\u2019s other claims do not stand up to scrutiny. He is often touted as an artist whose work sells in the millions, but publicly available commercial auction records are more modest. His most expensive painting before <em>The Journey Of Humanity<\/em> was a piece called <em>Dance of the Midnight Samurai,<\/em> which sold in 2019 for approximately $70,000. The previous year, another work, <em>Dreamscape II<\/em>, went unsold at two auctions, before eventually being acquired for $893. Newspaper articles document purchases by Kevin Spacey and Guy Ritchie, but there are no reports of sales to Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. No pictures exist of their red-printed hands.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe48e5de wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div style=\"--wp--block-button--width: 50;\" class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width wp-block-button__width-50\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-primary-background-color has-background has-custom-font-size wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/the-fence.com\/article\/impossibility-is-a-myth\/?src=longreads\" style=\"padding-top:15px;padding-right:15px;padding-bottom:15px;padding-left:15px;font-size:20px\">Read the story<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-gray-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\t<div\n\t\tclass=\"wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles is-style-borders wpnbha is-grid columns-3 colgap-3 ts-2 is-style-borders\"\n\t\tstyle=\"\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t<div data-posts data-current-post-id=\"259852\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-section-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>More picks on art <\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"259852\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-abraham-elton tag-art tag-fraud tag-jack-jeffery tag-longreads tag-painting tag-scam tag-the-fence category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/22\/art-scam-auction\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Impossibility is a Myth<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tJack Jeffery and Abraham Elton | The Fence | September 18, 2026 | 6,803 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Sacha Jafri sold an artwork for $62 million dollars in 2021 at an auction. But the money never changed hands. What happened?&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"259873\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-alexander-chee tag-annie-dillard tag-art tag-artist tag-creativity tag-essay tag-fiction tag-the-morning-news tag-writers tag-writing category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/22\/annie-dillard-workshop-alexander-chee-wesleyan\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Annie Dillard and the Writing Life<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tAlexander Chee | The Morning News | October 16, 2009 | 4,253 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Writers aren\u2019t born, they\u2019re made\u2014from practice, reading, and a lot of caffeine. And sometimes tutelage.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"258233\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-art tag-chris-stanton tag-christopher-nolan tag-directors tag-film tag-imax tag-interviews tag-movie-theaters tag-movies tag-pat-caldwell tag-theater tag-vulture category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/08\/13\/pat-caldwell-imax-projectionist-nolan-odyssey\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Thank This Retired Projectionist for Those 3 a.m.\u00a0Odyssey\u00a070-mm. Imax Showings<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tChris Stanton | Vulture | August 3, 2026 | 3,576 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;A Tennessee native and longtime film projectionist who first started working in Imax theaters in the \u201990s, Caldwell has become integral to Imax\u2019s 70-mm. rollouts even as he considers himself mostly retired.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"257455\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-art tag-automation tag-building tag-coherence tag-geology tag-making tag-matt-seaton tag-rocks tag-stone-walls tag-the-atlantic tag-time tag-writing category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/07\/29\/stone-walls-new-england\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The Beauty of a Stone Wall<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tMatt Seaton | The Atlantic | July 19, 2026 | 1,821 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Why we love them, and why I build them.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"257452\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-art tag-artists tag-charles-ross tag-land-art tag-new-mexico tag-pyramids tag-star-axis tag-the-new-york-times tag-travis-diehl category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/07\/27\/charles-ross-artist-star-axis\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">He&#8217;s the Last Great Land Artist You&#8217;ve Never Heard Of<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tTravis Diehl | The New York Times | July 22, 2026 | 2,580 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Charles Ross spent 50 years building &#8216;Star Axis,&#8217; a naked-eye observatory in New Mexico. Now his masterwork is ready. How to share it with a changed world?&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"257383\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-america tag-art tag-modernism tag-robert-zaretsky tag-samuel-beckett tag-the-american-scholar tag-theater tag-waiting-for-godot tag-writers tag-writing category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/07\/23\/samuel-beckett-waiting-for-godot\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Beckett the Prophet<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tRobert Zaretsky | The American Scholar | July 20, 2026 | 1,560 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;We are all, it seems, still waiting for Godot.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Sacha Jafri sold an artwork for $62 million dollars in 2021 at an auction. But the money never changed hands. What happened?&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":698,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"scaip_prevent_shortcode_addition":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"Jack Jeffery and Abraham Elton | The Fence | September 18, 2026 | 6,803 words","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"republication-tracker-tool-hide-widget":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15973],"tags":[29320,735,220,29319,325,1902,4832,24556],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[15376],"class_list":["post-259852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-pick","tag-abraham-elton","tag-art","tag-fraud","tag-jack-jeffery","tag-longreads","tag-painting","tag-scam","tag-the-fence","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Impossibility is a Myth - Longreads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/22\/art-scam-auction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Impossibility is a Myth - Longreads\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;Sacha Jafri sold an artwork for $62 million dollars in 2021 at an auction. 