Nonfiction Roundup
I am coming to understand the frustration of reading non-fiction. That whereas in fiction we expect, even demand, that loose ends be tied, that motivations be given, that all events have some sort of causality no matter how thinly constructed, that those characters we think deserve punishment are punished and those we hope to see rewarded find some sort of acceptable conclusion, reality and thus journalism feel no need to conform to that need to have answers, resolution, justice, logic, and all the things that neatly wrap up a narrative.
It is understanding this that should circumvent feeling betrayed by an inconclusive sketch, by stories that have no endings or endings that are infuriating, depressing, and then enraging all over again. But it doesn't, no matter how I (misguidedly) feel that these longer news pieces should somehow negate the ire that breaking news can set to festering in me.
But I'm also stumbling over that fascination of the unanswered, the so-strange-it-can't-be-made-up, the unexpected and the contrary-to-all-expectations that nonfiction has to offer.
I guess I won't be finishing the Harry Potter series any time soon . . .
I've organized the articles into very loose categories, but there's actually a lot overlap. All bylines are taken from the articles themselves.
Mystery, Crime(?) and Sticky Ethical Issues/Human Rights
Unsolved case of John Anthony Fiocco Jr.'s death
Dan P. Lee, Philadelphia Magazine
How did a popular, handsome college freshman end up buried in a Bucks County landfill? A tale of a baffling death, Joyce Carol Oates, and the secret society that may have cracked the case
The Strange Case of the Dentist and the Pimps
David Whitford, CNN Money, Sep 19 2005
Gary Kimmel seemed to be leading a dream life. A gregarious dentist and family man, he had a thriving downtown practice and a beautiful young wife and children. Then one day the FBI showed up and made some stunning allegations.
The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob
Skip Hollandsworth, Texas Monthly, Nov 2005
He wore a Western hat, never spoke a word, and robbed bank after bank. When the feds finally arrested him, they discovered that their suspect was actually a soft-spoken woman. They thought they’d never hear from her again- but she had other plans.
--This was a crime story that left me somewhat conflicted: I didn't know whether to admire Peggy Jo Tallas or not, wonder at what will forever lie behind her silence, how she ended up a spinster, and if she was content or free in her final years of life. This is an engaging profile precisely because there are no laid out answers, no clear motives, no way of ever knowing now.
The Good Seed
Dan P. Lee, GQ, June 2011
How far would you go to help your son fulfill his dream of having a child? What if that son fell into a coma, from which you know he'll never emerge? Would you reach inside him to extract and preserve his legacy? If you were Nik Evans's mother, you would-and you'd start a paternity fight unlike any the world has ever seen
Relationship Violence: The Secret That Kills 4 Women a Day
Liz Brody, Glamour, May 2011
He “threatened me,” “strangled me with a PlayStation cord,” “lunged at me with a pocketknife.” A horror movie? No, real life for far too many young women, an exclusive new Glamour survey reveals. Why is relationship violence still so frighteningly common in 2011? And how can we help? The answer starts with two simple words: Tell Somebody.
Trial by Fire
David Grann, The New Yorker, Sep 7 2009
Did Texas execute an innocent man?
-- READ THIS. The same day I put this on my to-read list, iacus also coincidentally brought it up. Read this. If it doesn't make you sad, angry, and then angry all over again, I may doubt there is a heart in you.
The Gray Box: An investigative look at solitary confinement
Susan Greene, Dart Society Reports, Jan 24 2012
--Reading this in conjunction with the above makes you question the U.S. legal and penal systems.
Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?
Gene Weingarten, The Washington Post, Mar 8 2009
--READ THIS. I think Weingarten won a Pullitzer prize for this article. When I read this yesterday, it hit way too close to home, but I think it's important that anyone who has kids or is thinking about having kids or cares for kids, reads this article. And even if you don't fall into one of those categories, read this to gain some sympathy. I can't even imagine the guilt these parents already have to live with; I don't think they need the rest of flinging blind vitriol at them on top of it. It could happen to you. You could do the same. That's the scary thing but something we need to acknowledge in order to take steps to prevent it.
The Boy Who Heard Too Much
David Kushner, Rolling Stone, Aug 25 2009
He was a 14-year-old blind kid, angry and alone. Then he discovered that he possessed a strange and fearsome superpower - one that put him in the cross hairs of the FBI
--cf. The Hacker is Watching (also by David Kushner, GQ, Jan 2012). Physical limitations leading to the exploration of metaphysical outlets of power.
