The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
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Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.
* * *

From reporter Jason Cherkis and the Huffington Post’s new Highline magazine comes a devastating story about ’70s teen rock band the Runaways. Bassist Jackie Fuchs reveals that early in the band’s history, she was drugged and raped by their producer Kim Fowley in front of several bandmates, including Joan Jett. She stayed silent for decades. (Jett is not commenting.)
Jackie showed up at the next band practice some days later, not ready to stop being a Runaway. Although she was nervous about how her bandmates would treat her, she at least expected them to acknowledge that something bad had happened. But the girls hardly registered her presence. They just plugged in and started running through their songs. That was the day, Jackie says, “the elephant joined the band.”
Jackie took her bandmates’ silence to mean that she should keep quiet, too. “I didn’t know if anybody would have backed me,” she says. “I knew I would be treated horribly by the police—that I was going to be the one that ended up on trial more than Kim. I carried this sense of shame and of thinking it was somehow my fault for decades.”

The United States wasn’t built on pluralism, unless you consider “which extremist Protestant denomination are you?” and an oppressed native population pluralism. The Founding Fathers had some good ideas (democracy!) but diversity and inclusion—by our contemporary definitions—weren’t among them. I like to think we’re getting there, that one day, we’re going to be known as a place where superficial tolerance or outright hate aren’t the norm, but wholehearted acceptance and appreciation are. That we won’t use religion as an excuse for bigotry or stasis. That marginalized communities will have equity, not just equality. That’s what I choose to ponder on the Fourth of July. How far we’ve come, how far we have to go.
This year, unsurprisingly, I’m thinking about Obergefell v. Hodges, better known as the case resulting in the Supreme Court decision to institute the right to same-sex marriage in all 50 states. I’m thinking about the weight of marriage and its legal ramifications, about assimilation versus acceptance. I’m reading, a lot, about how marriage equality isn’t the endgame. At its best, it’s a step on the way to something, somewhere better. At worst, it’s a misstep or a distraction. In the following list, I share different perspectives about same-sex marriage (all written by members of the LGBTQ+ community), as well as Pride, religious opinions, family and stereotypes.
Leah Lax left Hasidic Judaism and found happiness and intimacy with another woman. She shares the technicalities of their journey—healthcare, tax benefits, marriage—and the beauty in the details of of waking up next to the person you love. Read more…

Yesterday, Marc Lamont Hill tweeted, “I’m going to need all White people to denounce this ugly act of racist domestic terrorism.” This reading list is me denouncing the actions of a white supremacist terrorist, who visited a Wednesday night Bible study at one of the most important, sacred sites of Black religious and political freedom with the exclusive intention of killing attendees in cold blood. White people: we have to do better. We can’t deflect responsibility for this tragedy; we can’t blame this on mental illness (many of my friends and I deal with mental illness every day; none of us have murdered anyone). We have to demand accountability from one another and stand up for people of color—in the streets, in our Facebook feeds, in our offices and homes.
White Americans will not have to look in the mirror and ask, “what does it feel like to be a problem.” In the aftermath of recurring mass shooting events, and right-wing domestic terrorism, it is essential that they start to practice such acts of introspection in the interest of the Common Good.

A short reading list on the many lives of AOL, which will be acquired by Verizon for $4.4 billion. Fifteen years ago, AOL acquired Time Warner for $165 billion. Read more…