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Dillard and the Writing Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Count the verbs in Alexander Chee&#8217;s essay, note the absence of emotional language, and then thank Annie Dillard for her part. Chee, an essayist and fiction writer, revisits his undergraduate writing workshop with Dillard, the distinguished, Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction writer who died last week at 81. Chee&#8217;s account of their semester together is an affectionate portrait that doubles as a brisk craft talk; in it, he puts Dillard&#8217;s lessons through their paces, a fitting tribute to the teacher who borrowed cigarette drags from her students, chewed through caramel candies during class, and nurtured his own artistic evolution with her rules and exercises.<\/p>\n<span hidden class=\"__iawmlf-post-loop-links\" data-iawmlf-links=\"[{&quot;id&quot;:49078,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/themorningnews.org\\\/annie-dillard-and-the-writing-life\\\/?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260922154228\\\/https:\\\/\\\/themorningnews.org\\\/annie-dillard-and-the-writing-life\\\/?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-22 15:54:52&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-22 15:54:52&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Narrative writing sets down details in an order that evokes the writer\u2019s experience for the reader, she announced. This seemed obvious but also radical\u2014no one had ever said it so plainly to us. She spoke often of \u201cthe job.\u201d If you\u2019re doing your job, the reader feels what you felt. You don\u2019t have to tell the reader how to feel. No one likes to be told how to feel about something. And if you doubt that, just go ahead. Try and tell someone how to feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">. . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One afternoon, at her direction, we brought in our pages, scissors and tape, and told to bring several drafts of an essay, one that we struggled with over many versions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now cut out only the best sentences, she said. And tape them on a blank page. And then when you have that, write in around them, she said. Fill in what\u2019s missing and make it reach for the best of what you\u2019ve written thus far.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe48e5de wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div style=\"--wp--block-button--width: 50;\" class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width wp-block-button__width-50\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-primary-background-color has-background has-custom-font-size wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/themorningnews.org\/annie-dillard-and-the-writing-life\/?src=longreads\" style=\"padding-top:15px;padding-right:15px;padding-bottom:15px;padding-left:15px;font-size:20px\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-gray-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\t<div\n\t\tclass=\"wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles is-style-borders wpnbha is-grid columns-3 colgap-3 ts-2 is-style-borders\"\n\t\tstyle=\"\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t<div data-posts data-current-post-id=\"259873\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-section-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>More stories about getting close to writers<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"259052\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-agriculture tag-amanda-petrusich tag-farm tag-farmers tag-home tag-interview tag-place tag-sustainability tag-the-new-yorker tag-wendell-berry tag-writers tag-writing category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/03\/wendell-berry-new-yorker-interview\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Going Home with Wendell Berry<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tAmanda Petrusich | The New Yorker |  July 14, 2019 | 6,739 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;The writer and farmer on local knowledge, embracing limits, and the exploitation of rural America.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"254192\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-david-foster-wallace tag-family tag-infinite-jest tag-interviews tag-lindsey-adler tag-profiles tag-the-small-bow tag-writers category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/05\/14\/david-foster-wallace-sister-amy\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Consider the Sister<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tLindsey Adler | The Small Bow | May 11, 2026 | 4,690 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Amy Wallace has spent two decades guarding the human her brother was\u2014against a world that prefers David Foster Wallace as a puzzle.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"244202\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-football tag-james-whitehead tag-mississippi tag-novelist tag-steve-yarbrough tag-the-american-scholar tag-writers category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2025\/10\/22\/james-whitehead-joiner\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Second and Long<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tSteve Yarbrough | The American Scholar | October 9, 2025 | 6,030 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Why did James Whitehead\u2014poet, fiction writer, and onetime college football player\u2014fail to complete a successor to his celebrated first novel?&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Writers aren\u2019t born, they\u2019re made\u2014from practice, reading, and a lot of caffeine. And sometimes tutelage.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"scaip_prevent_shortcode_addition":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"Alexander Chee | The Morning News | October 16, 2009 | 4,253 words","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"republication-tracker-tool-hide-widget":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15973],"tags":[2260,18608,735,725,664,606,2389,9325,1840,489],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[15505],"class_list":["post-259873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-pick","tag-alexander-chee","tag-annie-dillard","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-creativity","tag-essay","tag-fiction","tag-the-morning-news","tag-writers","tag-writing","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Annie Dillard and the Writing Life - Longreads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/22\/annie-dillard-workshop-alexander-chee-wesleyan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Annie Dillard and the Writing Life - Longreads\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;Writers aren\u2019t born, they\u2019re made\u2014from practice, reading, and a lot of caffeine. 