Search Results for: Smithsonian

The Perfect Essay, Kafka’s Abyss, and My Mother

The relationship between writer and teacher is no simple thing. For John Kaag, a former professor of expository writing at Harvard, the most vital component of this relationship is intimacy. Despite the persistent image of the writer as solitary figure, Kang sees companionship–specifically critical companionship–as essential. For many writers, the search for a truly compatible teacher–the Gordon Lish to their Raymond Carver–can be a lifelong journey. But for Kaag, the tutelage began at home, under the watchful eyes of his mother, a high school English teacher. From the Opinionator:

The intimate nature of genuine criticism implies something about who is able to give it, namely, someone who knows you well enough to show you how your psychic life is getting in the way of good writing. Conveniently, they’re also the people who care enough to see you through the traumatic aftermath of this realization. For me the aftermath took the form of my first, and I hope only, encounter with writer’s block.

Franz Kafka once said: “Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.” My mother’s criticism had shown me that Kafka is right about the cold abyss, and when you make the introspective descent that writing requires you’re not always pleased by what you find. But, in the years that followed, her sustained tutelage suggested that Kafka might be wrong about the solitude. I was lucky enough to find a critic and teacher who was willing to make the journey of writing with me. “It’s a thing of no great difficulty,” according to Plutarch, “to raise objections against another man’s oration, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.” I’m sure I wrote essays in the later years of high school without my mother’s guidance, but I can’t recall them. What I remember, however, is how she took up the “extremely troublesome” work of ongoing criticism.

Read the story here

Photo: Smithsonian, Flickr

Why Microsoft, Google, and Apple Are Working With Science Fiction Writers

Science fiction writer Eileen Gunn recently wrote in Smithsonian magazine about how the science fiction genre informs the way we think about the real world. Here, Gunn writes that big tech companies like Microsoft have hired science fiction writers to do “design fiction”—coming up with new technology ideas through imaginative works:

Microsoft, Google, Apple and other firms have sponsored lecture series in which science fiction writers give talks to employees and then meet privately with developers and research departments. Perhaps nothing better demonstrates the close tie between science fiction and technology today than what is called “design fiction”—imaginative works commissioned by tech companies to model new ideas. Some corporations hire authors to create what-if stories about potentially marketable products.

“I really like design fiction or prototyping fiction,” says novelist Cory Doctorow, whose clients have included Disney and Tesco. “There is nothing weird about a company doing this—commissioning a story about people using a technology to decide if the technology is worth following through on. It’s like an architect creating a virtual fly-through of a building.” Doctorow, who worked in the software industry, has seen both sides of the development process. “I’ve been in engineering discussions in which the argument turned on what it would be like to use the product, and fiction can be a way of getting at that experience.”

Read the story

Photo: Arthur Cugun

The Future Is Dark: Uncertainty's Creative Power

Rebecca Solnit, writing in The New Yorker, offers a celebration of the imagination’s best ally: the ability to say “I don’t know.” Solnit looks at subtlety and subjectivity in her own writing, and in that of a hero of the art, Virginia Woolf:

During my years as an art critic I used to joke that museums love artists the way that taxidermists love deer, and something of that desire to secure, to stabilize, to render certain and definite the open-ended, nebulous, and adventurous work of artists is present in many who work in that confinement sometimes called the art world.

A similar kind of aggression against the slipperiness of the work and the ambiguities of the artist’s intent and meaning often exists in literary criticism and academic scholarship, a desire to make certain what is uncertain, to know what is unknowable, to turn the flight across the sky into the roast upon the plate, to classify and contain. What escapes categorization can escape detection altogether.

There is a kind of counter-criticism that seeks to expand the work of art, by connecting it, opening up its meanings, inviting in the possibilities. A great work of criticism can liberate a work of art, to be seen fully, to remain alive, to engage in a conversation that will not ever end but will instead keep feeding the imagination. Not against interpretation, but against confinement, against the killing of the spirit. Such criticism is itself great art.

This is a kind of criticism that does not pit the critic against the text, does not seek authority. It seeks instead to travel with the work and its ideas, invite it to blossom and invite others into a conversation that might have previously seemed impenetrable, to draw out relationships that might have been unseen and open doors that might have been locked. This is a kind of criticism that respects the essential mystery of a work of art, which is in part its beauty and its pleasure, both of which are irreducible and subjective.

Read the story here.

More stories on creativity from the Longreads archive.

Photo via Smithsonian/Flickr

Are You In A Haruki Murakami Novel?

An elephant mysteriously vanishes. A giant frog is waiting in your apartment. Your cat mysteriously vanishes. Two moons hang in the sky. Your wife mysteriously vanishes. A strange man comes to you and asks you to find a sheep, or a woman calls and asks for ten minutes of your time. You might be the protagonist in a novel or short story by acclaimed Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Look around you. If any of these things sound familiar, you might want to get a new collar for your cat:

1. You drink your coffee black.

2. You have a deep and abiding love for old jazz records.

3. You find it easy to have emotionless sex with strangers. If you were to describe the sex to a friend you would use the most abstract language possible, but you never do because you have no friends.