Unholy Act
Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly, Apr 2005
Forty-five years after the body of beauty queen Irene Garza was pulled from an irrigation canal in McAllen, there is still only one suspect: the priest who heard her final confession.
--Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
The Montauk Grifter: How One Con Man Used OkCupid for Fun, Fraud, and Profit
John Cook, Gawker, Feb 14 2012
He is Dan Kaufman, Dan Kay, Dan Katze. He is a celebrity chef, an internet entrepreneur, a television producer. He has worked for Apple, Google, AOL, the Rainbow Room. He hangs out with Steve Case, Gordon Ramsey, Tim Armstrong. He's a world-class surfer, a AAA baseball legend, the founder of a seminal punk band. He's one of the more persistent and obsessive grifters to ply the streets of New York City-not to mention online dating sites-in recent decades.
And he'd like you to invest in his scheme to restore trust and credibility to the internet.
--What got me about this article and other profiles of similar people is just how charming and charismatic must these people be in order to continue to be able to take advantage of people even after committing things that should raise flags and send alarms ringing in one's mind?
Profile
The big Russian life of Anna Chapman, ex-spy
Brett Forest, Capital, Jan 4 2012
Inside Marilyn Chambers
Pat Jordan, GQ, Sep 1987
The Most Famous Story We Never Told
David Whitford, CNN Money, Sep 19 2005
In 1936 this magazine sent a poet and a photographer to Hale County in Alabama to document the lives of sharecroppers. The result wasn't published in these pages, but became a celebrated book. Sixty-nine years later, we return.
The Siesta: In Which We Don't Do Coke In The Bathroom Of The Restaurant
Jackie Kruszewski, This Recording, Mar 13 2012
Confessions of a waitress.
Hollywood's Information Man
Amy Wallace, LA Magazine, Sep 1 2001
He knows the movie business as well as anyone, and when he talks, studio chiefs listen. He’s Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart, and he lives in curious coexistence with the industry he covers
--My face by the end: XD
The Golden Suicides
Nancy Jo Sales, Vanity Fair, Jan 2008
When Theresa Duncan, 40, took her own life on July 10, followed a week later by her boyfriend, Jeremy Blake, 35, their friends were stunned and the press was fascinated: what had destroyed this glamorous couple, stars of New York’s multi-media art world, still madly in love after 12 years?
--While it seems like paranoia drove these two to self-destruction, the mention of Scientology reminded me of The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology (Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, Feb 14 2011) that iacus once sent my way, which is an excellent read. (Wish I had had that "Send to Kindle" option back then!)
The Cooler Me
Eric Puchner, GQ, May 2012
Statistically speaking, there's probably a cooler you out there. The guy who's actually living that life you'd imagined for yourself before you got married, had a couple of kids, and strapped in to that desk job. Maybe he plays in a band, lives in California, wakes up at ten, and surfs before noon. Wherever he is, he's definitely having more fun than you are. What if you could track that guy down? Hang out with his friends. Eat, drink, and sleep according to his responsibility-free schedule? Then you could decide, once and for all, if the cooler life is the better life
The True Story of Lady Byron
Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Atlantic, Sep 1869
Lady Byron has not spoken at all; her story has never been told.
--This isn't the easiest of reads, but it's a fascinating one as a look at Harriet Beecher Stowe having a look at another big historical figure. Expect lots of hyperbole. XD And Lord Byron is an ass. In case you didn't know.
Sex and Sexuality
Gareth Thomas ... The Only Openly Gay Male Athlete
Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated, May 3 2010
He's 6'3" and 225 pounds of muscle. He's broken his nose five times, fractured both shoulders and lost eight teeth. He's drunk his mates under the table and brawled by their side. He's been named to the Welsh national rugby team more times than any other man. And, among active players in major professional team sports, he's ...
The coming out story I never thought I’d write
Steve Kornacki, Salon, Nov 15 2011
I was an all-American kid who idealized the family men I grew up around. At 32, I can finally admit I'm different
Absolute Beginners
multiple contributors, Rookie, Mar 30 2012
Some of our favorite grown women on the first time they had sex-with a couple of first-kiss stories for good measure.
--This prompted both smiles and tight-lipped concern. Throughout the narratives is a thread about wanting to appear more sexually experienced than actually one is that speaks to this myth about sex that permeates are society. Yet the full disclosure of these stories also help combat the perception that everyone has had sex by a certain age, that everyone has been kissed by a certain age, and I hope these stories encourage others to be honest.
