My Mother, Gardening

The writer remembers her mother and the garden she loved:

“At the height of summer my mother would clip the most luxurious marigolds that she had successfully grown from seed, handfuls of intense yellow bobbing in the hot wind, reaching above her waist. She’d dip them in wax so that they would outlast the season, lighting her kitchen into dusky autumn. The marigold was the personal passion of David Burpee, the son of the company’s founder—who became a registered lobbyist in 1960 so that he could campaign in Congress to name the marigold the U.S. national flower. My mother bought seeds from the glossy catalogues Burpee pumped out during the years following World War II, showcasing a series of brand-new floral hybrids whose very names exuded drama and expectation: the Yellow Climax Marigold was followed by the Double Supreme Hybrid Snapdragon in 1960 and the Firecracker Zenith Hybrid Zinnia in 1963. When Burpee’s plants blossomed in my mother’s garden—luxurious flesh in pink, yellow, orange, white, and red—they transformed the day.”

Published: Jul 1, 2013
Length: 9 minutes (2,258 words)

Reading List: Summer Camp

Picks from Emily Perper, a freelance editor and reporter currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps. This week’s picks include stories from The New Yorker, Autostraddle, Rookie, and The Believer.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jun 30, 2013

The Call of Battle

After serving two tours in Iraq and returning to civilian life in 2006, the writer decides to embed as a journalist in Afghanistan seven years later:

“We humped the three kilometers back to the school. It was early afternoon and there was plenty of light left, so we loaded our packs into two ANA trucks and began our march back to the compound for the night. By then the Afghans appeared to have all but lost interest in the mission, scattered around us, groups of them disappearing behind qalats, walls, and buildings, then reappearing in smaller numbers. As we pushed on through another open field, in a wedge formation, machine-gun fire opened up about a kilometer away from a small village to our three o’clock. It was followed immediately by mortar fire. The gun rounds were close, kicking up dirt and rock as we rushed for cover. I jumped into a hole with Ray just as several rounds snapped between us, cracking inches from my head. ‘Holy shit, Ray!’ I gasped.”

Author: Matt Cook
Source: Texas Monthly
Published: Jun 30, 2013
Length: 35 minutes (8,993 words)

The Marineland Dreamland

The writer recalls working at a scandal-ridden theme park, and meets with other former workers to investigate his own memories:

“Matt and I laughed—a shameful admission. You know those hysterical giggles you get when a situation is so absurd, shocking, or terrifying that they’re more a form of damage control? The laughter boils up your throat with a fizzy club soda effervescence, impossible to tamp down, intent on releasing the poison inside you.

“I truly want to believe that’s what it was. Otherwise, it was just two cruel boys laughing as our supervisor kicked a dead sea lion in the head.

“The ice splintered. The sea lion spun on its axis like a compass needle seeking true north. We guided it from the freezer, its body skidding awkwardly down the ramp and onto a concrete platform set above the Barn’s floor. Rod backed up Big Blue, an ancient stake truck retrofitted as a trash hauler, until its bumper nearly touched the platform. Then we slid the sea lion into the bed.”

Source: Walrus Magazine
Published: Jun 24, 2013
Length: 18 minutes (4,665 words)

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Author: Editors
Source: Longreads
Published: Jun 28, 2013

Black & Blue

Damien Echols spent 18 years on death row as part of the “West Memphis Three” before being freed in 2011. He’s now adjusting to domestic life in Salem, Mass.:

“Lucia Coale and her husband, Ed Schutte, found out about their new neighbors back in September, not long after Davis and Echols had signed the papers on the 1810 Colonial a few houses down. Someone on the street sent out an email: ‘Oh my gosh, guess who’s moving here?’ Coale remembers it saying. ‘We all went through a period where we checked [Echols] out on the Internet and watched Paradise Lost.’ Coale herself began to follow Echols on Twitter, which is how she learned that weeks after they’d moved in, he and Davis still didn’t own a TV, which meant that every time Echols had a television appearance, which in those days was often, they were heading down to the Hawthorne Hotel to watch it.

“Some time later, Coale and Schutte were out on a bike ride when they saw Echols and Davis out walking. ‘I tend to be a very chatty person, so I just kind of walked up and I said, ‘Hi, you don’t know me, but I’m your neighbor,’’ Coale recalled. They invited Echols and Davis over to watch TV whenever they wanted. ‘I didn’t know we would become friends with them,’ Schutte said. ‘Are you going to be friends with someone who was in solitary confinement for years? How would that work?'”

Source: Boston Magazine
Published: Jun 24, 2013
Length: 14 minutes (3,612 words)

‘Sopranos’ Creator David Chase’s Eulogy to James Gandolfini

“Dear Jimmy,

“Your family asked me to speak at your service, and I am so honored and touched. I’m also really scared, and I say that because you of all people will understand this. I’d like to run away and call in four days from now from the beauty parlor. I want to do a good job, because I love you, and because you always did a good job.”

Source: HitFix
Published: Jun 27, 2013
Length: 8 minutes (2,012 words)

A Filthy History: When New Yorkers Lived Knee-Deep in Trash

An interview with Robin Nagle, the New York City Department of Sanitation’s Anthropologist in Residence who has spent most of her life studying trash:

“In its early days, the department didn’t really function at all. There are some photographs taken for Harper’s Weekly, before and after photos of street corners in New York in 1893 and then in 1895. And the before pictures are pretty astonishing, people were literally shin-high or knee-high in this muck that was a combination of street gunk, horse urine and manure, dead animals, food waste, and furniture crap.

“Put yourself back in the late 19th century and think about the material world that would have surrounded you in your home. When you threw something out, it wouldn’t go anywhere. It would be thrown in the street.”

Published: Jun 24, 2013
Length: 19 minutes (4,768 words)

‘My Body Stopped Speaking to Me’: The First-Person Account of a Near-Death Experience

Our recent Longreads Member Pick by National Magazine Award winner Andrew Corsello from GQ is now free for everyone. Special thanks to our Longreads Members for helping bring these stories to you—if you’re not a member, join us here

“My Body Stopped Speaking to Me,” is a personal story about Corsello’s near-death experience, first published in GQ in 1995.

Source: GQ
Published: Nov 1, 1995
Length: 25 minutes (6,489 words)

College Longreads Pick of the Week: ‘When NCAA Schools Abandon Their Injured Athletes,’ by Meghan Walsh, UC Berkeley

Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher and Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. This week’s pick is “When NCAA Schools Abandon Their Injured Athletes,” by Meghan Walsh, who is a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Journalism School.

Author: Editors
Source: Longreads
Published: Jun 26, 2013
Length: 18 minutes (4,670 words)