The Everything Virus

Jon Allsop | CJR | 9th June 2022

Maddeningly formatted so as to be almost unreadable, and yet worth reading; just keep scrolling. Journalists muddled through the Covid pandemic by parroting ill-digested statistics and ill-informed theories. But what can you do when all around you are floundering, and yet your job is to say something? A certain humility is a good starting place — it finally pokes though in this retrospective (3,070 words)

Yes, With A Growl

Morgan Meis | The Easel | 2nd November 2021

In memory of Paula Rego, who died on 8th June at  86. Rego left Portugal as a student and settled in London, but memories of the Salazar dictatorship cast a long shadow over her life and work. "Most of Rego’s greatest paintings play around in the territory between obedience and defiance. It is a body of work that says Yes to life in all its tortured complexity. But this Yes is uttered as a growl" (2,600 words)

There are various ways to say "Yes":
You can growl, squeak, pronounce with finesse...
So grunt, snort or shout
"Yes!", so you don't miss out
When our full daily picks go to press.

On Sundays, Browser readers receive a special edition with puzzles, poems, books, charts, music and more - plus selections from our decade-plus archive of the finest writing on the internet. Here's a taste of this week's edition.

Book Of The Week

On Growth And Form
D'Arcy Thompson | Canto | first published 1917; abridged edition 1961

Recommended by Stephen Jay Gould:
"D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson was perhaps the greatest polymath of our century.  P.B. Medawar has called On Growth And Form 'beyond comparison the finest work of literature in all the annals of science recorded in the English tongue'. D’Arcy Thompson’s prose is like a Wagnerian opera. It flows on and on in waves of sumptuous sound, with occasional cadences at climactic moments."

see also a portrait of D'Arcy Thompson by Stephen Wolfram.

Chart Of The Week

The Map Of Quantum Computing

Schematic visualistion of quantum mechanics and quantum computing, by Dominic Walliman for Domain Of Science.

The Browser Sunday edition is a smorgasbord of delights. If you enjoyed this taster, subscribe for puzzles, crosswords, art, charts, articles and more each Sunday - plus five articles daily, in your inbox:

The Autocrat At The Dinner Table

Gabriel Kuhl | In Medias Res | 6th June 2022

Notes on a state dinner given by Czar Vasili III of Muscovy in 1526, drawn from the diaries of a Habsburg diplomat, Sigismund von Herberstein. The main course was swans served on plates of solid gold. The Czar offered bread to all, but salt only to a favoured few. After dinner each ambassador was taken back to his hostelry by a courtier whose job it was to get the ambassador thoroughly drunk (1,900 words)

Own-Goal Football

Generalist Academy | 7th June 2022

How a glitch in tournament rules left Barbados and Grenada competing to score own-goals in a Caribbean Football Cup tie. No match could end in a draw; goals scored in extra time counted double; Barbados had to win by at least two goals to go through to the next round, otherwise Grenada would go through. As full-time approached, Barbados was one goal ahead. Now do the game theory (660 words)

If you're keen to score an own goal
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Theory Of Knowledge

Jess Zimmerman | Catapult | 3rd June 2022

Short fiction presented as philosophy exam paper. The unnamed narrator unravels the tale of a doomed affair by categorising it, naming every recognisable strand, from sunk-cost fallacy to optimism bias. The style is reminiscent of early 20C novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner. The contrast of the sterile form with the strong emotional currents present in the story is powerful and effective (2,250 words)

Less Alone

Elizabeth Johnson | Bitter Southerner | 7th June 2022

Gentle, reflective account of a month spent living alone as a volunteer caretaker in a remote firewatcher's cabin built in the forests of West Virginia in 1935. The writer observes bears, learns how to cook squirrel, and eventually stops sleeping indoors as a treatment for loneliness. "Sleeping outside made me feel like I was missing less, somehow. Sleeping outside made me feel less alone" (3,126 words)

If lonely, then first, sleep outdoors;*
Then read, greeting new minds with yours.**
With all our top choices
You'll be spoiled for voices
To keep you from solitude's claws.
.
*Not always advisable
** Always, always advisable

To The Broken Hearted Nest Observer

Kaeli Swift | Corvid Research | 7th June 2022

Brief but moving letter offering encouragement to the scientists who must watch birds nest, lay eggs, and then fall victim to predators before their chicks can fledge. Feeling conflicted and even guilty is to be expected, but the observer cannot intervene. Science does not decide which creatures deserve to eat. "Death is essential. Predation is the transfer of life and that life is a gift" (580 words)

Ognosia

Olga Tokarczuk | Words Without Borders | 6th June 2022

The Polish novelist considers the differences in how humans of this generation live as compared to their grandparents. Easy travel has shrunk the world while digitisation has swelled the available resources for study to proportions so vast that they cannot be grasped. A worthwhile future requires us to admit how little we know, and to be willing to "create a library of new terms", she says (6,290 words)

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The Kilogram

Jeremy Bernstein | Inference Review | 3rd June 2022

Primer on how the Planck constant stabilised the kilogram. The platinum cylinder held by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures that was used as the archetype for the unit has lost 50 micrograms since it was cast in 1889 — hardly "standard". Using quantum mechanics to determine mass removes this issue, even if Planck himself may never have accepted quantum theory (1,313 words)

To Eat A Grouse

Justin Gayner | Vittles | 30th May 2022

Grouse, a game bird with a flavour that provides a "heady blend of faecal and renal", is inextricably tied to wealth and power in Britain. The aristocracy brought down thousands in a day and consumed them at gentleman's clubs reminiscent of their days at Eton. The clubs are still the biggest purchasers of grouse, but the grouse moors are now more often owned by tycoons than dukes (2,642 words)

To make a k.g. standardiser
Required a mind bold and far wiser
Than mine. But to measure
The full Browser's pleasure
Is easy - five reads. Grand! Star buy, sir!