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Along the way, she even gets to hold one of our little celebrities, an &#8220;otherworldly and wondrous&#8221; experience. <\/p>\n<span hidden class=\"__iawmlf-post-loop-links\" data-iawmlf-links=\"[{&quot;id&quot;:49077,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.newyorker.com\\\/magazine\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/21\\\/the-incredible-journey-of-a-migratory-shorebird&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260922001800\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.newyorker.com\\\/magazine\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/21\\\/the-incredible-journey-of-a-migratory-shorebird&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-22 14:01:11&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-22 14:01:11&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Migratory shorebirds are usually not a person\u2019s first bird crush. They lack the supernatural aura of the resplendent quetzal, and they don\u2019t go in for outlandish mating displays like that of the prairie chicken. As the Princeton University biology professor and shorebird-lover David Wilcove put it, migratory shorebirds can give an impression of being \u201clittle brown guys, buzzing around in the mud, not too big and not too small, and, whether one is a stint or a phalarope or a knot or a godwit, they\u2019re just kind of there.\u201d And yet, Wilcove told me, they are a birder\u2019s kind of bird. Once people get to know them, they tend to fall in love.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe48e5de wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div style=\"--wp--block-button--width: 50;\" class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width wp-block-button__width-50\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-primary-background-color has-background has-custom-font-size wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2026\/09\/21\/the-incredible-journey-of-a-migratory-shorebird\" style=\"padding-top:15px;padding-right:15px;padding-bottom:15px;padding-left:15px;font-size:20px\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-gray-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\t<div\n\t\tclass=\"wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles is-style-borders wpnbha is-grid columns-3 colgap-3 ts-2 is-style-borders\"\n\t\tstyle=\"\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t<div data-posts data-current-post-id=\"259843\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-section-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>More picks on birds <\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"259843\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-birds tag-longreads tag-migration tag-nature tag-rivka-galchen tag-the-new-yorker category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/22\/migration-shorebird-flight\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The Incredible Journey of a Migratory Shorebird<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tRivka Galchen | The New Yorker | September 14, 2027 | 5,727 words \t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Godwits make the longest non-stop migration in the bird world. That might be the least of their marvels. Can they survive a changing planet?&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"256874\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-birds tag-guernica tag-healing tag-illness tag-kulsoom-ijaz tag-new-york-city tag-the-wild-bird-fund tag-volunteering category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/07\/13\/birds-guernica-magazine\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">On Loving Birds<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tKulsoom Ijaz | Guernica | June 15, 2026 | 2,382 words \n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;A couple of years after I began volunteering, I realized I was hell-bent on healing birds because they, too, had healed me\u2014in more ways than one.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"256820\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-animals tag-birds tag-illegal tag-indonesia tag-knowable-magazine tag-sandy-ong tag-singing tag-smuggling tag-songbirds tag-southeast-asia tag-wildlife category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/07\/13\/bird-singing-contests-indonesia\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The Lucrative Bird-Singing Contests That Are Pushing Species to the Brink<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tSandy Ong | Knowable Magazine | July 7, 2026 | 2,240 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Millions of songbirds in Southeast Asia are trapped and smuggled each year for keeping as pets or entering in competitions. Scientists warn that it&#8217;s fueling a crisis.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"256254\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-animals tag-audubon tag-birds tag-communication tag-corvids tag-crows tag-elizabeth-preston tag-friendship tag-nature tag-wildlife category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/06\/30\/crows-friendship\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Are Crows Really Our Friends?<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tElizabeth Preston | Audubon | June 23, 2026 | 2,533 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;An investigation into the state of corvid\u2013human relations.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"252956\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-america tag-belonging tag-expat tag-lindsey-tramuta tag-migration tag-relocation tag-the-bitter-southerner category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/04\/17\/leaving-america-expat-migration\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Leaving America<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tLindsey Tramuta | The Bitter Southerner | March 14, 2026 | 3,900 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;Americans have always moved away. These days, expat Lindsey Tramuta writes, record numbers are leaving or planning to leave in search of health care, civil rights, freedoms, even safety. Does exiting the United States mean you\u2019ve given up? Not necessarily.