Here’s the thing: Moms, on an individual basis, may be taken for granted throughout much of the year, but motherhood itself is a status symbol. It’s a time-honored, accepted, even revered, path. Having children is, supposedly, one of the most fulfilling, important, life-affirming things a person could ever do.
So I wanted to write about women (rather, people—not everyone with a uterus identifies as a woman) choosing, actively, not to be mothers. I wanted to find joy in a countercultural narrative. And, yes, I wanted to write about this on Mother’s Day. Because it’s a day some well-meaning family member or total stranger might say, “So, when are you going to have kids?” It’s none of their business, but also, not everyone wants to have kids, and that’s totally okay. These folks have given their decisions a lot of thought—choosing not to parent at all is as big a decision as choosing to have a baby, or two, or five. It isn’t flippant, or silly, or selfish, as you’ll read in these essays and interviews.
• Author Meghan Daum has done her part in bringing childless-by-choice into the contemporary public consciousness; she edited the anthology Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids. The table of contents boasts essays from Lionel Shriver, Geoff Dyer, Daum herself and a host of other authors. I enjoyed this interview with Daum at Jezebel, especially this line: “Choosing not to have kids is actually a way of showing respect for parenting (at least good parenting) and is ultimately good for kids because it creates a society in which kids are truly wanted”. Peep her own essay, “Opting Out of Motherhood,” at Harper’s. And if you’re intrigued by the anthology, I recommend Courtney Hodell’s beautiful piece on chosen childlessness at Elle. She’s a great storyteller. Read more…

Scott Porch | Longreads | March 2015 | 14 minutes (3,624 words)
Almost a year ago, former LA Weekly film writer Karina Longworth began producing You Must Remember This, a podcast about the inner worlds of Hollywood icons of the past and present. The characters and stories range from familiar, to unknown, to just plain weird. (Episode 2 is about a Frank Sinatra space opera that you never knew existed.) Longworth, 34, has also written for publications including Grantland about everything from the history of the Super Mario Bros. movie to the stories of Harvey Weinstein’s ruthlessness in the editing room.
We recently talked by phone about her interest in the stories of classic Hollywood, the unique format of podcasting, and how her roles as a journalist, critic, and historian have informed her storytelling.

Journey Bailey played football for years and, after one concussion too many, came to in a hospital bed with a subdural hematoma. In his searing essay, Bailey writes about a football culture that kept him from revealing his symptoms to coaches who downplayed the seriousness of concussions. The power of Bailey’s writing comes from his voice. He’s a football player talking to other football players. He’s not a doctor or a concerned parent or an aging former athlete. He’s a a guy who speaks the language of locker rooms and long school-bus rides to away games. “[T]he next time you’re out on that field pushing for that first down or tackling that running back and you start to see stars, feel dizzy, or develop a headache that won’t go away, don’t ignore the signs in order to stay in the game,” he urges his fellow players. “Think about having tubes shoved down your penis. Think about having dents in your head. Think about crying yourself to sleep while trying to decide whether or not to buy a shotgun off of Craigslist and blow your brains out.”

Julia Wick | Longreads | November 7, 2014 | 11 minutes (2,674 words)
“I am bone of the bone of them that live in trailer homes.” That’s the first line of Sarah Smarsh’s essay “Poor Teeth,” which appeared on Aeon earlier this month. Like much of Smarsh’s work, “Poor Teeth” is a story about inequity in America. It is also a story about teeth, hers and her grandmother’s and also the millions of Americans who lack dental coverage.
Smarsh has written for Harper’s, Guernica and The Morning News, among other outlets. Her perspective is very much shaped by her personal experiences: She grew up in a family where most didn’t graduate from high school, and she later chaired the faculty-staff Diversity Initiative as a professor at Washburn University in Topeka. I spoke with her about her own path to journalism and how the media cover issues of class. Read more…

The following writers straddle the line between explanation and expression. Here is my piece. It is personal.
Lauren Morelli’s piece especially touched me. An ex-boyfriend once told me he consulted with his pastor and his wife to see if he should be concerned; would my “healthy fascination with bisexuality” (his words, which I don’t necessarily hate or disagree with) be a deterrent to a serious relationship? The pastor’s wife told him that I should be completely sure I wouldn’t leave him for a woman, should we get married (P.S. we were both 22). These people had never met me, but they were trying to articulate my complex relationship with myself and the people I love. At the time, I brushed that pain aside; now I am hurt and angry. I have never written about this before, but the bravery of Lauren Morelli’s piece dares me to. It dares all of us to face our lives with rugged honesty.
These pieces aren’t about me, though—they are about profound, unique experiences. But they are opportunities to put names with faces, to make the abstract real, and what is more important than that?
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