Washington's Hidden History

Fred Litwin | Quillette | 31st May 2022

Action-packed review of Jamie Kirchick's book, Secret City, about the lives of gay American politicians and bureaucrats trying to hold on to their jobs when "the government they served was trying to root them out". Some 7,000-10,000 federal employees were fired for homosexuality in the 1950s alone when Eisenhower ordered all agencies to vet all staff for signs of "sexual perversion" (2,360 words)

Eye Contact Between Musicians

Ariane Todes | Classical Music | 27th May 2022

Notes on the uses of eye-contact among players and conductors. Sure to add interest when you next go to an orchestral concert. Most conductors like to make eye contact with individual players every now and again; most players, especially soloists, tend not to like it. An "eyes-down", a collective refusal to look up at a conductor, is "the most damning weapon an orchestra can use" (1,970 words)

When one is averting one's eyes
A read is a useful disguise.
With top picks each day
You can hide eyes away
Inside pages both ageless and wise.

On Sundays, Browser readers receive a special edition with puzzles, poems, books, charts, and selections from our decade-plus archive of the finest writing on the internet.

From The Browser Four Years Ago

Barbearians At The Gate
Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling | Atavist | 4th June 2018

Invading bears threaten the New Hampshire town of Grafton — or so Grafton's  residents believe. They may over-reacting. But since they include a higher-than-average incidence of libertarians, anarchists, and llama-breeders, things are liable to get twitchy. "Men standing on the porch of the Grafton Country Store told me that an illegal posse had hunted and killed 13 bears in one day" (9,500 words)

From The Browser Six Years Ago

So Long, Billy Frost
Gentle Author | Spitalfields Life | 8th June 2016

Notes from a conversation with the Kray Twins’ driver, lately deceased. “Reggie pushed Mickey into a storeroom. Ronnie got Mickey in a headlock. Reggie pulled out a big hunting knife and pushed it straight through Mickey’s arm. Ronnie said: ‘Do it properly, stick it up his guts!’ Mickey howled. Personally I didn’t like all the violence, but if you’re going to be a villain then it comes naturally” (1,730 words)

The best writing is timeless; The Browser brings you timeless writing that outshines the latest news of the day.

Melody And Melodrama

Emma Fergusson | Bright Wall/Dark Room | 2nd June 2022

Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard play the lovers in David Lean's Brief Encounter, but the real star of the film is an "unbearably splendid" musical score drawn from Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, which multiplies the emotional pull of the story. "Is music too powerful a tool? When combined with effective images, does music give the creator too much power over an audience?" (2,640 words)

Books I've Read

Derek Sivers | 3rd June 2022

More a resource than a one-stop read, and a very generous one too. Books noted here: 322 at time of writing. A short (20-80 word) description for each book links through to a page of informal notes and quotes. These are mostly recent books, and mostly books about big ideas and upmarket self-help, so plenty of Seth Godin, Oliver Burkeman, Jordan Peterson, N.N. Taleb. Robert Greene etc. (25,000 words)

Derek's read books by the hundred,
But still words are out there left unread.
Which words to imbibe?
Well, click and subscribe
And we'll make sure your reading time's fun. – Ed.

Goodbye To The Vikings

Alex Woolf | History Today | 2nd June 2022

The word wicing in Old English meant something like "pirate". It was a job description, not an ethnicity. "Viking" re-entered modern English in the 19th century (via the Old Icelandic víkingr) as a label for any medieval Scandinavian warrior. Soon "Viking" was believed to define a distinct people. We speak now of "Viking names" and "Viking villages". There were no such things (1,550 words)

Why Not Polygamy?

Cheryl Mendelson | Quillette | 28th May 2022

It is hard for supporters of marriage equality to find arguments in principle against polygamy. But academic research summarised here contends that any individual gains from polygamy are vastly outweighed by the harm done to society in general. It may well be that findings cited here are partial and contestable in their selection and presentation; still, this is serious and thought-provoking stuff (4,800 words)

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Temporal Belonging

Lauren Collee | Real Life | 1st June 2022

The digital age requires a new concept of time, uncoupled from the presumption that there is "a static, natural relationship to time, common to all". Online, all time is relative, no matter how our devices attempt to regulate our circadian rhythms with their blue light filters and reminders to "wind down". The internet is not a timeless zone, but using it makes us feel divorced from temporality (3,993 words)

Ten Ways Of Thinking About Endings

George Saunders | Story Club | 26th May 2022

Novelist's advice column, in which he answers the question "how do you know how to end a story?" with a sequences of sketches that could be a story themselves. The theme that runs through it all is self-knowledge — a writer must know when their work is falling short. "A good ending, really, is a taking-into-account of everything that came before. Sometimes – not enough has come before" (2,107 words)

If your days feels shut off from Time
Then give 'em a rhythm sublime.
Just use, as your measure
Five readings to treasure!
Quick, click right below this small rhyme...