Froggie regrets. A precious ticket to a Chicago Bulls game. A conversation about AI and nature. A profile of the worldโs most famous unknown writer. And to finish, a look back to last Friday and a St. Patrickโs Day tradition.
Anne Fadiman | Harperโs Magazine | February 10, 2023 | 5,816 words
โThere are two kinds of pets โ the ones you choose and the ones that happen to you,โ Anne Fadiman writes as she considers her familyโs various pets, a menagerie that included a goldfish, a hamster, guinea pigs, a dog named Typo, and Bunky, an African clawed frog that the family raised from a tadpole. In eulogizing Bunky, who looked โas if a regular frog had been bleached and then put in a panini press,โ Fadiman remarks on his noble species, one that helped spawn (ahem) the first widely established pregnancy test, earned a Nobel Prize for a British biologist who used an African clawed frog to clone the first vertebrate, and helped establish that reproduction can be possible in zero gravity after a trip on the space shuttleย Endeavor. All this, from a pet who was defined by not being a dog: โBunky was the anti-Typo. An unpettable pet. Cool to the touch. Squishy, but not soft. Undeniably slimy. Impervious to education. A poor hiking companion. Not much of a companion at all, really. Couldnโt be taken out of his aquarium and placed on a lap.โ Fadimanโs piece will make you laugh and make you think more carefully about your role as a pet owner. โKS
Justin Heckert | ESPN | March 7, 2023 | 5,462 words
I donโt follow the NBA, and Iโm not one for memorabilia of any variety. But leave it to Justin Heckert, one of my favorite feature writers, to make me give a damn about an old, untorn ticket to a Chicago Bulls game that happened around the time I was born. Heckert spends time with Mike Cole, who as a college freshman attended Michael Jordanโs first game with the Bulls and saved the ticket because heโs the kind of guy who does that. (Cole has a plastic bin with โMIKEโS MEMORY BOXโ written on the side, filled with ephemera from various sporting events). Nearly 40 years after the Bulls game, a span of time in which Jordan became one of the most celebrated athletes in history, a man with a Glock strapped to his hip came to Coleโs house in an armored car. He was there to retrieve the ticket, which Cole had agreed to sell at auction, where it was expected to bring in as much as $1 million. But the story Heckert tells isnโt about Cole getting rich (though that does happen). Really, itโs about the meaning we invest in objects and how it can change as we do, as the world does. โSD
Claire L. Evans | Grow | March 14, 2023 | 4,203 words
In this fascinating interview with Claire L. Evans, Ways of Being author James Bridle shares their perspective on the role of AI today โย โto broaden our idea of intelligenceโ โ and a vision for a mindful, collaborative future that ultimately decenters humans and makes more space for nonhuman beings and animals. โI donโt think there is such a thing as an artificial intelligence,โ says Bridle. โThere are multiple intelligences, many ways of doing intelligence.โ Intelligence is relational; itโs not something that exists within beings of things, but rather between them. As a gardener โ someone who loves feeling their hands in the soil, and working with the small organisms within it โ I love their conversation on gardening, and how humans can apply that same deep awareness to technology. I appreciate, too, their thoughts on resilience and the transmission of knowledge in a time of radical change on Earth. (If you enjoy this Q&A, combine it with two previous Top 5 favorites: โThe Great Forgetting,โ a read on resilience and the environment, and โWhat Counts As Seeing,โ another interview focused on the nonhuman and natural world.) โCLR
Jason Keheย |ย Wiredย |ย March 23, 2023ย |ย 4,044 words
For someone whoโs published countless books, and sold an enormous multiple of that countlessness, Brandon Sanderson is anything but a household name. Unless you live in a fantasy house, that is. Still, the most prolific living genre fiction writer has never been the subject of a magazine profile, which makes Jason Keheโs treatment all the more enjoyable. A year ago,ย I picked Keheโs piece about simulation theoryย for this roundup, and the two stories share a damn-the-torpedoes willingness to fuse exegetical acuity with a chatty, even flippant POV. What works for a philosophical essay works for a portrait; Keheโs quest isnโt to capture Sanderson as much as it is to capture why people love Sanderson so much, and what animates his sprawling fictional worlds. That means casting away the false pieties and stannery that infect so many โcelebrityโ profiles and instead relishing in the manโs banalities. Yet, the barbs are tipped with love, and everyone โ the voracious fans, Sandersonโs clichรฉ-spouting characters, and Sanderson himself โ shines as their truest selves. โPR
Harrison Scott Key | The Bitter Southerner | March 14, 2023 | 5,200 words
Last Friday night, I had two pints of Guinness and went home, content with a St. Patrickโs Day well celebrated. Apparently, I know nothing about how to observe the feast. Harrison Scott Key enlightened me in this delightful essay about the drunken debauchery that is the holidayโs annual parade in Savannah, Georgia. I loved his raucous account of trying to claim a spot for the parade: Akin to the Sacking of Constantinople, โinsults and elbows and fits [are] thrownโ until everyone settles into their position, dons a green feather boa, and makes merry. The prose is so vivid you can almost hear the noise, touch the sweaty crowds, and taste the booze. I could also feel the camaraderie โ over the years of attending the parade, Scott Key finds lasting friendships. A transplant to Savannah, and initially lonely and unable to find his place in a new community, this annual tradition helps Scott Key to discover his people. After all, as he writes, โitโs easier to love people youโve watched vomit into the hellmouth of a portable toilet at two in the morning.โ โCW
Jia Tolentino | The New Yorker | March 20, 2023 | 4,772 words
This is a fascinating look at GLP-1 drugs, which, when injected, create a sense of satiety. I appreciated Tolentinoโs exploration of the continual shift in our acceptance of different body shapes, as well as the impact of this particular trend. A piece that made me think about society, as much as weight. โCW
Enjoyed these recommendations? Browse all of ourย editorsโ picks, or sign up for our weekly newsletter if you havenโt already:
Kickstart your weekend by getting the weekโs best reads, hand-picked and introduced by Longreads editors, delivered to your inbox every Friday morning.