An egg farm in Arizona making money off incarcerated women. An excerpt of David Grannโs new book about a disastrous 18th-century British naval expedition. A look into why people ski. And two reads on AI, a topic that none of us can currently escape.
Elizabeth Whitman | Cosmopolitan | February 15, 2023 | 3,897 words
Even during the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was clear that, as so often happens in America, the toll of the historic event would prove heaviest for the most vulnerable among us, including the elderly, disabled individuals, and essential workers. And the incarcerated. The virus tore through the countryโs overcrowded prisons and cut their populations off from the outside world more than they were to begin with. Arizona decided to take these horrors a step further by agreeing to set up a prison labor camp โ yes, you read that right โ at Hickmanโs Family Farms, a large egg producer. Hickmanโs had long paidย forย incarcerated individuals to work in its facilities; the workers only got paid after the state took a huge chunk out of their wages. โThis is groundbreaking,โ a driver told a female prisoner as he transferred her to the camp, the first of its kind in Arizona and possibly the country, where she would live and work alongside other incarcerated women while COVID exploded. โYou guys are gonna be a part of history.โ Apparently, history included illness, injury, and indignity, as this investigation by Elizabeth Whitman shows โ the women whose voices the story elevates were told they were necessary, and treated as if they were disposable. โSD
David Grann | The New Yorker | February 28, 2023 | 6,800 words
โThe only impartial witness was the sun.โ So much depends on these seven short words, and they do such a terrific job foreshadowing the mayhem to come. (Iโm a sucker for survival/adventure stories. Alfred Lansingโs Endurance: Shackletonโs Incredible Voyage, published in 1959, was among my favorite books last year.) David Grann recounts the backstory of theย Wager, a British man-o-war with a crew of over 250 that left Portsmouth, England, in 1740 as part of a squadron. Their mission: to find and loot a Spanish galleon, whose treasure was โknown as โthe prize of all the oceans.โโ By the time a ship โย in tatters โ limps into an inlet off the southeastern coast of Brazil, only 30 men remain, โtheir bodies wasted almost to the bone. Their clothes had largely disintegrated. Their faces were enveloped in hair, tangled and salted like seaweed.โ So, what the hell went wrong? Allow an excerpt of the prologue and first chapter of Grannโs forthcoming book, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, to whet your appetite for this story of disaster and intrigue on the high seas. โKS
Jack Stilgoeย |ย Aeonย |ย February 28, 2023ย |ย 5,576 words
With all the manic profiteering surrounding recent AI advances in art and writing, itโs hardย notย to think that someoneโs cooking up a plan to make musicians obsolete. As technologist Jack Stilgoe points out, though, drumming has long resisted the creep of automation. Thatโs not to say weโre still pummeling calfskin with nothing but our own two hands: From the bass pedal to the Roland TR-808, weโve sought to augment or even replace the rhythmic spine of popular music. But in genre after genre, from jazz to funk to samba, โswingโ and its infinite interpretations reign supreme โ and mechanization has yet to emulate soul. Stilgoe takes us through an engaging cultural history, punctuating his argument with clips of seminal moments from Clyde Stubblefield, Donna Summer, and others; itโs a paean to percussion that only a self-described โpart-time mediocre drummerโ could pull off. Yes, bedroom producers have all the (simulated) instruments of the world at their fingertips. And yes, in the near future weโll probably see some horribly named AI startup that promises an improvisational predictive model that can out-Dilla Dilla. Whether any of that can move you โ or make you move โ remains another question. โPR
Gloria Liu | Outside | February 27, 2023 | 3,851 words
Last Sunday, I went skiing โ by which I mean I largely stood in lift lines. Having forgotten my headphones, I was at the mercy of the conversations around me for entertainment. It ranged from people complaining about the traffic getting to the mountain to others ostentatiously using walkie-talkies โ perhaps forgetting they were not in the military โ to convey to those further afield that they were, in fact, still queuing. This piece from Gloria Liu about why people struggle through crowds for hours to pay exorbitant amounts for this limb-risking activity was, therefore, immediate catnip for me. As I devoured it, I chuckled at the characters conjured up by her vibrant prose, particularly the awkward Pit Viper-wearing couple on their first Tinder date. Itโs a fun concept: Sit on a chairlift all day and see who you meet. There are no profound revelations here (besides that Jim Bob stashed some White Claws at the top of the lift), but each group is reveling in the time spent outdoors with their friends or family; the crippling amount of time and money spent worth it for these precious endorphins. When I eventually met up with friends and skied some runs, it felt worth it, too. โCW
Tony Rehagen | Experience Magazine | February 15, 2023 | 1,267 words
Isย AIย fatigue a thing? Because Iโve felt it for some time. Yes, there are noteworthy AI stories worth reading right now, like Ted Chiang on blurry JPEGs or the piece on drumming that Peter recommends above. But there are only so many stories about ChatGPT and artificial intelligence that I can absorb, so Iโve started to tune out. But when I came upon this storyโs headline earlier this week, I couldnโt help but laugh โ and decided to dive in and just surrender to it all: A data-driven IPA brewed in Australia, fine-tuned using consumer feedback collected through QR codes on cans. Genetically modified hops in the drought-plagued U.S. Pacific Northwest. An AI company ridiculously (perfectly?) called Deep Liquid. In this ultimately fun and timely read, Tony Rehagen reports on the trend of craft breweries harnessing technology, data, and research to refine their recipes. Letโs raise a glass to hops and bots. โCLR
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My brother Nicholas David, who has died aged 85, was a leading figure in the field of ethnoarchaeology who undertook important research in west Africa and became professor of anthropology and archaeology at the University of Calgary.
