The Longreads Blog

The Podcast That Explains Why We’re All Wrong 

You're Wrong About Podcast

Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes are journalists who specialize in re-examining the stories, people, and ideas that we were sure we already knew about. Their podcast, “You’re Wrong About…” deconstructs events and scandals of the past to reveal a truth that’s more complicated than what we remembered—or even the complete opposite. On this week’s Longreads Podcast, I spoke with them about why our brains (and the media) are so easily misled. 

Marshall wrote the definitive story of Tonya Harding for The Believer and is currently working on a book about the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Hobbes is a reporter for HuffPost who breaks down the nuance around issues such as homelessness and obesity. They tackle those same subjects for the podcast, including many other events we thought we remembered correctly—Amy Fisher, Anna Nicole Smith, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, the “Ebonics” debate. In many cases, tabloid news coverage gave us a distorted perspective on heroes and villains in a scandal, and Marshall and Hobbes shatter the idea that such labels even exist. Read more…

When It Comes to the Climate Crisis, Don’t Forget the Power of the States

Photo by Juniper Photon, Icons by Greer Mosher

Livia Gershon | Longreads | November 2019 | 7 minutes (1,863 words)

My family’s natural gas-fired furnace is 23 years old. That’s aged; the average lifespan of a system like ours is 15 to 20 years. I live in New Hampshire, which gets awfully cold in the winter and, every October, I wonder whether we’ll make it to March. If the furnace fails this year and we replace it with another one like it, we’re committing to burning fossil fuels until about 2042. If my household switches to electricity, which is better for the environment than what we’ve got, our gas bills will nearly double, to around $2,800 every year. Recently, I called Bill Wenzel, who owns a geothermal heating business the next town over from me.

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Brigid, Magdalene, My Mother, and Me

Getty / Photo illustration by Katie Kosma

Carmel Mc Mahon | Longreads | November 2019 | 13 minutes (3,226 words)

The body of a young Irish woman was found outside Saint Brigid’s Church in Manhattan’s East Village. The city had not yet awoken on the frigid Sunday morning of February 20, 2011. Earlier that month, on St. Brigid’s feast day, she had turned 35 years old. The news reports cited alcoholism, homelessness and hypothermia as contributing factors in her death. They said she wanted to be an artist. They said her name was Grace Farrell.

Grace. Origin: Middle English via Old French from Latin, gratia, from gratus, meaning “pleasing” or “grateful.

The following week, I met “Dublin Kevin” at the AA meeting on East 10th Street. “Did you know her?” he asked. We’d left Ireland for New York when she did, in the mid-’90s, right before the economic tide turned. The background noise of sectarian violence, mass unemployment and rising emigration got dialed down. But there remained other things, muted maybe, things that take generations to rise up and reach the throat.

We ran away with a few hundred dollars and a few vague connections to join the lineage of emigrants from Ireland. People used to say, “Could the last one to leave, please turn out the lights!” A joke to lighten the burden of history. In New York, I gravitated to the East Village to be with the other immigrant kids who were writing poems and working in the cafes and bars. I knew, or half-knew, the ones from home, so how did I not know Grace? And how could this happen to one of us, in our own back-yard, at a church built by our own ancestors?

In an Irish radio interview, a cousin says Grace came to New York to find her mother, who had emigrated shortly after her birth. The young parents were not married in the Catholic and conservative Ireland of the 1970s. Grace was given up for adoption; she spent her early years in foster care, and later, in Saint Vincent’s Children’s Home in Drogheda, County Louth.

I do not know the particulars of Grace’s mother’s situation, but I think about her, and my mother, and their mothers before them. The general climate of Ireland was hostile to women. Divorce, abortion and contraception were illegal. Married women were sometimes not permitted to work, and they had no rights to property in a marriage. There was no such thing as marital rape, and the choice, in cases of abuse, was either to remain with their abuser or become homeless. This is the world we were born into. This is the world that shaped us in ways that are continually being revealed.
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Why Lhasa de Sela Matters

Lionel FLUSIN/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Fred Goodman | Why Lhasa de Sela Matters | University of Texas Press | November 2019 | 27 minutes (5,471 words)

 

A sorceress of the soul, the multi-lingual singer Lhasa de Sela captivated music fanatics around the world with her spellbinding songs and other-worldly performances. Yet ten years after her tragic death from breast cancer in Montreal at 37, America’s first world music chanteuse remains largely and inexplicably unknown here, an under-the-radar icon in her own country. Why Lhasa de Sela Matters, her first biography, charts Lhasa’s road to musical maturity. —Fred Goodman

 

The slowest nights for bars and clubs come early in the week, which is why many clubs are closed on Mondays, leaving Tuesday as the lightest night of the week. As a result, Lhasa de Sela didn’t waitress on Tuesdays. Instead, she found local Montreal bars that would let her sing a set a cappella. Wearing a black dress and a long knit hat, she cut a figure that was both striking and subdued.