4. You worship the 1960s and the simple comforts in life: black coffee, old jazz records, emotionless afternoon sex. If, however, you are actually living in the 1960s, you mostly just keep to yourself.

If some—or all—of these things apply, you might want to read the rest of the list at The Toast. And if the mere thought of Murakami leaves you hankering for a short story, you can find more fiction in the Longreads archive.

Photo: Smithsonian, Flickr

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The Story of L.A.'s Insatiable Thirst for Water

Mulholland began looking throughout Southern California for an alternative supply of freshwater, but it was Fred Eaton who came up with a solution. On a camping trip to the Sierra in the early 1890s, Eaton had gazed down upon Owens Lake and thought about all the freshwater flowing into it and going to waste. Yes, Los Angeles was some 200 miles away, but it was all downhill. All one would have to do to move it to the city was dig some canals, lay some pipe and let gravity do the rest. Furthermore, he realized, several streams flowing out of the Sierra could be used to generate hydroelectric power. Imagine, a 200-plus-mile aqueduct running downhill to L.A. and “free” power to boot! Over the next two decades, as his civic interest joined his personal financial interests, Eaton grew increasingly evangelical about Owens Valley water.

In September 1904, he took Mulholland to Owens Valley with only “a mule team, a buckboard, and a demijohn of whiskey,” Mulholland later recalled. Despite the hooch, it was the water and not the whiskey that made a believer out of Mulholland. He readily endorsed Eaton’s proposal to build an aqueduct. Eaton, meanwhile, was buying water options from Owens Valley ranchers and farmers whose pastures bordered the river, without disclosing the city’s plan. He also purchased a 23,000-acre cattle ranch in Long Valley, most of which he hoped to sell to the city, at a tidy profit, for use as an aqueduct reservoir.

Mark Wheeler, in his 2002 Smithsonian feature on the history of Los Angeles and the water that helped it grow. Read more on California in the Longreads Archive.

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Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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Reading List: The Political Mistress

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From Monica to the D.C. Madam, some of my all-time favorite stories on politics, sex and power:

1. ‘The Gary Hart Story: How It Happened,’ by Jim McGee, Tom Fiedler and James Savage (The Miami Herald, May 10, 1987) and ‘The Gary Hart Story: Part Two’

Gary Hart was frontrunner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination when rumors of an extramarital affair began to swirl. He responded to the rumors with a strong denial and a dare: “Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’ll be very bored.” Unfortunately for him, the Miami Herald had already been doing just that. Their intrepid reporting not only uncovered an affair between the senator and a 29 year-old model, but also rewrote the rules of political reporting.

Bonus: “Those Aren’t Rumors” (Dick Polman, Smithsonian Magazine 2008) on how the Gary Hart affair changed the political reporting game.

2. ‘No Way to Treat a Lady,’ by Vicky Ward (Vanity Fair, May 2008)

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the “D.C. Madam,” delivered high-end escorts to Beltway elite, until the whole thing came crashing down with a fiery conviction, suicide and media spectacle.

3. ‘Til Death Do Us Part: A New Look at Hitler’s Mistress Eva Braun,’ by Klaus Wiegrefe (Der Spiegel, February 2010)

An evil dictator and a pretty blonde from Munich, whose official title was “private secretary,” and who was famously jealous of the Führer’s dog.

4. ‘The Scandal That Rocked Britain,’ by Clive Irving (Newsweek, April 2013)

One of the great scandals in British political history, the Profumo Affair—which paired then War Secretary John Profumo with a teenaged former showgirl—had it all: sex, drugs, photographs, spies and a proto-Clintonian denial.

5. ‘The Dark Side of Camelot,’ by Kitty Kelley (People Magazine, February 1988)

Judith Exner wasn’t just JFK’s mistress, she was also his conduit to the mob.

6. ‘Clinton and the Women,’ by Marjorie Williams (Vanity Fair, May 1998)

On Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, and what the lack of protest reveals about feminism today (or, more accurately, in 1998).

7. ‘Monica Takes Manhattan,’ by Vanessa Grigoriadis (New York Magazine, March 2001)

Of course Vanessa Grigoriadis would write the perfect early-aughts New York magazine piece on Monica Lewinsky’s post-scandal second act as a Manhattan twenty-something.

8. ‘Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster,’ by John Heilemann & Mark Halperin (New York Magazine, January 9, 2010)

“My friends insist you’re John Edwards,” Rielle Hunter said. “I tell them no way—you’re way too handsome.”

Yes, that Game Change excerpt. When was the last time you re-read it?

Are we missing anything? Share your story picks in the comments.


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The Spy Who Loved Frogs

Longreads Pick

A young scientist retraces the work of Edward Taylor, a prolific herpetologist (a zoologist who studies reptiles and amphibians) who also led a double life as a spy:

“Taylor was called to duty again in 1944, when he was 54 and war raged in the Pacific. According to records in the US National Archives, he joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to train agents in Sri Lanka — then a British territory that provided ready access to Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia and other areas that the Japanese had infiltrated. Scientific work, an OSS officer explained to one of Taylor’s superiors, was ‘excellent cover.’

“Taylor taught jungle survival at Camp Y, a steamy settlement on the coast. With a penetrating stare and a lantern jaw, he seemed more imposing than his 1.8 metres. In his spare time, he occasionally dodged gunfire to nab specimens, which he studied for two monographs published after the war. ‘Have just described five new forms of blind snakes from the island,’ he wrote to S. Dillon Ripley, a young ornithologist who served with him and would later lead the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. In a later letter, he offered ‘some 500 species’ of mollusc shells to the Smithsonian.”

Source: Nature
Published: Sep 11, 2013
Length: 12 minutes (3,211 words)

Celebrating Four Years of Longreads

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Longreads just celebrated its fourth birthday, and it’s been a thrill to watch this community grow since we introduced this service and Twitter hashtag in 2009. Thank you to everyone who participates, whether it’s as a reader, a publisher, a writer—or all three. And thanks to the Longreads Members who have made it possible for us to keep going. 

To celebrate four years, here’s a rundown of some of our most frequent #longreads contributors, and some of their recent recommendations: 

#1 – @matthiasrascher


#2 – @hriefs


#3 – @roamin


#4 – @jalees_rehman


#5 – @LAReviewofBooks


#6 – @TheAtlantic


#7 – @nxthompson


#8 – @faraway67 


#9 – @PocketHits


#10 – @legalnomads


#11 – @brainpicker


#12 – @LineHolm1 


#13 – @Guardian


#14 – @stonedchimera


#15 – @MosesHawk


#16 – @James_daSilva


#17 – @chrbutler


#18 – @eugenephoto

#19 – @jaredbkeller


#20 – @morgank


#21 – @dougcoulson


#22 – @LaForgeNYT


#23 – @stephen_abbott

#24 – @venkatananth

#25 – @weegee

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week—featuring The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Mother Jones, Los Angeles Magazine, Smithsonian, fiction from The American Scholar and a guest pick from Marissa Evans. 

Longreads Best of 2012: Reyhan Harmanci

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Reyhan Harmanci is deputy editor of Modern Farmer, a not-yet-launched publication devoted to issues of farming and food (and animals!).

Picking these stories activated an obsessive part of my brain and I’m already regretting throwing the “best” around without spending a few months reading all of the Longreads of 2012. But there’s always 2013!

Best Farmer/Vampire Story 

“The Great New England Vampire Panic,” Abigail Tucker, Smithsonian

This story really needs to be read to be believed. First of all, hats off to the writer, Abigail Tucker, for introducing and then eliminating the possibility of a serial killer in the first ten lines. And then the chilling line: “Ever heard of the Jewett City vampires?” What follows is a window into East Coast agrarian life in the 1800s, a time when supernatural folklore took hold as demographic changes drained the land of people.  (Also, you guys, VAMPIRES.)

Best Public Safety Story 

“Silos Loom as Death Traps on American Farms,” John M. Broder, The New York Times

Silos. You don’t really think about them, right? Thanks to this fantastic bit of reporting from The New York Times, you won’t be able to forget them. When federal officials noticed that a strangely high percentage of “grain entrapment” deaths, basically corn avalanches, were those of teenage boys, regulators moved to ban child labor on the farm. This caused a great controversy because child farm labor is the only kind exempted from labor regulations—many protested that it was a denial of age-old tradition. The forces that collided over this issue are fascinating, and heartbreaking.

Best Tech Criminal Story

“Scamworld: ‘Get rich quick’ schemes mutate into an online monster,” Joseph L. Flatley, The Verge

From The Verge, this in-depth look at the subculture of a particular kind of online scam stayed with me all year. The reporter dug in, and got the perspectives of both those peddling a strange kind of snake oil (marketing, basically) and the poor souls who spend thousands of dollars on worthless products. I still can’t totally wrap my mind around what these Scamworld folks are selling—the ability to market yourself online?—but in a way, it doesn’t matter. They are selling what con artists always sell: themselves.

Best Immersion Journalism Story

“I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave,” Mac McClelland, Mother Jones

Immersion pieces can be tricky—oftentimes, the writer spends most of the copy patting himself on the back for the bravery to, say, pretend to be homeless for a week or read the Bible in sequential order. But Mac McClelland really nails the balance here, as she spends a month showing us something we never see: the elves who package our online shopping goods, for little wage and under bad conditions. After this story came out, when I saw the headlines that Amazon was trying to do same-day shipping, my heart sunk. 

Best Call-to-Action Essay

“A Convenient Excuse,” Wen Stephenson, the Boston Phoenix

Okay, this story (or whatever it is—a combination of op-ed and essay) is far from perfect. But the issues raised by Wen Stephenson—a former editor for the Atlantic and longtime journalist—about how the media deals with (and doesn’t deal with) climate change are big. Very big. The bottom line is that unless journalists treat the environmental changes happening right now on our planet as a crisis, not a debate, the public is not getting adequately informed. We may not be all doomed yet but the odds are swiftly tilting against our favor.

Read more guest picks from Longreads Best of 2012.