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"249576\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-birds tag-cheryl-katz tag-climate-change tag-falklands tag-penguins tag-smithsonian-magazine category-editors-pick category-uncategorized type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/02\/04\/rockhopper-penguins-athleticism-makes-them-the-daredevils-of-the-animal-world-will-a-warming-climate-slow-them-down\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Rockhopper Penguins\u2019 Athleticism Makes Them the Daredevils of the Animal World. Will a Warming Climate Slow Them Down?<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tCheryl Katz | Smithsonian Magazine |  February 1, 2026 | 4,400 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;A visit to the Falkland Islands, where the fearless seabirds navigate the rugged topography with tenacious spunk, shows the new challenges they face.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Godwits make the longest non-stop migration in the bird world. That might be the least of their marvels. Can they survive a changing planet?&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":698,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"scaip_prevent_shortcode_addition":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"Rivka Galchen | The New Yorker | September 14, 2027 | 5,727 words ","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"republication-tracker-tool-hide-widget":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15973],"tags":[1663,325,1795,1140,21391,77],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[15376],"class_list":["post-259843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-pick","tag-birds","tag-longreads","tag-migration","tag-nature","tag-rivka-galchen","tag-the-new-yorker","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Incredible Journey of a Migratory Shorebird - Longreads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/22\/migration-shorebird-flight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Incredible Journey of a Migratory Shorebird - Longreads\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;Godwits make the longest non-stop migration in the bird world. 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Cities and Oceans Meet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What does it mean to live in a disappearing place? For Pioneer Works\u2019 <em>Broadcast<\/em>, Brad Bolman, a professor of history and environmental studies at Tulane University, writes about New Orleans, the shifting borders between land and sea, and the political and economic forces that continue to shape the city&#8217;s fate in a time of climate catastrophe.<\/p>\n<span hidden class=\"__iawmlf-post-loop-links\" data-iawmlf-links=\"[{&quot;id&quot;:49073,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/pioneerworks.org\\\/broadcast\\\/wet-places-nola-brad-bolman-oceans?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260922120201\\\/https:\\\/\\\/pioneerworks.org\\\/broadcast\\\/wet-places-nola-brad-bolman-oceans?src=longreads&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-22 12:15:41&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-22 12:15:41&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If Los Angeles is the city that has been imaginatively destroyed again and again in film and TV, as Thom Andersen argues in <em>Los Angeles Plays Itself<\/em>, New Orleans is the one that has been destroyed countless times in reality. We have survived worse and rebuilt before, many insisted. We\u2019re staying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was a reaction as understandable emotionally as it was disconnected from environmental reality. But that gap is a feature of life in the Crescent City. As I watched my first Mardi Gras parade this spring, junk falling in never-ending torrents from brightly decorated floats, a friend sympathetically interjected, \u201cThis must be driving you crazy.\u201d What they meant was that as someone who teaches about environmental history but isn\u2019t <em>from here<\/em>, I must be especially affected by the throwaway culture of the city\u2019s most famous f\u00eate and its tons and tons of plastic beads, made from the same fossil fuels that are causing sea levels to rise around us.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe48e5de wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div style=\"--wp--block-button--width: 50;\" class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width wp-block-button__width-50\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-primary-background-color has-background has-custom-font-size wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/pioneerworks.org\/broadcast\/wet-places-nola-brad-bolman-oceans?src=longreads\" style=\"padding-top:15px;padding-right:15px;padding-bottom:15px;padding-left:15px;font-size:20px\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-style-border has-light-gray-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\t<div\n\t\tclass=\"wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles is-style-borders wpnbha is-grid columns-3 colgap-3 ts-2 is-style-borders\"\n\t\tstyle=\"\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t<div data-posts data-current-post-id=\"259839\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-section-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>More stories on New Orleans<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"259839\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-brad-bolman tag-climate-change tag-coastline tag-new-orleans tag-ocean tag-pioneer-works-broadcast tag-water category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/09\/22\/disappearing-new-orleans-water\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Where Cities and Oceans Meet<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tBrad Bolman | Pioneer Works Broadcast | September 16, 2026 | 2,954 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;In New Orleans, water is coming. What should we do with the time we have left?&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"255490\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-cooking tag-food tag-new-orleans tag-oxford-american tag-parenting tag-todd-kliman category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/06\/11\/submitting-to-the-beast\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Submitting to the Beast<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tTodd Kliman | Oxford American | April 14, 2026 | 5,995 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;A father and son in New Orleans\u2014feasting and flaneuring.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"252725\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-accidents tag-car-accident tag-conspiracy tag-crime tag-lawyers tag-louisiana tag-new-orleans tag-patrick-radden-keefe tag-scam tag-scheme tag-the-new-yorker tag-traffic tag-true-crime category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2026\/04\/13\/new-orleans-slammers-accident-scam\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The Car-Crash Conspiracy<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tPatrick Radden Keefe | The New Yorker | April 13, 2026 | 11,714 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;High-speed accidents, crooked lawyers, and poor people desperate for cash\u2014it was the kind of scheme that could have been cooked up only in the Big Easy.