Hand on the Shoulder

[Fiction] Excerpt from McEwan’s forthcoming novel Sweet Tooth. A young woman is introduced to the man who would recruit her to MI5:

“My name is Serena Frome (rhymes with ‘plume’), and forty years ago, in my final year at Cambridge, I was recruited by the British security service. In the early spring of 1972, when exams were only weeks away, I found a new boyfriend, a historian called Jeremy Mott. He was of a certain old-fashioned type—lanky, large-nosed, with an out-sized Adam’s apple. He was unkempt, clever in an understated way, and extremely polite. I’d noticed quite a few of his sort around. They all seemed to have descended from a single family and to have come from private schools in the North of England where they were issued with the same clothes.”

Author: Ian McEwan
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Apr 23, 2012
Length: 30 minutes (7,730 words)

The Rise of the Killer Drones: How America Goes to War in Secret

How the U.S. drone program became central to the Obama administration’s counterterrorism efforts. The president has presided over 268 covert drone strikes, five times what George W. Bush ordered:

“But the implications of drones go far beyond a single combat unit or civilian agency. On a broader scale, the remote-control nature of unmanned missions enables politicians to wage war while claiming we’re not at war – as the United States is currently doing in Pakistan. What’s more, the Pentagon and the CIA can now launch military strikes or order assassinations without putting a single boot on the ground – and without worrying about a public backlash over U.S. soldiers coming home in body bags. The immediacy and secrecy of drones make it easier than ever for leaders to unleash America’s military might – and harder than ever to evaluate the consequences of such clandestine attacks.

“‘Drones have really become the counterterrorism weapon of choice for the Obama administration,’ says Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown law professor who helped establish a new Pentagon office devoted to legal and humanitarian policy. ‘What I don’t think has happened enough is taking a big step back and asking, “Are we creating more terrorists than we’re killing? Are we fostering militarism and extremism in the very places we’re trying to attack it?” A great deal about the drone strikes is still shrouded in secrecy. It’s very difficult to evaluate from the outside how serious of a threat the targeted people pose.'”

Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Apr 20, 2012
Length: 27 minutes (6,935 words)

How Psychedelic Drugs Can Help Patients Face Death

Researchers are exploring whether certain drugs can help patients cope with fear of death. Pam Sakuda, who was given 6 to 14 months to live, was administered psilocybin—an active component of magic mushrooms:

“Sakuda brought a few pictures of loved ones, which, Grob recalled, she clutched in her hands as she lay back on the bed. By her side were Grob and one of his research assistants, both of whom stayed with the subjects for the six-to-seven-hour treatment session. Sakuda knew that there would be time set aside in the days and weeks following when she would meet with Grob and his team to process what would happen in that room. Black eyeshades were draped over Sakuda’s face, encouraging her to look inward. She was given headphones. Music was piped in: the sounds of rivers rushing, sweet staccatos, deep drumming. Each hour, Grob and his staff checked in with Sakuda, as they did with every subject, asking if all was O.K. and taking her blood pressure. At one point, Grob observed that Sakuda, with the eyeshades draped over her face, began to cry. Later on, Sakuda would reveal to Grob that the source of her tears was a keen empathetic understanding of what her spouse Norbert would feel when she died.”

Published: Apr 20, 2012
Length: 15 minutes (3,981 words)

Come, Japanese!

[Fiction] [Not single-page] Mail-order brides on a journey across the ocean:

“On the boat we were mostly virgins. We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall. Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel as young girls and had slightly bowed legs, and some of us were only fourteen years old and were still young girls ourselves. Some of us came from the city, and wore stylish city clothes, but many more of us came from the country and on the boat we wore the same old kimonos we’d been wearing for years – faded hand-me-downs from our sisters that had been patched and re-dyed many times. Some of us came from the mountains and had never before seen the sea, except for in pictures, and some of us were the daughters of fishermen who had been around the sea all our lives. Perhaps we had lost a brother or father to the sea, or a fiancé, or perhaps someone we loved had jumped into the water one unhappy morning and simply swum away, and now it was time for us, too, to move on.”

Source: Granta
Published: Apr 21, 2012
Length: 18 minutes (4,714 words)

The Art of Waiting

The writer confronts her inability to have children and explores how humans’ behavior with reproduction compares with other animals:

“Like ours, the animal world is full of paradoxical examples of gentleness, brutality, and suffering, often performed in the service of reproduction. Female black widow spiders sometimes devour their partners after a complex and delicate mating dance. Bald eagle parents, who mate for life and share the responsibility of rearing young, will sometimes look on impassively as the stronger eaglet kills its sibling. At the end of their life cycle, after swimming thousands of miles in salt water, Pacific salmon swim up their natal, freshwater streams to spawn, while the fresh water decays their flesh. Animals will do whatever it takes to ensure reproductive success.”

