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Longreads

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
July 20, 2012

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1. The Wedding
Katherine Goldstein | Slate | July 17, 2012 | 23 Minutes (5,784 words)

The story of Will and Erwynn, the first gay couple to marry on a military base:

"At church, Will and Erwynn lead me to a windowless back-room chapel that has been converted from a gym. This is the Sojourn service, a more informal worship than the one taking place in the main hall. They worry that other members of the church might not be comfortable with their presence in the regular service. The morning begins with a band playing Christian soft rock. There are no Bibles here, only thin handouts. Pastor Rick Court’s sermon, leavened with jokes and audience interaction, focuses on loving God and loving your neighbor as the most important lessons of Christianity. 'You can see why we like this place,' Erwynn whispers to me. 'This is exactly what we are trying to teach our kids.' But when I tell them I’d like to interview Pastor Rick, they pause. 'Well,' says Will, 'I guess that means we’ll have to come out to him.'

"The day before the wedding, I meet up with Pastor Rick at the Red Lion Diner in South Jersey. He was ordained by the conservative Evangelical Church Alliance. He has lived in this area all of his life. Will and Erwynn are the first congregants he’s had whom he knew were gay, but he has heard that there are others at Hope. 'I sensed that they were a gay couple right away,' he chuckles, 'although they think that they hide it pretty well.'"


See also: "Tell: An Intimate History of Gay Men in the Military" (Chris Heath, GQ)

2. 'Is he coming? Is he? Oh God, I think he is.'
Sean Flynn | GQ | July 2012 | 41 minutes (10,214 words)

One year later, the survivors of the 2011 massacre in Norway recount what happened:

"At a pub across the street from the courthouse, he is seated at a sidewalk table with Anita, drinking beer and hand-rolling cigarettes. He has sad eyes and stubble and a gold hoop in his ear. On his right wrist is a black rubber bracelet embossed in white letters with a thought that a young woman active in the AUF named Helle Gannestad tweeted eight hours after Breivik's arrest. 'If one man can cause so much pain,' it reads, 'imagine how much love we can create together.' It's become sort of a national sentiment.

"Freddy also has a copy of Dagbladet, which in that day's edition has a story about Elisabeth and Cathrine, and there is a large photograph of both girls spread across a page, their heads tilted together, both of them smiling. Elisabeth's family didn't want her to be remembered as victim number nineteen on the seventh page of an indictment.

"'Elisabeth,' Freddy says, 'she was the perfect one. She was pretty, she had a lot of friends. If one of her friends had a problem, they came to her.'

"And Cathrine? She still gets winded climbing stairs, but Freddy says she's doing better, physically. 'Cathrine, she says, "Why me? Elisabeth was the pretty one. She had all the friends. Why did she die? Why not me?" ' Freddy looks away for a moment, then turns back. 'What do you say to that? Speechless.'"


More from Flynn: "Papa" (April 2009)

Books by Flynn on Amazon

3. Twins Bond in the Gift of the Other
Rebecca Catalanello | Tampa Bay Times | July 16, 2012 | 9 Minutes (2,357 words)

Hailey and Olivia Scheinman are 7-year-old twins with an unshakeable bond. Olivia was born with epilepsy and cerebral palsy, and Hailey spends much of her time raising money for her sister's care and awareness about families with children who have disabilities:

"It wouldn't be hard to imagine a scenario in which the trajectory of the sisters' lives simply continues to diverge. But something in Hailey has resisted that. She seems determined not to lose her grip on the being to whom she is closest in the world. Her mom thinks that because of Hailey's efforts, the sisters are closer now than ever.

"What makes a good sister?

"Hailey Scheinman doesn't have the answer. She's 7.

"Hailey Scheinman
is the answer."

More from the Tampa Bay Times: "The Girl in the Window" (Lane DeGregory, 2008)

4. Confessions of an Ex-Mormon
Walter Kirn | The New Republic | July 16, 2012 | 24 Minutes (6,041 words)

A personal history of joining, and leaving, the Mormon Church:

"When I meet with the first two landlords in Beverly Hills, they’ve already seen my credit files and don’t seem to want to know much more about me other than why I’m standing on their property. At my third stop, I speak into an intercom and wait in suspense for an electronic gate either to slide open, meaning yes, or fail to budge, meaning time to hunker down, kick the opiates, and pay my bills.

"'Great to meet you, Walt. I’m Bobby Keller. You want a Sprite or something? You look all hot. My sister, Kim, who you talked to on the phone, is at a church thing with our other housemates, but I can show you the place we hope you’ll rent.'

"You can scoff at their oddities, skip out of your mission, run off to college, and wander for 30 years through barrooms and bedrooms and court rooms and all-night pharmacies, but they never quite forget you, I learned that day. How had Bobby discovered my secret? My Wikipedia page, written by some stranger. It was loaded with mistakes (it said I was still married, a detail that may have given Bobby pause when Amanda stayed over the next night—not that he said a single word), but the fact that got me a lease without a credit check and rescued my new romance was accurate: My first book, a collection of short stories that opened with a tale of masturbation and ended with one about a drunken missionary, had won a little-known literary prize from a broad-minded Mormon cultural group."


See also: "The Purpose of Spectacular Wealth, According to a Spectacularly Wealthy Guy" (Adam Davidson, New York Times Magazine)

Books by Kirn on Amazon

5. Everyone Only Wants Temps
Gabriel Thompson | Mother Jones | July 17, 2012 | 17 Minutes (4,255 words)

The blue-collar temp industry is booming, which doesn't bode well for people searching for long-term, full-time jobs. A look at Labor Ready, which wants to be "the McDonald's of the temp industry":

"In the two weeks that I spend working out of Oakland's Labor Ready branch, my 'honest pay' tops out at $8.75 an hour. I'll clean a yard for a trucking firm, scrape industrial glue from cement floors for a construction company, and screw on the caps of bottles at an massage oil company whose "Making Love" line is a bestseller. I'll also move heavy tools for a multinational corporation that repairs boilers on ships and be asked to serve food at Oakland A's games for Aramark, a $13 billion powerhouse. I wasn't able to take that one, but if I had, I would have been earning $8 an hour next to unionized workers making $14.30.

"Labor Ready's Oakland workforce is nearly entirely black, excepting the branch manager, who is white. Most of the workers I talk to are searching for stability but finding it elusive. They include homeowners in foreclosure, apartment-dwellers who are being evicted, and residents of motels negotiating for a few more days. And many express hope they can parlay a temp gig into something permanent. 'I've been with Labor Ready for over a year now and still haven't had any luck,' says Stanley, who resembles a young Eddie Murphy. We're standing in a dusty lot in Hayward, 15 miles south of Oakland, surrounded by 300 cars that have seen better days. 'Most jobs are like this one, not looking to hire anyone full time.'"


More from Mother Jones: "The Marines' Breast Cancer Epidemic" (Florence Williams, May 2012)

Books by Thompson on Amazon

Fiction Pick: You Leave Them
Mona Simpson | Paris Review | Fall 1985 | 17 minutes (4,050 words)

A mother and daughter arrive in California:

"Our shirts were still sticky and sweet smelling, but the bad, sour side of sweet, when we drove into Los Angeles. My mother had called ahead for reservations at one of the hotels she'd read about, but she said she wouldn't go there right away.

"'Huh-uh. Look at us. And look at this car. We're going to clean up a little first.'

"'Why? They're used to it, they're a hotel, aren't they?'

"'Honey, the Bel Air isn't just a hotel.' She had the tone she always used when she was too tired to fight. 'You'll see.'

"'Why can't we wash up there?'

"'Because. That's why. You just don't.'"


(Thanks, Alexander Chee)

Books by Simpson on Amazon

More Longreads fiction picks


Featured Longreader 
Sarah
Sarah Pynoo
@scpyn

Sarah is the film editor at Calgary is Awesome and opinions editor at the Weal Newspaper. You can find Sarah's writing on her website


"My favourite longread this week is 'The Strange Neuroscience of Immortality,' by Evan R. Goldstein, in The Chronicle of Higher Education. As an avid reader of science fiction—as well as non-fiction pieces on transhumanism—discovering the field of connectomics created a playground for my imagination. Hayworth's optimism reminds me of futurist Ray Kurzweil. The two are perhaps not as prescient as they believe themselves to be, but captivating nonetheless. As one neuroscientist says of Hayworth, 'Unconventional ideas do sometimes push forward the boundaries of knowledge.' Since the question 'Are we our neurons?' can't be proven, the ideas presented in Goldstein's piece often fall firmly into the territory of philosophy, rather than science. The story is a moving account of one scientist's search for immortality—not the immortality of fame that Achilles chose, but biological, eternal life."

The Strange Neuroscience of Immortality
Evan R. Goldstein | The Chronicle of Higher Education | July 16, 2012 | 21 minutes (5,157 words)


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