In this week’s issue:
- A cul-de-sac mess in California’s most exclusive zip code
- Thoughts on a “genius” and a subtle portrait of a biographer
- The grim reality of finding food in Gaza
- Discovering a suitcase and the forgotten life of a mental patient
- Enjoyable Oscars streaming from cheap seats
Bridget Reid | Curved | March 12, 2024 | 6,005 words
When I first started reading this work, I didn’t know whether to be surprised or surprised. Last September, real estate agent John A. Woodward IV listed 1316 Beverly Grove Place for just under $5 million. When the pool rep asked if the new owner would keep him, Woodward knew something was up. No one is buying the house. It is said that raucous parties with heavy bass were held five nights a week. Nervous, glassy-eyed partygoers spotted in the sunlight were a sign of debauchery. Unsatisfied with the “suggested donation” for admission, the scammers began renting out rooms in mansions they did not own. LeBron James, who lives nearby, also has more neighbors worried.Who lived in this property in Beverly Hills? curved, Bridget Reed weaves a cinematic tale of deception and intrigue worthy of a blockbuster movie. The book features multiple con artists with experience in various scams, and Reed does a great job of unraveling the twisted story for readers who are left stunned in disbelief at the audacity of the perpetrators. Masu. “The recently settled accused fraudsters were louder, more obvious, and more desperate than their predecessors,” she writes. “But that mansion has long been the property of people who got it by lying and stealing.” Let’s hope so. house of deception Eventually it will come to a movie theater near you. Maybe we can get Quentin Tarantino to direct it. —K.S.
oscar schwartz | The Drift | March 12, 2024 | 6,077 words
When Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk was published last September, the reaction was predictable but divided. Musk spent more than a year on Isaacson’s reporting and writing process, buying Twitter to complete Isaacson’s transformation into an ideological lightning rod, and the book’s reception was simply a microcosm of the divided public opinion against Musk. I was almost guaranteed not to.But Oscar Schwartz is charming drift This essay makes clear that the first set of arguments overlooked Isaacson’s own intellectual(d) evolution. Schwartz traces the biographer’s life not only through his book project but also through his professional career, drawing connections and creating a nuanced portrait. As Isaacson moved from Henry Kissinger to Benjamin Franklin to Albert Einstein, his resume revealed an increasingly blinkered neutrality and incredible techno-optimism. By the time he chronicled the life of Steve Jobs in 2011, he had perfected the art of confusing personal shortcomings with genius.Full of embrace of the founder’s myth Elon Musk, Schwartz’s analysis is as undeniable as it is surgical. (Also, it doesn’t happen until more than 4,000 words into his work, giving it a deliciously delayed gratification.) “Just as Vasari was tied to the Medici family,” Schwartz writes. “Isaacson has tied his name to a house in Palo Alto. He cannot reveal its dark truth without implicating himself.” I have no regrets. And the reader feels better because of it. —PR
Mosab Abu Toha | The New Yorker | February 24, 2024 | 2,259 words
More than 2 million people, or 93 per cent of Gaza’s population, are experiencing ‘crisis’, ’emergency’ or ‘catastrophe’ levels of food security. This grim statistic sounds abstract and unemotional when written on paper, but in this heartbreaking essay, Mosab Abu Toha, who was evacuated from Gaza with his family in December, explains what it is all about. It explains what it means. It seems To his remaining loved ones, including his parents and siblings. Toha described talking to her mother on a cell phone screen. Her mother told her that she was searching the ground for edible plants. Military drones hummed in the background. He listens to his younger brother’s messages and reads updates about how difficult it is to find food. He searched for a bag of flour among the rubble of his family’s destroyed home. He paid $95 for a small plate of raw rice and raw beef. And after his wife gave birth in the hospital as bombs fell all around her, she received just one syringe of milk before being asked to leave. Toha’s article reminded me of a profile we recently published about a Palestinian-American chef living in Arkansas. The chef’s family has been running a bakery in Gaza for more than a century. These two stories of his are very different, but both explore the meaning of food in wartime times and how families connect across borders through the memories around the table. Toha, who is currently in Egypt, writes: “As I sit with my family for a simple meal of chicken, rice, salad, and olives, I think of the hunger in my homeland and of all the people with whom I wish to share a meal. , I long to sit at the kitchen table with my mom and dad and make some tea for my sisters. I don’t need to eat. I just want to look at them again.”