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"241947\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-art tag-banksy tag-ivy-knight tag-new-orleans tag-oxford-american tag-restoration tag-street-art category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2025\/09\/02\/banksy-new-orleans-restoration\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Saving a New Orleans Banksy<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tIvy Knight | Oxford American | August 6, 2025 | 3,266 words \t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;How a truck driver, a hotelier, and an art conservator brought a beloved street mural back into public view.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"241246\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-clint-smith tag-hurricane-katrina tag-louisiana tag-new-orleans tag-the-atlantic category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2025\/08\/08\/life-before-katrina-and-after-it\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Life Before Katrina\u2014And After It<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tClint Smith | The Atlantic | August 8, 2025 | 2,567 words \t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;The storm destroyed the home where I grew up, and changed New Orleans forever.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\n\t<article data-post-id=\"240458\"\n\t\tclass=\"tag-blackness tag-gaming tag-gender tag-joseph-earl-thomas tag-new-orleans tag-pokemon tag-race tag-subculture tag-video-games tag-virginia-quarterly-review category-editors-pick type-post\"\n\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2025\/07\/17\/the-game-is-played-with-great-feeling\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The Game Is Played With Great Feeling<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"newspack-post-subtitle newspack-post-subtitle--in-homepage-block\">\n\t\t\t\t\tJoseph Earl Thomas | Virginia Quarterly Review | July 15, 2025 | 5,683 words\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;How Pok\u00e9mon can save the world, one Pikachu at a time.&#8221;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!-- .entry-wrapper -->\n\t<\/article>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;In New Orleans, water is coming. 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17:01:24&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-08-02 17:12:35&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-08-05 17:33:34&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-08-08 17:33:49&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-08-11 17:39:12&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-08-14 18:04:55&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-08-17 18:09:00&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-08-20 18:41:32&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-08-23 18:55:42&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-08-26 19:30:31&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-08-29 20:33:06&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-01 20:36:36&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-04 20:55:22&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-07 21:23:13&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-10 21:51:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-13 21:57:30&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-16 22:23:44&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-19 23:54:42&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-23 00:02:19&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-09-23 00:02:19&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:80%\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:22px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400\">Thoughtful stories for thoughtless times.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:17px\">Longreads has published hundreds of original stories\u2014personal essays, reported features, reading lists, and more\u2014and more than 14,000 editor&#8217;s picks. <strong>And they&#8217;re all funded by readers like you.<\/strong> Become a member today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-primary-background-color has-background wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/join?src=top-promo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">I want to support Longreads<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Mark and Betsy Blondin | Longreads | September 22, 2026 | 2,702 words (10 minutes)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We left Boyne City, Michigan, in the fall of 1996 in a 34-foot Coachmen motorhome towing a minivan, with three children, a golden retriever not originally part of the plan, and a desktop computer on a stand bolted to the floor where a chair used to be. We stopped in Flint to say goodbye to family and retrofit the motorhome for the road. Mark\u2019s father had died that June. His mother was devastated, and for a while the question wasn\u2019t which route to choose but whether to go at all. We left Flint on October 4. Five miles later, the motorhome shut down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A loose fuel line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few miles after the fuel line was fixed, we were surprised by a flat tire on the van\u2019s tow dolly, and then, unbelievably, we bent a bumper while putting the van back on the dolly. It was past seven in the evening. We were finally on our way to Cleveland, Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That was day one. What we built over the following nine months\u201425,000 miles through 40 states\u2014would go on to earn a Yahoo! Cool Site designation, a presentation at a US Department of Education national conference, and a place in the federal Education Resources Information Center <strong><\/strong>archive. On the road, we filed over 1,500 emails and website dispatches from museum lobbies, hotel reception desks, libraries, and wherever we could find a phone jack and someone willing to let us run a telephone cord to their wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Google would not exist for another two years. The word \u201cblog\u201d had not yet been coined. We were doing something that had no name and no manual, and we were doing it over a dial-up modem while living in a motorhome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blondins.