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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week November 23, 2012Longreads Member Exclusive: 'A Visit to Havana'
Become a Longreads Member for $3 a month and we'll send you full text and ebook versions of our latest exclusive stories. This week's Member pick: "A Visit to Havana," Alma Guillermoprieto's story for The New York Review of Books about her return to Cuba for Pope John Paul II's arrival in 1998.
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1. The Hard Life of an NFL Longshot Charles Siebert | The New York Times Magazine | November 21, 2012 | 38 minutes (9,521 words) The writer's nephew, a star linebacker in college, struggles for a shot at the pros:
"Mike Nolan, a former defensive coordinator for the New York Giants, Jets and five other N.F.L. teams before being hired by Atlanta last winter, had just signaled for the 'Threes,' with Pat at middle linebacker or 'Mike,' to execute a 'Dallas freeze,' a package featuring two blitzing linebackers. As one of the scheme’s designated blitzers, Pat shot toward the quarterback then deftly swerved inside a blocking fullback to get at his target. Another head-turning display, although in this instance for entirely the wrong reasons. Coaches love speed. They love schemes even more, and in that one Pat was designated to be the 'contain man.' His responsibility was to go outside the blocking back to prevent the play from developing wide.
"'Give me two good reasons,' Nolan’s voice boomed, 'why you went inside.'
"Pat went slack beneath a bowed helmet, then shrugged.
"'That’s right!' Nolan replied. 'Because there aren’t any!'
See also: "My Life as a Replacement Ref: Three Unlikely Months Inside the NFL" (Sean Gregory, Time, Sept. 2012)
Books by Siebert on Amazon
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2. Last Call Tim Heffernan | Washington Monthly | November 16, 2012 | 19 minutes (4,879 words) How the rapidly consolidating beer industry could change the way America drinks:
"The United States, too, has seen vast consolidation of its alcohol industry, but as of yet, not the kind of complete vertical integration seen in the UK. One big reason is a little-known legacy of our experience with Prohibition. From civics class, you may remember that the 21st Amendment to the Constitution formally ended Prohibition in 1933. But while the amendment made it once again legal to sell and produce alcohol, it also contained a measure designed to ensure that America would never again have the horrible drinking problem it had before, which led to the passage of Prohibition in the first place. "Specifically, the 21st Amendment grants state and local governments express power to regulate liquor sales within their own borders. Thus, the existence of dry counties and blue laws; of states where liquor is only retailed in government-run stores, as in New Hampshire; and of states like Arkansas where you can buy booze in drive-through liquor marts. More significantly, state and local regulation also extends to the wholesale distribution of liquor, creating a further barrier to the kind of vertical monopolies that dominated the United States before Prohibition and are now wreaking havoc in Britain."
More Washington Monthly: "A Fish Story" (Alison Fairbrother, May 2012)
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3. Deadhead Nick Paumgarten | The New Yorker | November 19, 2012 | 49 minutes (12,404 words) A history of the Grateful Dead, as told through its concert recordings:
"After Garcia died, Lesh was briefly involved in vetting the live releases from the vault. He also spent a great deal of time listening to the output of the final years, hoping to find material worth releasing, but came across little that made the grade. 'It’s tremendously time-consuming, and often really boring, to listen back to what you did years ago,' he said. 'What bores me the most is listening to show after show, and it’s just average. You’re just going through the motions. Everything seemed better at the time than it turns out to be on tape.' When he listens to music today, it tends to be Bach. 'I also listen to a lot of country music, you know, like the new country music. Brad Paisley.'
"When I asked him about last year’s giant Europe ’72 release, he said, 'I have to admit, I have not listened to it.' It should surprise no one that Lesh can recall little or nothing of many Heads’ cherished nights. 'Sometimes I remember what they looked like, what they felt like,' he said. I ran a few dates by Lesh, mentioning the venue, the context, the set list, the high points—such as a certain transition in Scar->Fire. 'Scar-Fire?' he repeated, unfamiliar with the shorthand. I may as well have been a Ukrainian Trekkie accosting Leonard Nimoy on the street. 'The Fox in Atlanta? I don’t remember,' Lesh said, with a look that seemed to combine apology and condescension. The eighties dates in particular provoked a curdled look. 'I may have consciously blocked out some of this stuff,' he said. 'It was very distressing to see Jerry fall apart. It seemed like the negation of everything we’d ever worked for. It wasn’t a tribe or a cult or a boys’ club, or anything like that. It was a living organism of several people. It was Homo gestalt. Did you ever read Theodore Sturgeon? "More Than Human." Check it out. That’s the conceptual matrix.'"
