Scrambled Eggs & Rare Books

Featured Articles

Author Jeff VanderMeer Looks For Comfort Food When Fleeing a Hurricane

Grub Street • 18 Oct 2024 • ~3700 words • Archive Link

When I start reading a Grub Street article, I don’t expect it to end in tears, but here you are. Jeff VanderMeer, the acclaimed novelist, shares his experience as he flees from Hurricane Helene, reflecting on his food choices and the comfort they bring during a tumultuous time, all while dealing with the weight of caring for his elderly cat, Neo.

Every morning is the same: coffee, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, repeat. I’ll never not love scrambled eggs. Some of my friends joke that I’m a Komodo dragon. I eat five, but place roughly one egg on a small plate for our large elderly tuxedo cat, Neo. I make the eggs with one eye on the TV and updates on Hurricane Helene. Under the spell of hurricane spaghetti models cast by meteorologists, I clean Neo’s dish, prepare his carrier, and fill the dishwasher.

A Controversial Rare-Book Dealer Tries to Rewrite His Own Ending

The New Yorker • 21 Oct 2024 • ~11800 words • Archive Link

This piece profiles Glenn Horowitz, a somewhat controversial rare book dealer known for his aggressive business practices. It describes Horowitz's life and career, focusing on his rise to prominence within the industry and his involvement in several high-profile deals, including the sale of archives of Vladimir Nabokov and Alice Walker. The article also explores the legal issues Horowitz faced when he was indicted for possessing stolen property and the impact this had on his reputation within the world of rare books. Throughout the piece, the author delves into Horowitz's character, presenting him as a complex figure who is both charismatic and unscrupulous, and ultimately raises questions about the ethics of the rare book industry and the allure of ownership in a digital age.

Most booksellers resist that everything-must-go framework because they remain collectors at heart. The dealer Michael DiRuggiero showed me a copy of Philip Pullman’s “The Amber Spyglass” that Pullman had inscribed with a detailed account of his creative process. “This is the copy of this book,” he said, “and I’m never selling it.” Horowitz rejects such views. He likes to say, “You succeed in business by moving product from point A to point B.” When writer friends such as Joseph Heller and James Salter inscribed books to Horowitz, those books often ended up for sale.

Recommended Articles

The New Effects of Immigration

ProPublica • 21 Oct 2024 • ~3700 words

Immigration seems to be the most influential topic for the upcoming U.S. elections, and media coverage around it has been increasing. I will also feature high-quality examples of this coverage here over the coming weeks. This piece examines recent changes in immigration patterns in the United States, including shifts in migrants' origin countries and arrival methods. It explores how these changes can impact local communities across the country and how the political rhetoric around immigration has evolved in response. This article is the beginning of a new series by ProPublica.

What isn’t being talked about on the campaign trail is how all the changes in the past decade are affecting communities like Whitewater today. While we won’t have a complete picture of the impact of the post-pandemic spike in border crossings until next year, census data shows that — even with all the people who crossed the border in the first years of the Biden administration — the foreign-born share of the U.S. population only increased from 13.7% in 2019 to 14.3% in 2023.

The Multi-Trillion-Dollar Wellness Industry Is Making Us Sick

The Walrus • 21 Oct 2024 • ~2400 words • Archive Link

The wellness industry has grown into a multi-trillion-dollar behemoth, yet it often thrives on misinformation and pseudoscience. In this piece, Jonathan N. Stea explores how the blending of wellness practices with conspiracy theories has led to a troubling rise in mental health misinformation. It explores how this "conspirituality" movement is contributing to the spread of misinformation and undermining mainstream medical treatments.

It’s not only the potential adverse effects of supplements that can be dangerous but also what treatments people are avoiding due to their beliefs. Far-right conspiracies give people in the wellness community even more reasons to be suspicious of mainstream mental health care. And just like Jones’s store at Infowars does, those conspiracies are used to market pseudoscience. “Watch what they say, then watch what they sell,” Beres warned me.

Can the Media Survive?

Intelligencer • 21 Oct 2024 • ~14550 words • Archive Link

This piece explores the challenges and transformations facing the news media industry amid evolving business models and declining public trust. It features insights from 57 influential media figures, including executives from major platforms like Meta and YouTube, and founders of new media companies. The discussion highlights the struggle of traditional news organizations to adapt to a landscape dominated by social media and tech giants, questioning whether these platforms are adversaries or potential allies.