What Happened When I Went Undercover at a Christian Gay-to-Straight Conversion Camp
Ted Cox, Stinque, AlterNet, Apr 22 2010 (rec'd to me by iacus)
--I don't feel the need to get up in arms about the conversion camp itself--though it certainly made me sad--but I was fascinated by how Cox himself ended up building his own closet among these men in hiding his heterosexuality and role there as an investigator.
Economy
The End of Cheap Coffee: Why the Diner Staple Is About to Become a Luxury
Zak Stone, Dan Matutina, Good Magazine, Nov 16, 2011
Everest, the grandaddy of walking adventures
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian, Apr 27 2012
In 1921 Sam Wollaston's grandfather was a member of the first Everest expedition. Nine decades on Sam finds less tweed and more Gore-Tex, but the same beauty on a trek taking in new eco-friendly campsites
Politics and War
Getting bin Laden
Nicholas Schmidle, The New Yorker, Aug 8 2011
What happened that night in Abbottabad.
Afghanistan: A Gathering Menace
Neil Shea, The American Scholar, Spring 2012
Traveling with U.S. troops gives insights into the recent massacre
--I read both this article and the one above in the same day. They could not offer greater contrasting images of the US military machine and counterterrorism efforts and actions.
Media
1. ‘Glee’ Is an Immoral Television Show and It’s Time to Stop Watching It
Alyssa Rosenberg, Think Progress, May 2 2012
2. In Defense of the Immoral "Glee"
Christie Keith, AfterEllen, May 4 2012
--After promoting "Glee" very hard after seeing its pilot, I jumped off the "Glee" train possibly before season 1 ended. I watched in horror as the show's tight storytelling and interweaving of musical, narrative, and human interest stories derailed into caricature, slipshod mess. But I have stayed abreast of certain storylines thanks to recappers and so I wonder again as I have before: Are we at a point where we can demand better written stories, better forms of representation, expect more and better? What has boggled me is how "Glee" continues to be such a phenomenon when it can barely seem to keep track of the number of characters on the show, much less their personalities. Is this lazy writing reprehensible when so many still tune in to watch it, when it has forms of representation that aren't anywhere else, when you still have to kind of hate it even while you love it (if you do)? Having to word questions with those qualifiers seems troubling in and of itself. D:
It is understanding this that should circumvent feeling betrayed by an inconclusive sketch, by stories that have no endings or endings that are infuriating, depressing, and then enraging all over again. But it doesn't, no matter how I (misguidedly) feel that these longer news pieces should somehow negate the ire that breaking news can set to festering in me.
But I'm also stumbling over that fascination of the unanswered, the so-strange-it-can't-be-made-up, the unexpected and the contrary-to-all-expectations that nonfiction has to offer.
I guess I won't be finishing the Harry Potter series any time soon . . .
I've organized the articles into very loose categories, but there's actually a lot overlap. All bylines are taken from the articles themselves.
Mystery, Crime(?) and Sticky Ethical Issues/Human Rights
Unsolved case of John Anthony Fiocco Jr.'s death
Dan P. Lee, Philadelphia Magazine
How did a popular, handsome college freshman end up buried in a Bucks County landfill? A tale of a baffling death, Joyce Carol Oates, and the secret society that may have cracked the case
The Strange Case of the Dentist and the Pimps
David Whitford, CNN Money, Sep 19 2005
Gary Kimmel seemed to be leading a dream life. A gregarious dentist and family man, he had a thriving downtown practice and a beautiful young wife and children. Then one day the FBI showed up and made some stunning allegations.
The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob
Skip Hollandsworth, Texas Monthly, Nov 2005
He wore a Western hat, never spoke a word, and robbed bank after bank. When the feds finally arrested him, they discovered that their suspect was actually a soft-spoken woman. They thought they’d never hear from her again- but she had other plans.
--This was a crime story that left me somewhat conflicted: I didn't know whether to admire Peggy Jo Tallas or not, wonder at what will forever lie behind her silence, how she ended up a spinster, and if she was content or free in her final years of life. This is an engaging profile precisely because there are no laid out answers, no clear motives, no way of ever knowing now.