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Blondins\u2019 Assignment America<\/em><\/a> was both the name of our trip and the website we built in real time as we traveled. We had a partnership with Northwest Academy, a science and technology charter school in northern Michigan in its first year of operation, that made it possible. We had prepared to make the case for why our children\u2014Donald, 14, and twins Kelly and Stacy, 11\u2014would not attend the 1996\u201397 school year in a conventional sense. The school board didn\u2019t just accommodate us; they encouraged us. Northwest Academy loaned us a laptop and a 1.2 MP digital camera, and we took their curriculum on the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Newspaper article from September 26, 1996, in Petoskey News-Review. Article features a family of five and is titled, &quot;On the road: Boyne City family gives new meaning to concept of portable classroom.&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-259654\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1365&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772-scaled.jpg?resize=2000%2C1333&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 2000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C520&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 780w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C267&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772-scaled.jpg?resize=706%2C471&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 706w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/longreads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC01772DSC01772-1024x683.jpg?w=370&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An article from September 26, 1996, in <em>Petoskey News-Review<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The idea had been circulating for some time. For over a year, we had been looking at our future and considering ideas for our next step. Watching <em>The Bridges of Madison County<\/em> and the questions it raises about the road not taken confirmed for us that we could do something unconventional and educational. Our adventure was also, after Mark\u2019s 12-year career run at Coca-Cola, exactly what we needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Red flags of risk waved. In Betsy&#8217;s 1996 site bio before the trip began, she wrote her own reasons for going: \u201cI hope [the children] learn that although it is not always easy, unconventional choices in life can be made. Quitting my part-time job as a writer for <em>The Citizen<\/em> in Boyne City for this adventure was not easy for me. Neither is the financial risk, but I believe it will be worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What emerged was a family travel journal published to the web, which we updated continuously with photographs and written dispatches. On the site we invited visitors to submit their own travel stories and organically grew a readership we couldn\u2019t really see or measure. <em>Blondins\u2019 Assignment America<\/em>, our family\u2019s online home, resided at blondins.com, running on Microsoft FrontPage 97.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is still there. We have not updated the code. The link list on the homepage points to AltaVista, HotBot, and WebCrawler. Many of the links are broken. It is an archive, broken links and all\u2014a well-preserved time capsule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:100\"><blockquote><p>We were doing something that had no name and no manual, and we were doing it over a dial-up modem while living in a motorhome.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:2px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This archive holds more than our travel dispatches. Each family member had their own web page. Donald created Donald.com on GeoCities, a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free. He dated his site-building career to November 27, 1996\u201454 days into the trip. One section with links to tutorials existed to teach strangers how to build websites of their own. The note for November 18, 1997, reads: \u201cI have photoshop! Major site changes are coming.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The photographs were 640 by 480 pixels, because anything larger would take a reader minutes to load; we could feel our audience\u2019s patience through the phone line. We uploaded our dispatches whenever we could find a connection\u2014this fundamental part of our publishing process was not on a schedule, nor was it guaranteed. Seven weeks in, parked in Sarasota, Florida, Mark wrote in his journal that he hoped to get something on the site before we left. The week before, in Jacksonville, three days had passed with no update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we were lucky, we were able to upload our accounts of adventures on the day they happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stacy posted on October 15, 1996: \u201cDear Journal: Today was not my favorite day, but it was okay. We spent half the day looking for a place to check our e-mail and were successful. Then we went to the Portland Museum of Art where we saw some neat artwork by Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth, etc. Later that night we went swimming while Dad and Donald went to Maine Internet Connections. Kelly and I had lots of fun playing at the pool. We slept once again at the college police parking lot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kelly wrote about our hike on the Lost Mine Trail in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park in Texas on January 9, 1997. \u201cThe trail was supposedly five and a half miles, but straight uphill. We made it back down in about 45 minutes. When we got back, we did some laundry. For dinner, we had barbecue chicken in tortilla shells. There was still snow on the Chisos. There is a legend that there is gold in the mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our stories traveled unfiltered into the world for anyone anywhere to read.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In our 34-foot home, the dinette was the flat surface where we spread out school work and projects and wrote in our journals. It also converted to a bed for Donald. When he wanted to sleep before the rest of us, the cry went out to clear the dinette\u2014a plea or a command, depending on the night. Years later we could still hear echoes of \u201cclear the dinette!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The web of 1996 was not yet monetized in the way it is today. The internet then wasn&#8217;t flooded with platforms competing for your attention and harvesting and selling your data, or algorithms constantly tuned to optimize for engagement. At the time, Yahoo! had editors\u2014actual people employed to look at websites and decide which ones were worth surfacing to other people. That web lasted about a decade before it was dismantled, piece by piece, in favor of one that extracts profits from similar interactions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We were the beneficiaries of that architecture and didn\u2019t know it was temporary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Logistics in the physical world were more challenging than in the world online. Six weeks in, we were low on propane, parked in a friend\u2019s driveway in Maplewood, New Jersey, taking the van into New York City on day trips. The only place that filled RV tanks was in Jersey City. We left the van behind and drove the motorhome onto streets built for nothing that long. Following sketchy directions, we stopped several times to ask for help. The horns behind us did not let up. We found the place, got the propane, and worked our way back through the traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was one of the worst days of our trip.