Hello everyone. It has been a long week, but there’s a lot of great stuff in this issue. It’s been difficult selecting the top 10, here goes. PS. Tell me if you want more. I haz.
- Life and Death in Palestine
I don’t want to exoticise the place. Hebron is different from other earthly cities, but the painful truth is that Planet Hebron is not far off at all. I don’t just mean from Beersheba or Nablus, but also from London or New York. It’s our planet. We made it what it is. And by we I mean all of us – those of us who acted, and those who do not act. Hebron’s realities are the same as those in the rest of Palestine, only boiled down under tremendous pressure until they have been reduced to a thick and noxious paste. And Palestine’s realities are not different from our own. They are just starker, denser, more defined. The people I encountered in Hebron – the Palestinians, the settlers, the soldiers – were no different from people anywhere, except to the degree that the place and the maddening intimacy of its violence had coarsened and sometimes broken them. - David’s Ankles: How Imperfections Could Bring Down the World’s Most Perfect Statue - Wonderful piece about Michelangelo’s David, it’s inception, creation and modern day wearing down. Truly, it stands on perilous ground now.
The dirty old cooked Giant had become a smooth, enormous, naked man, paused just on the brink of heroic motion. The young sculptor had not run from the odd dimensions of the block; he embraced them, turning them into his figure’s signature elements. The figure was unreal but real, stylized but natural. It would come to define the city. - O.C.D. in N.Y.C. - A lament about OCD, about how it’s so much easier to handle in a suburb than in a city, and how one can cope.
I prefer to call it Da Beast.
One of the intoxicating things about living in the city is that it’s forever requiring Da Beast to add new and exciting tics to its arsenal. We’re both out of our element, constantly on guard, wending our way through a barrage of horror triggers. New York has become the setting for free immersion therapy. - Hold My Hand, A brief history of reading my friends’ palms -
“Before I knew it, I was on the other side of the table, telling her about my hopes and fears and struggles to understand the future. It was a relief to say them aloud, to admit to being uncertain even though I’d just acted like I knew all the answers. She turned over the cards with finality and direction before looking straight into my eyes with a confidence that I recognized in my own dealings. But I couldn’t help it — I was hooked. I leaned forward and let my insides untangle.” - Like. Flirt. Ghost: A Journey Into the Social Media Lives of Teens - Very nice piece about how teens view social media. It seems slightly scary how real virtual life is, and how much a like really means.
- Letters of Note: You are the best author in human history - Brilliant! In 2013, a then-9-year-old writes to Alan Moore telling him that he’s his favourite author ever. Moore writes a long, long reply, and sends back some unlettered art from his new The Roses of Berlin. Brought a huge smile to my face!
All the best, your pal —
[Signed ‘Alan Moore’]
(Best Author in Human History. In your face, Shakespeare, Joyce and Cervantes!) - French Media Stopped Publishing Terrorists’ Photos. Research Says They’re Right. - Interesting take.
- A Father Vows To Save His Daughter From A Marriage He Forced Her Into - These things should happen MORE! A father is forced into marrying off his daughter to a man over twice her age, and instead of further buckling to societal pressures, makes sure that his daughter is so well educated post-marriage that the village panches are forced to grant them a divorce. His actions have galvanised his entire town. Inspiring.
- The Ballad of Rocky Rontal -
He went on: “I’m defining childhood as a time when a child is able to act like a child.”
“I didn’t have one,” he said finally.
He set down one condition: “You don’t glorify none of this. You don’t butter nothing up.” - Model Physicist -
I got my first period when I was about 12. I was so nervous. I reached for the most advanced of my math exercise manuals and tried to work on some of the problems marked “most difficult”. I could still figure them out. My mind seemed as clear as it was the day before. I was a bit confused but mostly relieved, as if I was somehow spared of an intellectual purge.
“You may not see yourself as a ‘woman physicist’, but society sees you that way. Your male colleagues see you that way. As long as they still see you that way, you have to be aware of it yourself because self-denial is self-deception.” I was told by a fellow conference attendee, a female scientist a few decades my senior.
Have a great Sunday!
V