The Good Seed
Dan P. Lee, GQ, June 2011
How far would you go to help your son fulfill his dream of having a child? What if that son fell into a coma, from which you know he'll never emerge? Would you reach inside him to extract and preserve his legacy? If you were Nik Evans's mother, you would-and you'd start a paternity fight unlike any the world has ever seen
Relationship Violence: The Secret That Kills 4 Women a Day
Liz Brody, Glamour, May 2011
He “threatened me,” “strangled me with a PlayStation cord,” “lunged at me with a pocketknife.” A horror movie? No, real life for far too many young women, an exclusive new Glamour survey reveals. Why is relationship violence still so frighteningly common in 2011? And how can we help? The answer starts with two simple words: Tell Somebody.
Trial by Fire
David Grann, The New Yorker, Sep 7 2009
Did Texas execute an innocent man?
-- READ THIS. The same day I put this on my to-read list, iacus also coincidentally brought it up. Read this. If it doesn't make you sad, angry, and then angry all over again, I may doubt there is a heart in you.
The Gray Box: An investigative look at solitary confinement
Susan Greene, Dart Society Reports, Jan 24 2012
--Reading this in conjunction with the above makes you question the U.S. legal and penal systems.
Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?
Gene Weingarten, The Washington Post, Mar 8 2009
--READ THIS. I think Weingarten won a Pullitzer prize for this article. When I read this yesterday, it hit way too close to home, but I think it's important that anyone who has kids or is thinking about having kids or cares for kids, reads this article. And even if you don't fall into one of those categories, read this to gain some sympathy. I can't even imagine the guilt these parents already have to live with; I don't think they need the rest of flinging blind vitriol at them on top of it. It could happen to you. You could do the same. That's the scary thing but something we need to acknowledge in order to take steps to prevent it.
The Boy Who Heard Too Much
David Kushner, Rolling Stone, Aug 25 2009
He was a 14-year-old blind kid, angry and alone. Then he discovered that he possessed a strange and fearsome superpower - one that put him in the cross hairs of the FBI
--cf. The Hacker is Watching (also by David Kushner, GQ, Jan 2012). Physical limitations leading to the exploration of metaphysical outlets of power.
Unholy Act
Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly, Apr 2005
Forty-five years after the body of beauty queen Irene Garza was pulled from an irrigation canal in McAllen, there is still only one suspect: the priest who heard her final confession.
--Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
The Montauk Grifter: How One Con Man Used OkCupid for Fun, Fraud, and Profit
John Cook, Gawker, Feb 14 2012
He is Dan Kaufman, Dan Kay, Dan Katze. He is a celebrity chef, an internet entrepreneur, a television producer. He has worked for Apple, Google, AOL, the Rainbow Room. He hangs out with Steve Case, Gordon Ramsey, Tim Armstrong. He's a world-class surfer, a AAA baseball legend, the founder of a seminal punk band. He's one of the more persistent and obsessive grifters to ply the streets of New York City-not to mention online dating sites-in recent decades.
And he'd like you to invest in his scheme to restore trust and credibility to the internet.
--What got me about this article and other profiles of similar people is just how charming and charismatic must these people be in order to continue to be able to take advantage of people even after committing things that should raise flags and send alarms ringing in one's mind?
Profile
The big Russian life of Anna Chapman, ex-spy
Brett Forest, Capital, Jan 4 2012
Inside Marilyn Chambers
Pat Jordan, GQ, Sep 1987
The Most Famous Story We Never Told
David Whitford, CNN Money, Sep 19 2005
In 1936 this magazine sent a poet and a photographer to Hale County in Alabama to document the lives of sharecroppers. The result wasn't published in these pages, but became a celebrated book. Sixty-nine years later, we return.
The Siesta: In Which We Don't Do Coke In The Bathroom Of The Restaurant
Jackie Kruszewski, This Recording, Mar 13 2012
Confessions of a waitress.
Hollywood's Information Man
Amy Wallace, LA Magazine, Sep 1 2001
He knows the movie business as well as anyone, and when he talks, studio chiefs listen. He’s Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart, and he lives in curious coexistence with the industry he covers
--My face by the end: XD
The Golden Suicides
Nancy Jo Sales, Vanity Fair, Jan 2008
When Theresa Duncan, 40, took her own life on July 10, followed a week later by her boyfriend, Jeremy Blake, 35, their friends were stunned and the press was fascinated: what had destroyed this glamorous couple, stars of New York’s multi-media art world, still madly in love after 12 years?