We wanted to understand not just what this new state of media looks like but what the future of getting reliable news out in the world might actually be. Which news organizations are struggling most to find their footing, and which seem to have figured out how to find an audience? Can any of those companies get people to pay for their journalism? What’s the point of print? Are Facebook, Google, and X the enemies of the press or still, somehow, its salvation? What happened to the industry that scaled up to manufacture clickbait? And who’s going to train the next generation of journalists? Is getting 9,000 steady paying readers better than trying to reach a mass audience? And can anyone besides TikTok and Facebook even reach a mass audience these days?

In L.A., Street Psychiatrists Offer the Homeless a Radical Step Forward

New York Times • 20 Oct 2024 • ~4550 words • Archive Link

In Los Angeles, a new approach to mental health treatment is unfolding on the streets. Street psychiatry teams are administering antipsychotic medications to homeless individuals in outdoor settings, aiming to bridge the gap between mental health care and housing. This piece explores the potential benefits of this approach, as well as the ethical concerns and criticisms raised by experts about the lack of consent, coercion, and the need for housing versus just medication. It examines whether this radical new model of psychiatric care for the homeless represents a step forward or raises significant risks.

Every weekday morning, 18 teams fan out across the county, making rounds with about 1,700 patients in tents and vehicles and alleyways. The teams try to persuade them to accept medication, sometimes in an injectable form that remains in the bloodstream for weeks. If clients say no, the teams return, sometimes for months, until they say yes; if they still refuse, the team can petition a court to order involuntary treatment.

Himilco, Hanno, Faxian… And Other Early World Explorers Who Should Be More Famous

Literary Hub • 21 Oct 2024 • ~3000 words

This excerpt from the book “Explorers: A New History” discusses several early-world explorers from the ancient and medieval periods whose stories and accomplishments have been overshadowed or forgotten over time. It explores how the accounts of these explorers often became intertwined with myth and legend, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction. The article also examines how the narratives of exploration can shape worldviews and inspire future generations of adventurers, even as the original stories become obscured.

For almost one thousand years, their actual existence was widely dismissed. Indeed, the very fact that two women helped to lead the first European expeditions to the Americas was often interpreted by scholars as evidence that all the stories contained in the sagas were fiction. It was only in 1960, when a Norwegian archaeologist named Anne Stine Ingstad discovered the remains of a Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, that the lives and deeds of Gudrid Far-Traveler and Freydís Eiríksdóttir were supported by historical evidence. The age of the settlement Ingstad—carbon-dated to around the year 1000—and its location closely matched the descriptions of Gudrid and Karlsefni’s outpost in Vinland. Among the more than eight hundred objects uncovered at the site, archaeologists found a bone knitting needle, part of a spindle, and evidence of a loom. As spinning and weaving were almost always performed by women in the Viking world, it is all but certain that the settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows was occupied by men and women, just as the sagas of Gudrid and Freydís recorded.

Censored: 20th Century Struggles Over Cinema

The Great Gender Divergence • 18 Oct 2024 • ~6750 words

This piece explores the history of film censorship throughout the 20th century, highlighting how various political movements have sought to control narratives and shape public perception through cinema. From the early moral panics to modern digital age struggles, it reveals the ongoing battle between ideological factions vying for dominance. By examining case studies across the globe, it illustrates how cinema serves not only as entertainment but as a potent tool for political power and social change.

Over the 20th century, different regimes harnessed cinema for their own ends. Totalitarian rulers in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union weaponised film for propaganda. But even in democracies, there was a constant struggle between freedom of expression and perceived moral threats. Film censorship also played a crucial role in nation-building. Mexico, for instance, sought to prevent humiliating portrayals of its people and culture in foreign films. Turkey used cinema to promote secularism and build confidence in state capacity.

How the Human Brain Contends with the Strangeness of Zero

Quanta Magazine • 18 Oct 2024 • ~2300 words

What makes zero such a puzzling number? This piece explores how the human brain processes the concept of nothingness, revealing intriguing findings from recent studies. These investigations not only shed light on zero's unique status among numbers but also delve into the broader implications of how we understand absence itself.