More Paumgarten: "Master of Play: Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo's Man Behind Mario" (December 2010)
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4. The Heart of Darkness Megan Feldman | Spirit Magazine | November 1, 2012 | 18 minutes (4,628 words) A man's only grandson murders another man's only son. After the tragedy, the two men strike up an unlikely friendship, and work together on a program that teaches nonviolence to young people:
"Felix wore a suit and tie on the day—November 3, 1995—he met Khamisa for the first time. It was a moment Felix had anticipated for months. As he shook Khamisa’s hand in Tony’s attorney’s office, he said, 'If there’s anything I can do to be a support to you and your family, please call on me.' He added that Khamisa had been in his daily prayers and meditations.
"It struck Khamisa as fortuitous. He immediately felt close to this man. 'We both lost a child,' he told Felix, before detailing the particulars of his newly formed foundation and its goal of preventing children from committing violent crimes. Felix felt a weight start to lift."
See also: "The Man Who Charged Himself with Murder" (Jennifer Gonnerman, new New York magazine)
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5. Against the Odds Kris Newby | Stanford Medicine Magazine | October 26, 2012 | 16 minutes (4,103 words) A group of young doctors from the Clinical Excellence Research Center at the Stanford School of Medicine are looking for new models to make health care better and more affordable:
"Patel was second up in the presentation, a little nervous and barely tall enough to be seen behind the podium. She stated the problem in her target area: Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the United States, with costs estimated to be $173 billion by 2020. These rising costs are unsustainable.
"And what do many poor-prognosis cancer patients get for all the money spent? 'Horrible treatment,' she said, citing a statistic that silenced the room: Seventy-three percent of terminal cancer patients never have an end-of-life discussion with their oncologists. 'Many patients are rushed off to chemotherapy without understanding the big picture. And when predictable treatment side effects happen at night and on weekends, patients who are unable to reach their oncologist end up in misery in emergency rooms and hospitals. Later in their illness, many die painfully in intensive-care facilities that bankrupt their families emotionally – and sometimes financially.'
"During her presentation, Patel’s eyes became dark pools that threatened to overflow. A few people in the audience wept silently, perhaps remembering loved ones who had similarly suffered.
"'Overall, these added services improve the quality of life of patients, giving them what they need and want without delay,' she added after describing her model. 'And best of all, we lower health insurance costs … simply by doing the right thing.'"
More Stanford Medicine: "The Woman Who Fell to Earth: A Love Story" (Ruthann Richter, July 2011)
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Fiction Pick: Three Days Samantha Hunt | The New Yorker | January 16, 2006 | 27 minutes (6,816 words) A woman visits her mother and brother at a family farm on Thanksgiving:
"Their mother has put a feather in her hair for the holiday, her 'Indian headdress.' She can’t stand it that her son is a pothead and sometimes she’ll get a look, as if she’s trying not to cry just thinking about it. She’s a very good actress. She stares at Clem. She is drunk. They all are. Beatrice’s mother can make her bottom jaw tremble so slightly that the movement is barely perceptible. She looks just like Clem—dark hair, red skin, and papery lips. She stares at him with her mouth wide open, waiting for him to feel guilty. Beatrice looks away. It is extremely difficult for Beatrice to think of her mother as someone with thoughts and desires, with plans and schemes, as someone who, quite possibly, keeps a Rimmed Rod vibrator in her bedside drawer, the way Beatrice does, as someone who might dream about a tremendous ice cube, the size of a sofa, melting in the middle of a hot desert, and wake up having absolutely no idea what the dream means—someone just like Beatrice."
More Longreads fiction picks
Books by Hunt on Amazon
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"We all hope that new drugs come on the market purely because of their scientific value. But as Charles Seife exposes in his investigative story in Scientific American, pharmaceutical companies don't depend on science alone; they also try their best to get government oversight officials and outside researchers on the payroll. The money from these contracts, sometimes disclosed, often not, courses through the scientific research ecosystem that precedes the advent of new drugs. Ferreting out its precise influence is nearly impossible since, as Seife writes, many of those involved have a huge financial interest in keeping their contracts with drug companies under wraps. Seife spent months on the story, including filing a successful lawsuit to retrieve documents showing potential conflicts of interest at the National Institutes of Health. The reason drug companies want to get into business with seemingly independent scientists is clear. As Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, told Seife, 'To buy a distinguished, senior academic researcher, the kind of person who speaks at meetings, who writes textbooks, who writes journal articles—that's worth 100,000 salespeople.'" How Drug Company Money Is Undermining Science Charles Seife | Scientific American | November 21, 2012 | 23 minutes (5,744 words) |
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