New Light On Nato Enlargement

Klaus Wiegrefe | Spiegel | 3rd May 2022

Declassified German papers clarify who said what about Nato when the Soviet Union was collapsing in 1991. Chancellor Kohl not only opposed any future Nato enlargement, but also wanted a new union between Russia and Ukraine, and a ten-year moratorium on independence for the Baltic States. But when Germany pressed for an official declaration on Nato's limits, America refused (2,600 words)

What We Can Deduce From A Leaked PDF

Matthew Butterick | 5th May 2022

A typographer looks for clues to the leaker of the draft Supreme Court judgement on abortion rights, and concludes that the leaked version, a photocopy of a PDF print-out, was made on a home scanner/printer. "I’d suppose it’s a friend, spouse, or family member of a Supreme Court justice who has opposed Roe v. Wade, acting with some­thing between autonomy and plau­sible deni­a­bility" (1,900 words)

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Counting The Dead In Ukraine

Sanjana Varghese | New Lines | 4th May 2022

There are three methodologies for monitoring civilian casualties during a conflict. The first is based on available institutional documentation, the second uses surveys and interviews to create a kind of census, and the third relies on modelling from larger trends. None of these systems are working well in Ukraine at the moment; it will be a long time before the true death toll is known (1,787 words)

Resurrecting A Coral Reef

Benji Jones | Recode | 22nd April 2022

Coral is "an ecosystem under siege", but there is now a way to reverse the damage. An accident in a lab revealed that pieces of broken coral grow much faster than the original entity, meaning that new specimens can now be produced at a rapid rate. Spawning tanks, which use LEDs to mimic the moonlight the corals need to breed, move the process on further. Gradually, entire reefs are regrown (3,523 words)

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From Ancient Oaks To Walking Yews

Tony Hall | Guardian | 30th April 2022

Survey of Britain's rarest trees, written by someone rejoicing in the esoteric title of "head of temperate arboretum collections at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew". Knowing how to read the trees unlocks past landscapes. Oaks were used in times past to mark boundaries; thus an isolated yet ancient specimen on a suburban street can signal the extent of a vanished royal hunting forest (1,942 words)

A Cosmos Indoors

Andrew O’Hagan | London Review Of Books | 21st April 2022

On obsolete objects. Contains many excellent turns of phrase. "I yearn every other day for Mint Cracknel, a chocolate bar from the 1970s that was criminally discontinued. I miss Player’s Number 6. I mourn flappy airline tickets with your name printed in purple ink. I miss memos... and I wish I had a serving hatch in my sitting room because then I’d feel properly middle class" (2,086 words)

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The Legend Of The Music Tree

Ellen Ruppel Shell | Smithsonian | 1st April 2022

Luthiers have long been obsessed with the wood of a single mahogany tree, felled in a remote rainforest in Belize, left to lie for 18 years, and eventually exported for sale. It has a rare "quilted grain" pattern, likely as a result of environmental stress. Although studies have failed to find anything objectively different about the sound of instruments created from its wood, its myth remains strong (5,221 words)

The Future Will Have To Wait

Michael Chabon | Details | 22nd January 2006

Novelist considers plans for a "Clock of the Long Now", a mechanical clock that keeps time for 10,000 years. Of late, people have forgotten to dream of the future, he says. "It’s as if we lost our ability, or our will, to envision anything beyond the next hundred years or so, as if we lacked the fundamental faith that there will in fact be any future at all beyond that not-too-distant date" (2,019 words)

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Bizarre Talmudic Scenarios

Jeremy Brown | Talmudology | 29th April 2022

On the value of hypothetical and highly improbable cases for clarifying Talmudic (and American) law. A cart may not be pulled by an ox and a donkey — but may it be pulled by a goat and a fish? If a bird lays eggs in a person's hair, must the bird be driven away before the eggs are collected? If a randomly thrown knife cuts an animal's throat, can the slaughtered animal be considered kosher? (2,030 words)

How To Be A First Sentence

Paul Vacca | Berfrois | 26th April 2022

Some great first sentences acquire lives of their own over time, revealing their star qualities and outshining the books from which they are drawn. But a first sentence should appear modest when met on the page. Its job there is to welcome the reader and then get out of the way. "The first sentence does not live for itself, it does not claim any self-sufficiency. It never seeks to shine for its own sake" (1,700 words)  

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Barneys Fantasia

Adrienne Raphel | Paris Review | 27th April 2022

Anatomy of a departed department store. Barneys was a Manhattan institution that endured for almost a century before its demise in 2019. The company tried to expand to other locations; none thrived as the New York stores did. Barneys was a class marker: "It symbolised what it meant to be a member of the elite". Also, it was the best place to go to the bathroom in the city (4,418 words)

