Search Results for: Spin

How to Spell the Rebel Yell

Elena Passarello | The Normal School | 2010 | 14 minutes (3,470 words)

The Normal SchoolOur latest Longreads Member Pick is a deep dive into the sounds of history, from Elena Passarello and The Normal School. The essay also is featured in Passarello’s book, Let Me Clear My Throat.
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“Yee-aay-ee!” “Wah-Who-Eeee!” -Margaret Mitchell

 

“Wah-Who-Eeee!” -Chester Goolrick

 

“Rrrrrr-yahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip!”

-H. Allen Smith

 

“More! More! More!” -Billy Idol

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Cats and Their People: A Reading List

Longreads Pick

This week’s reading list from Emily includes stories from SPIN, Rookie, Aeon, and xoJane.

Source: Longreads
Published: Aug 10, 2014

Cats and Their People: A Reading List

While my boyfriend’s parents are away, their cat(s) and I play. Well, one of them plays. The other, a very, very large tabby, resents my presence and hides under the bed, sneaking downstairs to eat only when Micah, a slim Russian Blue, and I have fallen asleep on the couch. This is my first time cat sitting.

For years, I was an avowed dog person, despite the yapping tendencies of my family’s Bichon Frisé. I liked the validation dogs provide, and I didn’t think cats liked me. I was also allergic to cats, like my mom.

Micah and his brother, Jonah, lived together in a swanky nursing home. When the authorities decided the situation wasn’t ideal for the residents or the felines, my friend Abbie adopted Jonah. Jonah won over everyone he met, including me. Russian Blues are notoriously friendly. They’re extremely affectionate, and never standoffish. In other words, they defy every cat stereotype.

Once I met Jonah, I lamented my allergies. I told Abbie I’d been searching for hypoallergenic breeds online, hoping that I, too, could own a cat. “I’ve been looking at Russian Blues,” I said. Abbie said, “Don’t you know? Jonah is a Russian Blue.” That meant Micah was a Russian Blue, too. I actually got up and danced around the apartment. Hands shaking (not a joke), I texted my boyfriend in all caps. I think I interrupted a family dinner.

A few months after my initial plea, my boyfriend’s parents took Micah home for a trial run. The week up to his homecoming, I felt like a child at Christmas. I could not get out of the office fast enough that Friday. Micah was adjusting to life in his new house, camping out in my boyfriend’s bedroom. He preferred to nap under the desk rather than in the bed of toys my boyfriend had prepared. He forced his head into my hands, begging to be petted. Now, he loves ham and cream cheese. He tends to box with Benny, the largish tabby upstairs. He sleeps on my boyfriend’s chest when he comes home from work. He’s a delight.

To honor all the cool cats in our lives, here is a list of stories. Read more…

Why Do So Many People Pretend to Be Native American?

Illustration by Kjell Reigstad

Russell Cobb | This Land Press | August 2014 | 16 minutes (3,976 words)

This Land PressFor this week’s Longreads Member Pick, we are thrilled to share a brand new essay from Oklahoma’s This Land Press, just published in their August 2014 issue. This Land has been featured on Longreads often in the past—you can support them here.
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The Skies Belong to Us: How Hijackers Created an Airline Crisis in the 1970s

Brendan I. Koerner | The Skies Belong to Us | 2013 | 25 minutes (6,186 words)

 

‘There Is No Way to Tell a Hijacker by Looking At Him’

When the FAA’s antihijacking task force first convened in February 1969, its ten members knew they faced a daunting challenge—not only because of the severity of the crisis, but also due to the airlines’ intransigence. Having spent vast sums on Beltway lobbyists, the airlines had the political clout to nix any security measure that might inconvenience their customers. So whatever solutions the FAA proposed would have to be imperceptible to the vast majority of travelers. Read more…

The Value of Letting Kids Lose

At Deadspin, Drew Magary looks at America’s ‘Kid-Competition Complex’ and explains why it’s problematic:

I have a 5-year-old son who hates losing. I don’t mean this as a compliment. He BLOWS at losing. He rigs pretty much any game in the backyard in his favor, and if you call him out on him, he gives you a red card (he’s also the ref). And if you beat him (and, as it stands now, I can totally beat him at everything), he cries and cries and cries until you let him win the next game so he stops crying. I took him to a bar to watch Mexico play Holland in the World Cup and he arbitrarily cheered on Mexico. When they blew the game, he acted like a wailing widow throwing herself on a coffin.