Sierra Bellows | American Scholar | March 4, 2024 | 7,526 words
I know that several New Yorkers, myself included, have had dreams in which they find a secret door in their apartment that leads to a large room that they didn’t know they had access to. In a dream, discovering extra space in a notoriously cramped metropolis is euphoric and transformative. Sierra Bellows describes what I think is the equivalent experience for nonfiction writers: finding a door that opens to reveal a mountain of stories waiting to be told. The door in question was located in the attic of the now-closed Willard Psychiatric Hospital, where hundreds of suitcases belonging to the facility’s patients were stored. One person had a makeup set. Another person had a book. One contained only toothpicks. Bellows learned about the suitcase through a photo taken by John Crispin and was struck by the mysteries and possibilities it contained. “I had previously imagined that life in a mental hospital would be full of moments of intense drama and suffering, but I had not thought about the mundane aspects,” Bellow wrote. “I wanted to see more. I wanted to know more about their lives. [the patients]” However, her essay does not exactly reveal what she learned about the people held at Willard. She also addresses issues of privacy, subjectivity, and historical memory. And it included a passage about the human urge to understand her lived experiences other than our own, which was so shocking that I emailed it to her husband before I finished reading it. Ta. She only gets to live once,” Bellows wrote. “When we get to know another person intimately and participate in their daily joys and sorrows, we are as close as we come to living multiple lives. I feel like I need comfort again and again.”SD
Stuart Heritage | Guardian | March 11, 2024 | 1,908 words
I watched the Oscars live for the first time this year. Partly because we were in the same time zone, and partly because — I’ll admit — I wanted to see Ryan Gosling sing “I’m Just Ken.” (It didn’t disappoint.) While the show panned over and over to the audience, I was struck by the eye-popping dresses, clapping dogs, and Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie gently holding hands. and occasionally found myself hinting at something above the ornate auditorium. A number of faces peeking out from the ether on the mezzanine floor. You can get a glimpse of the world of shadows. I was vaguely surprised at how vast the audience was above the glittering crowd, but my focus returned to a naked John Cena. Stuart Heritage took me back to the heights with this delightful piece. guardian.Only A-listers got to see Al Pacino up close as he skipped over all the nominees and immediately gloated oppenheimer Best Picture Award. (He probably had to get back to his newborn baby.) Up above, there’s a completely different crowd. I’m not a big fan of a little irreverence, so I really enjoyed director Heritage’s idea of spending the Oscars with “ordinary people.” On the mezzanine floor, Heritage will join other members of the press, staff from the nominating department, and friends and family of the nominees. Initially, he was unimpressed by this version of the Oscars, sitting next to a woman mindlessly scrolling through red carpet selfies, but he was not impressed by this version of the Oscars. His perspective changes as he begins to recognize the group. For these people, the stakes are high. Heritage muses, “While it may lack the star power compared to the lower levels, there is something beautiful and human about going through it surrounded by people who are passionate about the outcome.” do. This essay is a nice reminder of the tremendous collaborative effort behind the film and what it means to those who can’t be on the floor of Dolby’s theaters. This reminded me of what became my favorite piece of Oscar coverage. please do not worry. You won’t leave Heritage without running into a celebrity (by riding the wrong elevator). Read on to find out who he is. —C.W.
audience award
S’mores! S’mores!
Adam Rogers Business Insider | March 3, 2024 | 2,922 words
“This is the story of Marshmallow Theranos” is an undeniable line. It’s even charming. So what if the similarities are tenuous? Adam Rogers’ chick-lit story about the rise and fall of Smashmallows lacks the manipulativeness and villainy of Silicon Valley’s Potemkin upstarts Maybe, but the core lesson is the same. “Expand the scale at your own risk.” —PR