At first, zero caused confusion. “Its ability to represent ‘nothing’ and enable complex mathematical operations challenged deeply ingrained theological and philosophical ideas,” Nieder said. Particularly due to the influence of the church, philosophers and theologians associated “nothing” with chaos and disorder and were disinclined to accept it. Many even feared it, considering it “the devil’s number,” Barnett said.

Death Cafes Are Alive!

Pioneer Works • 9 Oct 2024 • ~2750 words

The article discusses the growing number of death cafes, where people gather to openly discuss topics related to death, dying, and end-of-life planning. It explores how these cafes provide a space for people to confront societal taboos around mortality and find new ways to think about life and death outside of traditional religious or medical frameworks.

The concept, according to the death cafe website, is a “group directed discussion about death with no agenda, objectives or themes.” With over 19,000 registered death cafes hosted in 90 countries across the globe, these non-profit meetings provide space to discuss the practical, spiritual, and emotional aspects of life’s end, often over tea and cake. Death cafes, which take place anywhere from cemeteries to yurts to Pioneer Works, mirror our death-averse social worlds, and reveal the insufficiencies in our cultures and infrastructures that necessitate them in the first place.

What a Crackdown on Immigration Could Mean for Cheap Milk

New York Times • 15 Oct 2024 • ~4900 words • Archive Link

Marcela Valdes takes us into the world of Idaho's dairy farms, where undocumented laborers play a crucial yet underappreciated role. As farmers struggle with rising costs and stagnant milk prices, the potential fallout from stricter immigration policies looms large. Valdes interviews farmers and workers to illustrate how a crackdown could not only disrupt their livelihoods but also impact the price of milk for consumers nationwide. This piece highlights the complex relationship between immigration, labor, and the food supply chain in the U.S.

What Peter does know, however, is that without foreign-born workers, his dairy could not stay afloat. Americans are understandably reluctant to perform dirty, dangerous and demanding work — what economists call 3-D jobs — as long as they have better alternatives. Unemployment in southern Idaho has averaged 3.4 percent for a decade; wages for entry-level workers on Peter’s farm are competitive with those for cashiers at fast-food franchises. He can’t pay much more, he insists, and still break even.

Has Winnipeg’s Greatest Filmmaker Gone Hollywood?

New York Times • 18 Oct 2024 • ~3943 words • Archive Link

This piece profiles Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin and his latest movie "Rumours," which marks a departure from his typically experimental and surreal style. Set against the backdrop of a G7 summit, the film merges political satire with surreal comedy, featuring an ensemble cast led by Cate Blanchett. It explores how Maddin, known for his unconventional films set in his hometown of Winnipeg, navigated the process of making a more conventional comedy set at a G7 summit and whether this shift in approach will resonate with audiences. Also read: "How Did Cate Blanchett Wind Up in the Year’s Funniest Movie?" - an interview with Blanchett on her role in the movie.

“Rumours” is very much like my experience of Winnipeg: an exercise in the uncanny. Going into the screening, I wasn’t sure how a Maddin film stripped of Maddin’s early-cinema artifice would work. But “Rumours” locates its own zone of artifice in the bright digital present. Like previous Maddin films, it takes melodrama and hyperbolizes it into comedy — only here the melodrama is rooted not in old films but in soap operas and Lifetime movies. As the self-important G7 leaders gather to draft a vague and meaningless “provisional statement” about an unspecified global crisis, there are mawkish musical cues, smoldering glances and secret assignations.

How George Orwell became a dead metaphor

Financial Times • 19 Oct 2024 • ~3350 words • Archive Link

George Orwell's legacy looms large in contemporary discourse, yet his words are often wielded as blunt instruments rather than nuanced insights. This article explores how Orwell has been transformed into a "dead metaphor," invoked to support a range of opinions without truly engaging with his complex ideas. It examines the irony of using his advocacy for clarity and truth to justify vague positions in today's polarized world.

Orwell now stands for a set of broad assumptions: that free speech is good and purple prose is bad, for instance; for the importance of careful proportionality; for the idea that, in a wild world of populist extremism, the sensible counterweight might actually be not to have an opinion at all. Or, rather, to have an unopened mystery box of opinions labelled “George Orwell”. Orwell, the thinker, elaborated his views with rigour and specificity. Orwell, the figure quoted by other writers, has become a substitute for doing just that.