--While it seems like paranoia drove these two to self-destruction, the mention of Scientology reminded me of The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology (Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, Feb 14 2011) that iacus once sent my way, which is an excellent read. (Wish I had had that "Send to Kindle" option back then!)
The Cooler Me
Eric Puchner, GQ, May 2012
Statistically speaking, there's probably a cooler you out there. The guy who's actually living that life you'd imagined for yourself before you got married, had a couple of kids, and strapped in to that desk job. Maybe he plays in a band, lives in California, wakes up at ten, and surfs before noon. Wherever he is, he's definitely having more fun than you are. What if you could track that guy down? Hang out with his friends. Eat, drink, and sleep according to his responsibility-free schedule? Then you could decide, once and for all, if the cooler life is the better life
The True Story of Lady Byron
Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Atlantic, Sep 1869
Lady Byron has not spoken at all; her story has never been told.
--This isn't the easiest of reads, but it's a fascinating one as a look at Harriet Beecher Stowe having a look at another big historical figure. Expect lots of hyperbole. XD And Lord Byron is an ass. In case you didn't know.
Sex and Sexuality
Gareth Thomas ... The Only Openly Gay Male Athlete
Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated, May 3 2010
He's 6'3" and 225 pounds of muscle. He's broken his nose five times, fractured both shoulders and lost eight teeth. He's drunk his mates under the table and brawled by their side. He's been named to the Welsh national rugby team more times than any other man. And, among active players in major professional team sports, he's ...
The coming out story I never thought I’d write
Steve Kornacki, Salon, Nov 15 2011
I was an all-American kid who idealized the family men I grew up around. At 32, I can finally admit I'm different
Absolute Beginners
multiple contributors, Rookie, Mar 30 2012
Some of our favorite grown women on the first time they had sex-with a couple of first-kiss stories for good measure.
--This prompted both smiles and tight-lipped concern. Throughout the narratives is a thread about wanting to appear more sexually experienced than actually one is that speaks to this myth about sex that permeates are society. Yet the full disclosure of these stories also help combat the perception that everyone has had sex by a certain age, that everyone has been kissed by a certain age, and I hope these stories encourage others to be honest.
What Happened When I Went Undercover at a Christian Gay-to-Straight Conversion Camp
Ted Cox, Stinque, AlterNet, Apr 22 2010 (rec'd to me by iacus)
--I don't feel the need to get up in arms about the conversion camp itself--though it certainly made me sad--but I was fascinated by how Cox himself ended up building his own closet among these men in hiding his heterosexuality and role there as an investigator.
Economy
The End of Cheap Coffee: Why the Diner Staple Is About to Become a Luxury
Zak Stone, Dan Matutina, Good Magazine, Nov 16, 2011
Everest, the grandaddy of walking adventures
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian, Apr 27 2012
In 1921 Sam Wollaston's grandfather was a member of the first Everest expedition. Nine decades on Sam finds less tweed and more Gore-Tex, but the same beauty on a trek taking in new eco-friendly campsites
Politics and War
Getting bin Laden
Nicholas Schmidle, The New Yorker, Aug 8 2011
What happened that night in Abbottabad.
Afghanistan: A Gathering Menace
Neil Shea, The American Scholar, Spring 2012
Traveling with U.S. troops gives insights into the recent massacre
--I read both this article and the one above in the same day. They could not offer greater contrasting images of the US military machine and counterterrorism efforts and actions.
Media
1. ‘Glee’ Is an Immoral Television Show and It’s Time to Stop Watching It
Alyssa Rosenberg, Think Progress, May 2 2012
2. In Defense of the Immoral "Glee"
Christie Keith, AfterEllen, May 4 2012
--After promoting "Glee" very hard after seeing its pilot, I jumped off the "Glee" train possibly before season 1 ended. I watched in horror as the show's tight storytelling and interweaving of musical, narrative, and human interest stories derailed into caricature, slipshod mess. But I have stayed abreast of certain storylines thanks to recappers and so I wonder again as I have before: Are we at a point where we can demand better written stories, better forms of representation, expect more and better? What has boggled me is how "Glee" continues to be such a phenomenon when it can barely seem to keep track of the number of characters on the show, much less their personalities. Is this lazy writing reprehensible when so many still tune in to watch it, when it has forms of representation that aren't anywhere else, when you still have to kind of hate it even while you love it (if you do)? Having to word questions with those qualifiers seems troubling in and of itself. D: