Before we delve into the posts we’re reading and loving elsewhere on the internet, don’t miss Natalia Antonova’s hard-hitting Trumplympics coverage!
And subscribe to the Global Comment podcast on iTunes or Soundcloud — don’t miss the next episode!
‘In Sudan, Rediscovering Ancient Nubia Before It’s Too Late‘ (Amy Maxmen for Undark)
Historically, white archaeologists have treated nearly the entirety of Africa as a continent without historical or cultural interest. That racist thinking has a profound legacy: Amazing, complex, fascinating, informative archaeological sites went unidentified and unexplored. Now, that’s finally starting to change, and in some cases, it’s a race against time to preserve human history.
Besides belonging to an overtly racist period, Reisner was a member of an old wave of archaeology that was more interested in recording the names of royalty and retrieving treasures than looking at antiquities as a means to understand the evolution of societies and cultures. Stuart Tyson Smith, an archaeologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, takes a newer approach when he brushes dust from objects he’s found in Nubian tombs over the past several years. Underground burial chambers hold skeletons whose bones are probed for details about age, health, and place of origin, as well as cultural clues, since the dead were buried with belongings. Smith and his team have been excavating a huge necropolis south of Spencer’s locale, called Tombos, that was in use for hundreds of years before the seventh century B.C.
‘The Hotel of Multiple Realities‘ (Emily Carter Roiphe for Longreads)
Survival can be daunting, and haunting. When your brain is injured, the world slips wildly out of control in a haze of confusion, repetition, false memories, lost time. This elegantly formatted essay takes the reader on a journey of discovery alongside the author, the world slowly coming into focus after a haze of medical treatment.
I keep thinking of the AA preamble, the part where it says, “half-measures availed us nothing…” I am certain if anyone finds out I’m in the percentage that is neither dead nor vegetal they, will correct it by hitting me on the head while I sleep. Oddly enough, this doesn’t keep me awake. Instead I float in a beam of moonlight and spidersilk while my I.V. delivers rather generous doses of fentanyl. When the sweet young tech wakes me for some kind of procedure that he can’t do while I’m sleeping, I’m seized with a combative impulse so I take out my false teeth and throw them at him.
‘Game of Stones: The power struggle at the heart of British curling‘ (Anoosh Chakelian for New Statesman)
We’re sorry we didn’t get a chance to read this feature on curling earlier, because it’s a fascinating sport, if a very niche one, and Chakelian brings both the sport and its practitioners to life in bold, living colour. It’s well worth taking some time with even if curling won’t be on the international radar again for four years — who knows, you might find yourself wanting to follow it outside the Olympics.
Adding to curling’s relatability, there are two real-life couples in the mixed doubles this year, and you can watch them bicker as they play. Norway’s girlfriend-and-boyfriend outfit Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten admit to having heated arguments on the ice (she never sweeps for him, as far as I can tell from watching one of their games – you go, sister), whereas Russia’s wife-and-husband duo Anastasia Bryzgalova and Aleksandr Krushelnitckii have had their bronze medal tarnished by the latter’s suspected doping.
‘American Manufacturing Doesn’t Have to Die‘ (Meredith Haggerty for Racked)
Racked has some of the most stellar fashion reporting around because their team intuitively understands that fashion is far-reaching and complicated. Incredibly rich deep dives like this one exploring the future of US manufacturing are meticulously assembled and delightful to read — they provide an accessible window into an issue that’s only talked about in vague superficialities.
So why is this the unsexy, complicated message that Bayard Winthrop wants to tell me, and for me to tell you, this story about American manufacturing? Why does he want you to read a story about how cotton is grown and how factory workers work and how yarn is made, when he could tell me an easy-to-digest, consumer-centric story about the greatest hoodie ever made?
‘The Problem With Putting Your Name on a Restaurant‘ (Andrea Strong for Eater)
What happens when you separate from a business partner because he’s a serial harasser, but your name is on a restaurant that he now controls? That’s a question Alon Shaya is facing, and it’s not the first time a restaurateur dispute has revolved around naming rights, and whether someone truly controls their own name in a business context.
Meanwhile, the chef is now embroiled in a legal battle with his former partner. Most recently, Shaya abandoned his efforts to purchase the restaurant that bears his name, and instead went to court to ask U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle to force the restaurant to drop the name “Shaya” until a trademark lawsuit against his former partners, Besh and Octavio Mantilla, is settled in court.
And hey: Much like public radio, we’re listener supported. If you enjoy our work, please consider supporting us with a one time or recurring donation.
Photo: Dawn/Creative Commons