A Perilous Immigration Journey & The Art of Hospitality

Featured Articles

Seventy Miles in the Darién Gap

The Atlantic • 6 Aug 2024 • ~7700 words

In this courageous piece of reporting, Caitlin Dickerson visits the Darién Gap, a treacherous jungle between Colombia and Panama that has become a major route for migrants attempting to reach the United States. Her reporting takes us deep into the jungle alongside families navigating the dangers posed by both the terrain and the drug cartels that exploit their plight. This heartbreaking and haunting story is a must-read.

The Darién Gap was thought for centuries to be all but impassable. . . . but in recent years the jungle has become a superhighway for people hoping to reach the United States. According to the United Nations, more than 800,000 may cross the Darién Gap this year—a more than 50 percent increase over last year's previously unimaginable number. Children under 5 are the fastest-growing group.

What FX's The Bear Says About the Art of Hospitality

Aesthetics for Birds • 26 Jul 2024 • ~3000 words

Enough has been written about The Bear to fill tomes, but this piece from Errol Lord is a worthy addition. It explores the show's depiction of restaurant culture's demanding and often unhealthy nature and examines the meaning of craft, hospitality, and the pursuit of excellence. Read more to dive into the struggle between dedication to craft and the negatives that can arise from its pursuit. Warning: The article contains a lot of spoilers.

On the fingers of Carmy’s left hand are the letters “SOU.” This comes from one of Keller’s mantras: Sense of Urgency. Keller believes, rightly, that creative endeavors are often fueled by the feeling that you’re lying on the edge between great success and embarrassing failure. Keller wants to foster that feeling in his kitchens. He wants to be a conductor of stress.

Recommended Articles

On board the Creed cruise: the unfathomable return of the ‘worst band of the 90s’

The Guardian • 6 Aug 2024 • ~4500 words

This piece of reporting takes a different kind of courage: Getting on a cruise called "Summer of 99", with concerts by bands from that era, headlined by the long-derided band Creed. Beyond the specifics, it’s an interesting look at how perceptions can shift over time, challenging what we think about taste and nostalgia. Is Creed now… good?

. . . the best representatives of sardonic Creed-fandom colonists might be the youngest collection of friends that I’ve met on board. They are all in their 20s, most of them work in Boston’s medicine and science sectors, and each is dressed in a custom-ordered tropical button-down dotted with the angelic face of Stapp in places where you’d expect to find coconuts and banana bunches.

“You Gotta Hear This One Song”: The Oral History of the ‘Garden State’ Soundtrack

The Ringer • 24 Jul 2024 • ~4700 words

Continuing with music nostalgia, it’s hard to believe it has been 20 years since Garden State was released. Back then, its soundtrack shaped my taste in music for the years to come. This oral history, with insights from artists and producers involved, captures the unique blend of personal connections and musical discovery that transformed the film into a cultural touchstone. This glance back to 2004 is also helpful in understanding how much has changed since then when it comes to how we discover new music.

Braff: I think the script must have said, “This song will change your life,” and I just knew I had to find a killer song. How do you pick a song that’s going to work for the highest percentage of the audience? It’s a really tricky thing to do.

To See How the Far Right Might Run France, See How They Run This City

The Nation • 5 Aug 2024 • ~3300 words

With this article from The Nation, we go to Perpignan, a small city in southern France, which has become an unexpected testing ground for far-right politics since the election of Louis Aliot as mayor in 2020. This piece explores how Aliot's seemingly minor reforms are subtly reshaping the city’s landscape by enacting measures like funding cuts to civil society groups while making symbolic changes like removing the city's Catalan identity.

Daily life continues as normal for many in Perpignan. Aliot’s moves are minor enough to go unnoticed, but substantial enough to impact the city’s most vulnerable residents and signal the National Rally’s larger policy goals. It’s a reminder that the far right can assume power in the most unassuming of ways: through low-turnout elections, low-simmering discontent, widespread disengagement, and a business-as-usual veneer, as well as through fomenting nationalist fervor and enacting sweeping reforms.

The Empathy Punishment

Grub Street • 6 Aug 2024 • ~5200 words

This article in New York Magazine’s Grub Street works on many different layers. It starts with a violent confrontation that went viral in a Chipotle restaurant. It then turns into an exploration of pressures faced in the fast-food industry and the rise of automation, creative sentencing, and forced empathy.

When Rosemary Hayne came into Judge Gilligan’s courtroom, he had served on the bench in Parma for 30 years. Maybe he was just getting old, but it sure felt like he was seeing more people coming in for inexplicable behavior. In 2020, Gilligan had adjudicated a case in which a 24-year-old woman climbed through the drive-through window of a McDonald’s and attacked three employees because there was no cookie in her meal. He really did blame the Real Housewives, which he had cited at Hayne’s sentencing. “That kind of probably phony reality show makes people think this is really how people behave,” he said.

Deals with the Devil Aren’t What They Used to Be

The New Yorker • 5 Aug 2024 • ~2750 words

This review of Ed Simon’s new book, “Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain” is for the more literary-minded of you, both in its subject and overall tone. The book dives into the rich history of the Faustian bargain, exploring how these tales have reflected society's anxieties and desires over the centuries. It argues that it can also be seen as sacrificing long-term security for short-term gain. Is that so different from how we trade our privacy and identities for the convenience of technology today?

. . . the tale could expand itself into the figurative, and become what it was always ready to be: not so much a story about the loss of an eternal soul as an allegory about any kind of painful exchange in which short-term gain threatens long-term security.