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of our best days resulted from meeting people while finding ways to get online. Back on day one at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, we told our story, and after a momentary pause, the receptionist at the information desk gave us her chair. We sat at her desk in that major museum and filed our dispatches while visitors walked up to ask for directions to the dinosaurs. We did our best to help.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Rock &amp; Roll Hall of Fame, also in Cleveland, gave us free admission, a press kit, and a phone line. The Great Lakes Science Center nearby, and new that year, gave us free admission and a tour by their PR director. We got better at telling the story, and three charming children helped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A man named Pierre at a Portland, Maine, YMCA spent an hour trying every phone line in the building to help us connect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In New York City, our communication efforts found us, just a bit embarrassed, walking down the aisle in our travel clothes to seats five rows from the stage at <em>The King and I<\/em>. Mark had called the box office that afternoon and told a woman named Sandy our story. Our tickets were waiting at will call for a magical theater night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A 7-Eleven outside Washington, DC, became a nightly ritual: We\u2019d run a 50-foot cord to the backroom, upload the day\u2019s pages, check and send email, and play a trivia game about the museums we\u2019d visited. Correct answers were worth a Slurpee. That is what the technology was for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Somewhere past the Four Corners Monument on the Navajo Nation, we ran out of gas less than a mile short of a station that had no can to sell us. A man drove past, saw our motorhome stopped on the shoulder, and turned around. He went home for a gas can and brought back enough gas for us to reach the pump. We never learned his name. This is what human kindness did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:100\"><blockquote><p>We were the beneficiaries of that architecture and didn\u2019t know it was temporary.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:2px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Betsy filed a few freelance columns for <em>The Citizen<\/em> from the road. Her parents mailed printed issues of the newspaper to whatever general-delivery post office or friend\u2019s or relative\u2019s address we could predict two weeks ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The yeses got bigger as the trip went on. At the JFK Presidential Library outside of Boston, which also gave us free admission, Mark asked if we could park the motorhome in the lot overnight. The staff said yes, and after our visit they showed us where to park and locked the gate behind us. One family, one motorhome, one golden retriever, inside the locked grounds of a federal presidential library, with a view of Boston in the dark. Nobody had a policy for that. Someone had a key and decided yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we needed someone to take Buddy for the month we spent in Hawaii, we found him a home through a golden retriever email list. It connected us to a breeder in Morton, Washington, who knew a young man near Seattle raising his own golden for a 4-H project. He needed the money; Buddy needed a yard. The family also had room for the motorhome. Nobody took a percentage. Nobody optimized the match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No matter where we were, the realities of our past intruded on our adventure. The family parked the motorhome in Pacifica, California, and waited while Mark flew back to Michigan. He had been fired by Coca-Cola Enterprises in March 1995, and his age-discrimination suit had reached the deposition stage. It ran from nine in the morning to 5:30 p.m. His mother waited at the house our family still owned but no longer lived in. With the retirement savings spent down, much was dependent on the court case going well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:100\"><blockquote><p>One family, one motorhome, one golden retriever, inside the locked grounds of a federal presidential library, with a view of Boston in the dark. Nobody had a policy for that. Someone had a key and decided yes.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:2px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We returned home in June 1997, rich in experience and financially broke. A brief exchange at a campground became an unforgettable memory. Betsy had told an elderly man she was worried the children wouldn\u2019t understand or appreciate what the trip had been. He thought about it. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s not a matter of appreciating it as something unique or separate,\u201d he told her. \u201cIt will simply become part of who they are.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We spent the summer running an ice cream and yogurt business, and planning the future. While researching, we discovered a request for abstracts from the organizers of a US Department of Education conference called \u201cFamilies, Technology, and Education.\u201d We were accepted as featured speakers and off to Chicago that October.<br><br>A PowerPoint to help tell our story and a video our children had made in Big Bend National Park on its plant and animal life fit the conference title in every way. On a stage in front of 400 educators from around the country, we made our presentation. During the Q&amp;A period, Donald fielded several questions like a pro. Our paper, <a href=\"https:\/\/eric.ed.gov\/?id=ED424994\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>People Make Dreams Come True, and Technology Expands the Possibilities: An Educational Journey across the United States<\/em><\/a><em>,<\/em> seemed close to becoming a template for the future of education\u2014and we had played a role.<br><br>In June 1998, an email arrived from a stranger in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His name was Ted Sammons, and he worked in the editorial department of Broadway Books. He had seen <em>Blondins\u2019 Assignment America<\/em> on Yahoo!\u2019s \u201cCool Site\u201d listing and had been impressed\u2014and, he admitted, a bit jealous. He believed the story of our trip would make a good book, and he wanted to know if we\u2019d thought about writing one. Of course we had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We made our pitch, but ultimately, the editorial board passed. Their stated reason was not enough tragedy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1998, our story was: family leaves, family travels, family lands well. We both began new careers. It\u2019s an adventure with an enviable ending. Eventually, Donald went to Berkeley, and Kelly and Stacy went to Harvard.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In December 1997, we put the Boyne City house on the market, loaded the motorhome for its last trip, and landed in Carlsbad, California, one of our favorite cities discovered on our journey. It was there that Betsy began work as a managing editor and Mark went into the technology industry. Our children thrived.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:100\"><blockquote><p>The household that once ran a 50-foot cord into a 7-Eleven backroom to send the day\u2019s mail now talks on platforms that eavesdrop on what we say.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:2px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A decade passed, and the publisher Betsy worked for went under. Cloud computing came for the company Mark worked for, and then for the storage business he started. In 2009, we lost our Carlsbad house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Getting from Carlsbad to a city on the Portuguese coast took 10 more years and three continents worth of seeking. But that isn\u2019t this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today, the children are grown and our family is scattered across four countries. The household that once ran a 50-foot cord into a 7-Eleven backroom to send the day\u2019s mail now talks on platforms that eavesdrop on what we say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our children\u2019s dispatches still live where they filed them, and how they perceive the trip is not a question we have to ask in 2026. We see it in them. In their curiosity, courage, and adaptability that can partly be traced back to Cleveland. The older, wise man at the campground had predicted correctly. It has indeed become a part of each of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Recently, we went looking for who still visits the site. The statistics page is a dead link; it has outlived the instrument that measured it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We both still write, and Betsy still edits, from a town on the Portuguese coast\u2014a domain renewed annually, hosting billed monthly, a newsletter on a platform that takes its percentage. Every function we had for free in 1996, now itemized. The North Central Michigan College server had hosted our website and asked for nothing.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the early web afforded us online advantages, the real-world experiences and connections we enjoyed would not have been possible without the human kindness and generosity we found along the way. Both human and online access made our adventure possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our story is a record of an internet that no longer exists: the one with human editors, not algorithms, discovering and surfacing content worth seeing. The one that offered real access and possibility, resulting in a federal agency highlighting our work and an editor at a major publishing house discovering our project. The one that connected us to a host family for our dog and motorhome in rural Washington, no strings attached. That internet\u2014serendipitous, kind, free, and open\u2014is gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nine months, 25,000 miles, 40 states. Three kids who were there for all of it. A golden retriever who died years later in Carlsbad. A motorhome that is long gone.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And a website that is, in the most literal sense, still on its way to Cleveland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Mark and Betsy Blondin are living and writing in Vila do Conde, Portugal, currently at work on a memoir of the thirty years that followed Assignment America. Betsy is a longtime writer and editor at<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/wordmetro.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>WordMetro.com<\/em><\/a> <em>who compiled and published<\/em> Migraine Expressions: A Creative Journey Through Life with Migraine<em>. Together, they published<\/em> At Home Abroad: Today\u2019s Expats Tell Their Stories<em>. Mark\u2019s work has appeared in<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/thehumanist.com\/commentary\/the-game-of-holy-whispers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>The Humanist<\/em><\/a><em>, and he writes at<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/markblondin.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>markblondin.com<\/em><\/a> <em>and<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/materialwitness.markblondin.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Material Witness<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Editor: <a href=\"http:\/\/longreads.com\/cheri-lucas-rowlands\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Cheri Lucas Rowlands<\/a><br>Fact-checker: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/collazoprojects\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Julie Schwietert Collazo<\/a><br>Copyeditor: <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/kristastevens.bsky.social\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Krista Stevens<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nine months, 25,000 miles, one phone cord, and the kindness of strangers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":259642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"scaip_prevent_shortcode_addition":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"Nine months, 25,000 miles, one phone cord, and the kindness of strangers.","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"republication-tracker-tool-hide-widget":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15974],"tags":[29289,25271,23094,5920,45,1543,1024,29290,19419,4074,1489,1546,51,21527,12665],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[29287,29288],"class_list":["post-259480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","tag-betsy-blondin","tag-clr","tag-digital-nomad","tag-early-internet","tag-family","tag-internet","tag-kindness","tag-mark-blondin","tag-nomad","tag-nostalgia","tag-road-trip","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-wanderlust","tag-web","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - 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