And so I’ve had to spend a great amount of energy teaching my son to lose, to explain to him that you can play hard and play well and still have the misfortune of losing. I need to get him to accept the value of losing, which is frankly counter to how losing is portrayed in the American mainstream. Losers are shunned. Losers are ridiculed. “Loser” is Donald Trump’s favorite insult, which is just so telling. Jürgen Klinsmann publicly stated that the U.S. men’s soccer team couldn’t win the World Cup, and for that obvious assessment, he was scorned by Michael Wilbon and other assorted members of the Hot Take Collective. For Wilbon, even acknowledging the reality of losing is itself a way of losing. In his eyes, real competitors don’t anticipate loss. They delude themselves into the possibility of winning even when that’s stupid. This is why he told Klinsmann to get out of America. Americans do not think this way. Americans compete.

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Photo: Luyen Chou

Just Undo It: The LeBron James Profile That Nike Killed

Longreads Pick

A profile of LeBron James written in 2011 for Port, a men’s magazine, that was funded by Nike. Nike was unhappy with the profile and the story was killed, but appears now on Deadspin.

Source: Deadspin
Published: Jul 10, 2014
Length: 28 minutes (7,147 words)

Curses: A Tribute to Losing Teams and Easy Scapegoats

Barry Grass | The Normal School | Spring 2014 | 18 minutes (4,537 words)

 

1st

Late in every February, Major League Baseball players report to Spring Training.

Every year in Kansas City this is heralded by a gigantic special section in The Kansas City Star crammed full of positive reporting and hopeful predictions about the coming season. Each year it is another variation on the same theme: “This is Our Year” or “Is This Our Year?” or “Can the Royals Win it All?” or “Our Time” or “How Good are these Royals?” or “How Good are these Royals” or or or. It gets tiresome after growing up hearing it year after year, because the answer has always been the same. The answer is no. It’s not our time. It’s not our year. No, the Royals aren’t going to win it all. These Royals are not very good. No. Read more…

The Story of H.M.: The Amnesiac Who Profoundly Changed the Way We Think About Memory

Sam Kean | The Tale of Dueling Neurosurgeons | 2014 | 12 minutes (3,008 words)

 
For our latest Longreads Member Pick, we’re excited to share a story from The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, a new book from science reporter Sam Kean looking at stories about the brain and the history of neuroscience. Here’s Kean:

In our minds, we more or less equate our identities with our memories; our very selves seem the sum total of all we’ve done and felt and seen. That’s why we cling to our memories so hard, even to our detriment sometimes—they seem the only bulwark we have against the erosion of the self. That’s also why disorders that rob us of our memories seem so cruel.

In the excerpt below, I explore one of the most profound cases of amnesia in medical history, H.M., who taught us several important things about how memory works. Perhaps most important, he taught us that different types of memories exist in the brain, and that each type is controlled by different structures. In fact, H.M. so profoundly changed our ideas about memory that it’s hard to remember what things were like before him.

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Revisiting the Hobby Lobby Case in Two Stories

In light of today’s Supreme Court ruling on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, we’re revisiting two stories:

1. Spin, Measure, Cut: Hobby Lobby and the Tangled Skein of Reproductive Rights (Susan Schorn, The Hairpin)

Susan Schorn writes about family history, crafts, and the power of choice:

In America, my great-grandmother endured multiple pregnancies, many of which ended in miscarriage due to violence at her husband’s hands. But five of her children survived, among them my grandmother and great-aunt. What values did their mother pass on to them? For one thing, they learned that letting men control their bodies and lives was a very bad idea. They were Americans, their mother assured them; they couldn’t be forced into illiteracy, dependency, marriage, or pregnancy. Here in America, the priests didn’t make the laws, and fathers and husbands couldn’t invoke tradition to control women’s live.

My great-grandmother made sure her daughters went to school; she taught them to value education and knowledge over superstition and religious doctrine. Today, the women in my family make afghans, and some of us go to church. We also have college degrees. We have our own beliefs about procreation, but we also think critically, and we value the expertise of scientists and physicians who study pregnancy and childbirth. We trust their opinions on the subject more than we do that of priests, religious leaders, or CEOs of hobby stores. Why? Because they tell us what our bodies do, not what we must do with them. They provide information that helps us make decisions for ourselves. And that is a paramount value in my family: When it’s your body that bears the consequences, you make the decisions. All of them.

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