The news at the moment is frantic, with fresh information flashed in front of us every few minutes. So much so that we can find ourselves missing the slow, thoughtful, considerate words that our brains – and souls – need. This weekly update can provide that for you. We do this by distilling the best of the web and recommending just three links every week that you absolutely must see.
No fluff, no fuss, just three exceptional reads. Here are this week’s recommendations:
I Suspect My Father Died With A Big Secret. I Regret Never Asking Him For The Truth. (Jamie Brickhouse / HuffPost)
I had a book-full of my secrets — literally. I was under contract to write a memoir about my alcoholism and my relationship with my mother, “Mama Jean,” as I call her in the memoir. Dad was so excited, he ended almost all our phone calls, “Hurry up and finish! I want it to come out before I die!” I almost wished he would die before it came out, so he’d never read it.
The pages overflowed with colorful debauchery tales of booze and sex — the kind that he relished in the movie star biographies he devoured — told with the ribald sense of humor I inherited from him. But I was no dead movie star, I was his son. I imagined him saying, “You can’t publish this book of depravity and appalling promiscuity. Not while I’m alive and living in this town.” A devout Catholic and staunch Republican, he was a product of Beaumont, Texas, the town I fled for New York and where he’d lived since he was born in 1931. I was a product of that town too. Even though I had lived in New York for over two decades, I still worried about what Beaumont thought.
The Follower (David Gauvey Herbert / Esquire)
Many moments had delivered Jeff to this one. Since 1980, Ganas had been a community that embraced all manner of new-agey life. But his relationship with the group—particularly with its charismatic and often abusive leader, Mildred Gordon—had become unrecognizable since their early days. He’d signed over a small fortune, endured thousands of hours of “feedback” sessions, and entered a four-way marriage. And now he was bleeding out in the back of an ambulance.
Fun with rhoticity (Mitch Benn)
@mitchbenn553 #accenttok ♬ original sound – Mitch Benn
Image: Adrian Trinkaus