Working on assorted standards and the Billie Holiday songs she loved, Lhasa was primarily focused on two tasks: overcoming her own shyness and learning how to hold a listener’s attention. She had a ways to go.

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How to Stay Out of Your Editor’s ‘Jerks’ File

Blue retro typewriter with screwed up paper balls

As an editor receiving 50 to 100 essay submissions per week for roughly 125 slots per year, I pass on exponentially more pieces than I accept. This unfortunate math makes me anxious, not only because I’m an incorrigible people-pleaser who hates having so many humans unhappy with me, but also because I’m a writer myself, and I know how frustrating and heartbreaking it can be not to land your work where you want to see it published.

Most of the time writers are understanding and gracious, not only about my passing, but also about my only responding if I’m interested in their piece, as I explain in my submissions guidelines. But now and then, someone will fire off a mean email. Obviously (well, to me, anyway) this is not a good strategy for anyone who wants to eventually have their work accepted!

Mcsweeny’s Internet Tendency editor Chris Monks feels my pain. In an essay for Vulture, he writes about some of the jerky replies he receives when he passes on humor submissions, and provides screenshots as well (with names and other identifying details redacted).

I empathize with the frustration of not getting your work published, but it still sucks to receive these sorts of emails because, you know, I have feelings. By nature, I flee from any signs of interpersonal conflict, so I rarely engage and fire back an equally snarky response. Instead, I place these mean messages in a folder I’ve titled “Jerks” and occasionally share screenshots of them (with the names of the jerks redacted) to my followers on Twitter.

I know all about rejection. Sure, I dole it out frequently, but I’ve been on the other end a lot, too. I, too, am a veteran struggling humor writer. I know what it’s like to work forever on a piece, meticulously crafting a joke, until it feels just right and worthy of submitting. I am familiar with the adrenaline rush of clicking “send,” and the overwhelming wave of dread and second-guessing that follows. And I am no stranger to the interminable waiting for an answer back, a yes or no, please not a no, but, yes, it will probably be a no. It always feels like it’s going to be a no.

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How To Destroy Texas While Helping The Coal Economy

AP Photo/LM Otero, File

Natural gas, wind, and solar power are all cutting into coal’s profitability, so mining companies are looking for ways to reduce expenses, including reducing clean-up efforts. In their three-part collaboration with Grist and The Texas Tribune, journalists Kiah Collier and Naveena Sadasivam expose the ways the good state of Texas allows coal companies to bypass federal laws about land reclamation in order to save millions in clean-up costs. “Coal companies are required to restore land used for coal mining to the shape it was in before they started digging it up,” Collier and Sadasivam write. This process of reclamation is meant to return mined land to its former condition so people can farm, graze, and even live on it again. Unfortunately, that is not happening.

One article tells how a company violated its contract and federal law and ruined large swaths of a family’s 25,000-acre ranch. One looks at how the town of Rockdale pinned its hopes to an old coal mine that was not properly restored, land where supposedly “pristine lakes” are actually old waste-water pools. The other article looks at the free land the Luminant coal company gave to Sulphur Springs, in East Texas, who intends to turn it into parkland ─ except the company is trying to avoid properly removing a huge mound of toxic dirt and a large, acidic wastewater pool. Instead, they want to cover the lake with a bit more dirt, even though that has proven ineffective for containing toxins, and the city wants to let them and turn the mound, which locals call Mount Thermo, into seating for an amphitheater, and the lake into a fishing pond. An amphitheater built atop toxic heavy metals! It’s lunacy! It’s also obviously about money. The free land is worth $25 million, and leaving the mess saves the company an estimated $4 million. To sell the idea to the public, interested parties have framed the toxic mound as a “community asset,” a gift from the company. Well, isn’t that swell?

In a prepared statement, Luminant spokesperson Meranda Cohn said that the company is committed to completing restoration of the property, including addressing the high acidity at the pit. She said the mound is being left in place at the city’s request and that any implication that Luminant’s deal with Sulphur Springs was solely a cost-saving measure was wrong.

“This transformative project would benefit the people of Sulphur Springs and East Texas for decades to come,” Cohn said. “This is a great example of how a public-private partnership between the city, Luminant, and the [Railroad Commission] can be a win for all.”

In 2017, the Texas Mining and Reclamation Association, of which Luminant is a member, honored Maxwell for his vision, granting him its “elected official of the year” award for “leading the charge to breathe new life into this community asset.”

Not everyone’s on board with this toxic plan.

Ryan King, a biologist at Baylor University who has served as an expert witness in half a dozen federal lawsuits against coal companies, said staff concerns over the company’s reclamation plan are well founded.

“The idea of an amphitheater and having a lot of people right where you can potentially have a lot of airborne dust that is almost certainly going to contain toxic materials seems like a very risky situation,” he said. “That community is either uninformed or being misled about the potential hazards of doing such a thing.”

But Maxwell, the city manager, doesn’t see the problem. He said he trusts the Railroad Commission and Luminant will work it out, and that the company will do the right thing. “We don’t see a lot of risk there,” he said.

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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

aga7ta via Getty

This week, we’re sharing stories from Sophia Jones, Abigail Covington, Emily Raboteau, Mayukh Sen, and Barry Yeoman.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. Read more…

Influence: Who Gains It and Who Wields It and Who Abuses It

View from above young couple with smart phones photographing food in cafe
Getty Images

On our November 8, 2019 roundtable episode of the Longreads Podcast, Head of Audience Catherine Cusick, Head of Fact-Checking Matt Giles, Books Editor Dana Snitzky, and Culture Columnist Soraya Roberts share what they’ve been reading and working on.

This week, the editors discuss the fate of Deadspin, the uncanny canon of Wakefield Press, and recent stories on Airbnb and influencers.


Subscribe and listen now everywhere you get your podcasts.


0:30 What Happened to Deadspin, According to the People Who Were There (Stefan Fatsis and Josh Levin, November 5, 2019, Slate)

10:40 I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb (Allie Conti, October 31, 2019, Vice)

19:35 Whitney Houston’s Longtime Confidante Breaks Her Silence (Jon Caramanica, November 7, 2019, The New York Times)

23:14 Under the Influence: White Lies (Soraya Roberts, October 2019, Longreads)

29:51 Dana’s Book Corner: Wakefield Press

* * *

Produced by Longreads and Charts & Leisure.

The Spiritual Path at Fat Camp

George Peters / Getty, Illustration by Homestead Studio

Mona Kirschner | Longreads | November 2019 | 20 minutes (5,102 words)

Day One

I look around the pool as I kick my legs backwards. I wonder how I found myself in a swim cap and a full-piece bathing suit doing water aerobics with eight ladies over 60 at a health retreat that turned out to be an upscale fat camp.

Why is it that we never tire of talking about love? Of analyzing all angles of heartbreak?

No Uber driver’s English is bad enough to deter us, no stranger on an airplane too disengaged for it to all come spilling out, the same story, again and again.

Filling the void, my therapist had said. I always hoped that when I inevitably fell apart, at least I’d be original about it.

The previous day I had rushed down to the waiting taxi, stalling outside the high gates of my apartment building in São Paulo.

I was late, throwing clothes onto the bed and settling for stretchy workout pants and an old blue sweater that was too tight on the arms. The flight was smooth, the two hours going by quickly as I stared out the window in dark sunglasses that covered most of my face.

On the other end, I shuffled through the airport with my head down and bought sweet and salty peanuts after I couldn’t talk myself out of it. I walked outside; the muggy heat relentless, but I kept my sweater on, joining a group of elderly women next to a van stamped with a logo I recognized from the website. This should be good, I thought, making eye contact with no one and finding a seat.

A friend had recommended this place, deep in the countryside of southern Brazil, a short flight from my place of birth and my home for the last 10 years, having moved back after falling in love and dropping out of school in Canada, where I had grown up with my immigrant parents and privileged life.

I was always looking for something. For love, for adventure, for a story worth telling. I shifted happily from a good kid with a scholarship to a bartender in shorts and knee-high boots with no plan, chasing the drama.

And then I fell in love with a man in that way you do when you throw yourself into something so hard, you don’t even recognize yourself when you take a step back. Fully, entirely consumed.

He had green eyes and skin that actually glowed. I saw him for the first time from the side, across a cheesy wedding dance floor. I remember feeling short of breath. I hardly saw his face. Yet I recognized him as if I had known he was coming.

The van bumped along. I watched a series on Netflix on the drive out about an artist from Brooklyn and her many affairs. I noticed how all the actors on it were thin. Something I would have never realized a few months before.

We drove onto the property, a long, winding driveway with cornfields on either side. The sky was a rich shade of blue and the sun peeked out from the clouds, hot and unforgiving.

A purple and yellow butterfly flew next to my window as we drove up. I hated butterflies, always thought of them as the mean girls of insects. All colorful, flashy wings on the same old insect body.

We arrived to a welcome drink of green juice, the glass only filled halfway, hinting at the moderation that was to come. I noticed I was the youngest person there by at least 15 years. They showed me to my room and instructed me to turn up for my doctor’s appointment at 3:15. I let my bag drop off of my shoulder.

Everyone was in their provided white robes, the blue logo embroidered on the left side. I put mine on, noticing gratefully that it hid everything that needed hiding. My thighs chafed in the heat.

The nurse was gentle, especially when asking me to step on a large, rectangular scale.

“That’s a good girl.” She said, making a note on her clipboard. The doctor put me on a diet of 850 calories a day, which sounded absurd. “What caused the weight gain?” he asked.

“Heartbreak.” I shrugged. “Wish it was a more original reason.”

What is it about comfort from strangers that is so soothing? That makes us feel as if our uncertain futures are less terrifying if someone promises they won’t be? Someone who couldn’t possibly know? And yet.

“Do you think I’m going to be okay?” I would ask anyone who would listen.

I missed him. I could feel his hands, the callouses on his palms. The softness of the finer hair on the nape of his neck. The smell of his shirts. I could see the wrinkles on the side of his eyes when he laughed. I could hear his voice. My chest on his. Could feel him pinching my side when he thought something was funny. I’d say his name aloud.

They say our brains label pain, give it a face. He had a beautiful face.

How do you determine the difference between love and fear? Should it feel so similar?

The love had been there, at some point. Perhaps it was passion. It faded. The fear was constant. I was afraid of the fights, I was afraid of staying, I was afraid of leaving. I was afraid of being alone, of regretting it, of missing him, of realizing there’d be nothing better.

We introduced ourselves at the welcome address, our names, where we’re from, why we were there. I sat in the back. They assigned each one of us a table that we’d sit at for the week. Mealtimes clearly required military-level control. I looked down at the sad six grapes in front of me and tried to concentrate on chewing whatever absurd amount of times was recommended by one of the many (thin) doctors who gave a painfully slow speech before we could eat. Was it 40 times?

My ex and I used to get kicked out of bars for our screaming matches. He was jealous, I was hysterical. I thought it was romantic. I ended it after almost 10 years. He was my first love, all I knew. It was my decision. Courage and strength showed up suddenly, like unannounced dinner guests to an otherwise lonely affair.

He loved me. But he was terrible to me. We were terrible to each other. I plotted and hoped for my freedom for years. Yet the loss, the gaping hole felt like it was only getting bigger.

Love or fear?

They gave a tour of the grounds, the clinic, the vegetable garden, the main house.

I set my stack of books on the bedside table. I looked at the clean, neatly made single bed and sighed. I listened to Miles Davis.

Dinner was pea soup.
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‘I’m a Big Fan of Writing To Find Out What You Don’t Know.’

Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!), oil on canvas, Henri Rousseau, 1891. (Imagno/Getty Images)

Adam Morgan | Longreads | November 2019 | 11 minutes (2,861 words)

 

The deceptively slim Reinhardt’s Garden, Mark Haber’s astonishing novella, is composed of a single paragraph, one that meanders across 150 pages and several hemispheres, from the ramparts of an oddly constructed German castle (it’s full of fake walls and trap doors) to a fictional jungle in Uruguay (Uruguay is, in actuality, a country of rolling hills called the Pampas). At the center of this web of fun-house geographies and architectures, lost in that fictional jungle in the year 1907, Croatian scholar and megalomaniac Jacov Reinhardt is searching for his lifelong obsession — not a city of gold or a fountain of youth, like in the doomed adventurers of Aguirre, the Wrath of God or The Lost City of Z, but a man: Emiliano Gomez Carasquilla, “a lost philosopher of melancholy” last seen somewhere in Colombia or Brazil. Melancholy, as Jacov’s long-suffering servant (and the book’s narrator) explains, is “not a feeling but a mood, not a color but a shade, not depression but not happiness either,” an elusive emotion Jacov has pursued to the ends of the earth. Read more…