Source: Orion Magazine
Published: Apr 1, 2012
Length: 16 minutes (4,159 words)

Uncle Skillet Rides Again

[Fiction] A born-again adolescent takes a joyride with his wandering uncle:

“My parents and I had been waiting for Uncle Skillet to show up for five hours, wasting an entire Saturday as far as I was concerned, and not just any old Saturday but a glorious early summer one of God’s pure sunshine and chirping birds, a day so perfect that kids who were allowed to wear next to no clothes would be at the swimming pool all day long, and I’d have the perfect excuse to push the lawnmower by and get a look at Sage Ekhart in a bikini laying on a towel by the Coke machines. I was not allowed to wear next to no clothes, was not allowed to go to the pool. I was spending this Saturday in church pants with suspenders, my shirt tucked in, wearing loafers, pretending to watch television while we waited on Uncle Skillet.”

(Thanks, Instafiction)

Source: Atticus Review
Published: Apr 20, 2012
Length: 23 minutes (5,897 words)

The Costa Concordia Sinking: Inside the Epic Fight for Survival

Survivors and crew members recount the Costa Concordia crash, in which 32 people lost their lives:

“The Concordia’s loss is also a landmark moment in naval history. It is the largest passenger ship ever wrecked. The 4,000 people who fled its slippery decks—nearly twice as many as were aboard the R.M.S. Titanic in 1912—represent the largest maritime evacuation in history. A story of heroism and disgrace, it is also, in the mistakes of its captain and certain officers, a tale of monumental human folly.

“‘This was an episode of historic importance for those who study nautical issues,’ says Ilarione Dell’Anna, the Italian Coast Guard admiral who oversaw much of the massive rescue effort that night. ‘The old point of departure was the Titanic. I believe that today the new point of departure will be the Costa Concordia. There has never been anything like this before. We must study this, to see what happened and to see what we can learn.'”

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Apr 20, 2012
Length: 47 minutes (11,892 words)

An American (Working) in Paris

A New Yorker with limited French skills gets dropped into an advertising agency in Paris:

“In French class, I did well in spoken tests, but my written French was appalling. The conditional tense confused me, and the French loved the conditional tense, French conversation practically being founded on relativity—perhaps, maybe, I don’t know. In kissing, some people were ripe, others were not. Whole groups could be off-limits.

“It definitely wasn’t appropriate to kiss your boss, except when it was, though it was correct to kiss your underlings, except when it wasn’t. Young men generally didn’t kiss other young men, unless they were friends outside work. But older men did, sometimes. You never knew. Also, these kisses were intended not to touch the cheek but to glance it. People kept their eyes locked on the middle distance and seemed, while kissing or being kissed, very bored.”

Source: GQ
Published: Apr 19, 2012
Length: 16 minutes (4,069 words)

A Medic Confronts The Open Wounds Of Afghanistan

An anonymous personal account from a Marine Corp medic in Afghanistan:

“My corpsmen and I processed dozens of locals who’d been arrested for a countless acts of shadiness. We provided medical exams and documented any marks, scars, or injuries on them before and after questioning. They would arrive with a grape-juice-colored stain across their fingers and palms, from the test for chemical traces of homemade explosives. We wondered: Is this mouth I’m peering into breathing tuberculosis into me at this moment? Were these eyes viewing Marines throguh a Kalashnikov sight earlier? Will these hands make bombs tomorrow?”

Author: Anonymous
Source: Deadspin
Published: Apr 19, 2012
Length: 9 minutes (2,433 words)

Abnegation: On Tom Bissell and ‘Magic Hours’

A review of Bissell’s new book of essays—and how the writer both entertains and frustrates:

“The best thing about Tom Bissell: He is fun. I think of him as ‘a wild and crazy guy.’ I’m by turns entertained and completely aghast at his antics. He is totally obsessive. He’s watched that appalling movie The Room a bajillion times. I loved the idea of him and David Foster Wallace negotiating gravely about whether or not they ought to dip tobacco together (they did). Bissell, apparently, travels all over the place with a hardcover copy of Infinite Jest, which is surely the most inconvenient thing outside of, like, a chihuahua, to have to pack in a suitcase. And I don’t know if he’s given it up by now (I hope so) but he used to drink 10 Diet Cokes every day. Ten! That is terrible, Tom Bissell! I worry about him.”

Published: Apr 19, 2012
Length: 13 minutes (3,487 words)