Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
After church one Sunday, Debra Newell walked into the living room with her husband to find a woman she did not recognize. The stranger sat trance-like before the big window that overlooked Newport Harbor, a thin, weathered woman in her late 30s or early 40s. She had just used the shower; her curly blond hair…
Their first date was at Houston’s, a restaurant in Irvine, where he opened the door for her and put her napkin on her lap. Candles flickered along the polished-mahogany bar; jazz drifted from speakers; conversation purred. Debra Newell had taken pains to look good. Her cornsilk-blond hair fell in waves over her shoulders. High black…
SK Gaming’s Counter-Strike team celebrating their first place win at the Intel Extreme Masters 2005 (image via SK Gaming) In the early 2000s, pro gamers had much simpler uniforms. They wore cotton hoodies and T-shirts while competing for prize pools that were in the tens of thousands of dollars, rather than the hundreds of thousands….
Harry Potter and Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance are two touchstones for “Tara Gilesbie,” the invented author of the fanfiction “My Immortal.” Warner Bros.; Kevin Winter/Getty Images The INSIDER Summary: The authorship of a so-bad-it’s-good “Harry Potter” fanfiction called “My Immortal” has been an internet mystery for a decade. The author, Rose Christo, is…
As Confederate statues come down across the American South, there is a question of what to do with them once they’ve fallen. Should these metal and stone colossuses be melted down and broken up? Discarded? Should the wishes of those who, like President Trump, see sentimental and historical value in the statues, be respected? And…
WEST BRANCH, Mich.—When she graduated from high school, Taylor Tibbetts was a bright star in this small Northern Michigan town. She won an $18,000-a-year swimming scholarship to Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C., and departed for her freshman year with high hopes. Once on campus, however, she felt overwhelmed by her courses and scared and isolated…
START “MORE ON” SINGLE STORY BOX v. 2 END “MORE ON” SINGLE STORY BOX v. 2 Imagine, if you will, that there is a shadow government. The actual government, the administration of Donald Trump, is coming off the worst week of his presidency, although there haven’t been any smooth weeks. Trump’s top legislative priority, repealing…
Detail of proposed grade crossing elimination, Saw Mill River Parkway at Tarrytown Road, 1931. Rendering by Michael Rapuano. Courtesy Thomas J. Campanella. The story: Robert Moses ordered engineers to build the Southern State Parkway’s bridges extra-low, to prevent poor people in buses from using the highway. The truth? It’s a little more complex. This summer,…
As Besty DeVos prepares to meet with sexual assault advocacy groups — an approach criticized for its planned meetings with those accused of rape — a top official at the Department of Education suggested “90 percent” of sexual assault allegations on college campuses, “fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’” in an interview. Candice E. Jackson,…
That water’s hot: Tourists walk in mist near the geyser at Geysir, Iceland, which gave the phenomenon its name. Stoyan Nenov/Reuters Iceland Is Sick of Tourists’ Bad Behavior Visitors are underestimating the country’s dangers—and taking locals for granted. This month, Iceland’s ongoing tourism problems took a dark turn. Over the first weekend of July,…