Long after he retired in 2002 Nic continued to receive funding to carry out his research. He developed and maintained a website about the people of the Sukur in the Mandara mountains of Cameroon, and he contributed to adding the Sukur cultural landscape to the Unesco World Heritage list. In 2014, when Sukur was attacked by Boko Haram, Nic set up the Boko Haram Victims fund and website.
Continue reading...Our favorites this week included the truth behind the term โburnout,โ an incisive analysis of rap scapegoating, flowers for an aging icon, the beauty of noticing hidden wildlife, and an engaging look at historyโs forgotten children. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did.
Bench Ansfield | Jewish Currents | January 3, 2023 | 3,358 words
I might have recommended this essay based on the excellent headline alone, but in fact the substance is the star of the show. Like many millennials, I have adopted the term โburnoutโ into my vocabulary as a way of describing the feeling of working too hard, juggling too much, and feeling depleted by the grinding expectations of late-stage capitalism. After reading this piece, Iโll be endeavoring to use the word differently. As historian Bench Ansfield shows, the true origins of burnout as a concept have been obscured over time. Burnout isnโt a reference to a candle burning at both ends until thereโs nothing left, but to the shells of buildings left by a wave of arson that ravaged Black and brown neighborhoods in New York City in the โ70s. Much of the damage was caused by landlords looking for insurance payouts. โIf we excavate burnoutโs infrastructural unconscious โ its origins in the material conditions of conflagration โ we might discover a term with an unlikely potential for subversive meaning,โ Ansfield writes. โAn artifact of an incendiary history, burnout can vividly name the disposability of targeted populations under racial capitalism โ a dynamic that, over time, has ensnared ever-wider swaths of the workforce.โ If this were the premise of a college class, Iโd sign up in a heartbeat. โSD
Justin A. Davis | Scalawag | February 9, 2023 | 4,089 words
Put aside the chewy headline for a moment. Also put away whatever you know or donโt know about Young Thug, one of Atlantaโs most influential rap luminaries for a decade, and the epicenter of a sprawling and questionable criminal investigation into his YSL crew. What youโll find is a shrewd, fascinating analysis that combines a music obsessiveโs encyclopedic genre knowledge and a Southernerโs geographical intimacy, refracted through a lens of accessible (a crucial modifier!) political theory. It ably unpacks the hydra-headed beast of gentrification and economics and policing, as faced by the young Black man whoโs currently the Fulton County DAโs public enemy number one. โAs working-class and poor Black Atlantans fight against displacement and fall back on everyday survival tactics,โ Justin A. Davis writes, โtheyโre joining a decades-long struggle over who exactly the cityโs for. So is YSL.โ This sort of piece is exceedingly rare, not because of its form but because it demands an outlet that understands and nurtures its particular Venn diagram. Credit toย Scalawag, and of course to Davis, for creating something this urgent. Required reading โ not just for Thugga fans or Atlantans, but for anyone seeking to understand the world outside their own. โPR
Wright Thompson | ESPN | February 8, 2022 | 12,111 words
โNo. 16 is no longer what it once was. Joe Montana now must be something else.โ I havenโt kept up with American football in at least 20 years, but that didnโt stop me from devouring Wright Thompsonโs astonishing profile of former 49er quarterback Joe Montana. I grew up watching the Niners (Ronnie Lott 4eva) and have fond memories of attending games at Candlestick as a child. But you certainly donโt need to be a Niner fan, a football fan, or even be into sports at all to appreciate this beautifully written and revealing piece. Thompson paints a portrait of a complicated man and an aging athlete โ one of the greatest of all time โ and what itโs like to watch someone else take over that throne. โCLR
Lucy Jones | Emergence Magazine | February 2, 2023 | 5,179 words
The forest path near us is a never-ending source of delight. I love being the first to see animal tracks in the snow. I look forward to the first yellow lady slippers that appear as if by magic near the marshy section, not to mention all the leaves and flowers as they sprout, and the myriad fungi that cling to the trees. Lucy Jones shares this wonder in nature (at slime molds in particular!) inย Emergence Magazine. There she finds equal parts beauty, mystery, and wonder โย a coveted yet all-too-elusive feeling nowadays โ as she scans the forest for varieties that sheโs just now starting to notice. โMy eyes were starting to learn slime mold,โ she writes. โMy ways of seeing were altering, thanks to my new friends who were showing me what to look for. What was once invisible was quickly becoming apparent. It challenged my sense of perception. How little and how limited was my vision! How vast was the unknown world.โโKS
April Nowell | Aeon | February 13, 2023 | 4,400 words
April Nowell opens this piece with a delightful story about a Palaeolithic family taking their kids and dogs to a cave to do some mud painting, which feels like the modern-day equivalent of exhausted parents taking their offspring to McDonaldโs and handing them a coloring book. I was instantly entranced. Such stories are rare, partly because evidence of children (with their small, fragile bones) is tricky for archaeologists to locate, but also because of assumptions that children were insignificant to the narrative. Nowell explains how, with the help of new archaeological approaches, this is changing, and the children of the Ice Age are getting a voice. I am ready to listen, so bring on these tales of family excursions and novices struggling to learn the craft of tool sculpting (as Nowell explains, โeach unskilled hit would leave material traces of their futile and increasingly frustrated attempts at flake removalโ). A Palaeolithic archaeologist and professor of anthropology, Nowell is an expert in this topic, but her vivid writing and human-based approach makes her fascinating field accessible to all. โCW
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