TheNewsGal, Edition No. 94
What a week! These are the standouts.
All the things
I Left Poverty After Writing Maid. But Poverty Never Left Me. Funny how America works ... (Stephanie Land, Time, ~7 min.)
The Overspill: Memories of friendship, flag-raising ceremonies, and class elections at a Beijing elementary school. Poignant. (Elaine L. Wang, Granta, ~24 min.)
The Supply-Chain Mystery: Why, more than a year and a half into the pandemic, do strange shortages keep popping up in so many corners of American life? Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. (Amy Davidson Sorkin, New Yorker, ~5 min.)
Simone Biles Chose Herself: “I should have quit way before Tokyo.” Queen. (Camonghne Felix, The Cut, ~17 min.)
Finding Memories, And Mom’s Sewing Stuff, In A Reused Cookie Tin. Tried to avoid this all week, couldn’t, loved it. (Priya Krishna, New York Times, ~8 min.)
Introducing The Real Will Smith: For decades, he worked tirelessly to make himself the biggest movie star on the planet. Then he hit his “fuck-it 50s” and everything changed. Not what I expected — in a good way. (Wesley Lowery, GQ, ~27 min.)
Two Kids, A Loaded Gun, And The Man Who Left A 4-Year-Old To Die: The children will never recover from what happened inside a D.C. apartment. The owner of the illegal gun faces far less serious consequences. My god. (John Woodrow Cox, Washington Post, ~28 min.)
Crash: “This is what I do know, what I do remember with perfect clarity …” Strangely lovely, about a violent car crash. (Jesse L. Kercheval, New England Review, ~9 min.)
“Put On The Diamonds”: Notes on humiliation. Excellent. (Vivian Gornick, Harper’s, ~18 min.)
When Dasani Left Home: What happens when trying to escape poverty means separating from your family at 13? A tour de force. (Andrea Elliott, New York Times Magazine, ~51 min.)
“Iran Was Our Hogwarts”: Growing up in England, my summers in Iran felt like magical interludes from reality — but it was a spell that always had to be broken. The detail sparkles. (Arianne Shahvisi, The Guardian, ~19 min.)
“I Felt Like There Was No Mercy”: Cori Bush is ready to talk about her abortion. I’m in awe. (Abigail Tracy, Vanity Fair, ~9 min.)
If you read one thing this week
Apple picking is a bizarre imitation of hard work. Because context. (Dan Greene, Vox, ~12 min.)