Insomniac Technologies

Sierra Komar | Real Life | 21st April 2022

Sleep aids of the past century — eyeshades, softer pillows, bigger beds — assumed that obstacles to perfect sleep lay outside the body. New "wearable" sleep aids assume them to lie inside the body. We must train ourselves to sleep better by learning more about how we sleep now. Sleep becomes a form of exercise, a form of discipline. By sleeping better, we can sleep less, and work more (2,380 words)

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Defending History

Maurice Earls | Dublin Review Of Books | 20th April 2022

It is worth studying the cultural and political landscape of Ireland post 19C famine precisely because it is now part of the forgotten past. Today's social liberalism inherited from this period of darkness "both the conditions which encouraged a culture of instruction, conformity and obedience and also those widespread feelings of dissatisfaction which bubbled beneath the surface" (1,843 words)

In Defence Of Friction

Gabriel Kahane | Substack | 26th April 2022

Case for ridding oneself of the smartphone, explained via the music of Brian Wilson. Without a phone, one is "ecstatically untethered", forced to appreciate fully the ever-present human labour that makes life possible. Being exposed to the true friction of existence makes us resourceful and curious — and wise to the "myth" that technology is indispensable for comfort and happiness (2,403 words)

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How Polyester Bounced Back

Virginia Postrel | Works In Progress | 21st April 2022

On the rise, fall and rise again of polyester. In the 1960s, it was a wonder-fabric that "freed women from their ironing boards". Then it became synonymous with bad taste and the lower classes. Its fortunes were rescued by sportswear and fast fashion. The polymers are relatively recyclable — and it uses less land to produce than wool or cotton — but it is still far from being sustainable (3,425 words)

The Lost Jews Of Nigeria

Samanth Subramanian | Guardian | 26th April 2022

There is no historical tradition of Judaism in Nigeria, but in the last few decades people have started joining the faith. They come via sects adjacent to Christianity, like the White Garment Sabbath, and then convert. For some, it was a DIY process, listening to recordings of US Hebrew speakers and Jonathan Sacks lectures online. Others see the rejection of Christianity as a rejection of colonialism (6,843 words)

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When We Talk About Holes

Evelyn Lamb | Scientific American | 25th December 2014

Yes of course one knows what a hole is ... Or so you might think until you read this attempt to arrive at a satisfactory mathematical definition. Holes turn out to be things that only specialists in holes can fully understand. A simple definition goes as follows: “A hole in a mathematical object is a topological structure which prevents the object from being continuously shrunk to a point” (2,300 words)

Handy Mnemonics

Kensy Cooperrider | Public Domain Review | 21st April 2022

For at least a thousand years, from the 8th to the 18th centuries, hands and fingers served as memory-palaces in miniature, using up to 92 points on the front and back of each hand as placeholders for data. Such systems enabled scholars to keep the lunar calendar on the tips of their fingers in 8th century England, musical scales in 12th century Italy, syllabaries in 13th century China (2,730 words)

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The Unfathomable Heart

Stephanie Krzywonos | Dark Mountain | 19th April 2022

Notes on a short walk in Antarctica, visiting "Nukey Poo", a leaky nuclear reactor abandoned by the US Navy in 1972; Thwaites Glacier, whose imminent collapse may doom the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet; and the whaling port of McMurdo, now a scientific research station. The 1.6m whales killed in the Southern Ocean last century "had a biomass equal to the whole of humankind" (2,300 words)

That's It? It's Over?

Nick Duerden | Guardian | 16th April 2022

What happens to pop stars whose careers peak when they still have most of their lives ahead of them? Ex-legends interviewed here include Terence Trent D'Arby (now living in Milan as Sananda Maitreya); Róisín Murphy (retired to Ibiza); Bob Geldof (went on to an equally successful career in television); Billy Bragg (still picketing, and writing comment pieces for The Guardian) (3,700 words)

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Ship Them Into Exile

Joan DeJean | CrimeReads | 19th April 2022

Extract from a book about how early 18C "money madness" in France resulted in the first transports of enslaved African people to colonial Louisiana and the forced deportation of women prisoners from Paris to "populate" the region. This "stock market fever" didn't last long, though — wealthy investors were knifed to death for their cash and police were fishing body parts out of the Seine (2,772 words)

Notes From The Underground

Zack Graham | Astra | 6th April 2022

Ode to raving. The writer started off in the shallow end of the scene, but is quickly drawn into its more radical depths. In Europe's Freetekno scene, he finds people who are so committed to the escapism that they have dropped out of society all together. Post Covid, he joins a reunion party in a remote Austrian forest clearing. The blissed out dancers are guarded from police by dogs (2,740 words)

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The Secret Code Of Beauty Spots

Cecile Paul | Messy Nessy | 15th April 2022

Brief history of the artificial beauty spot or mouche, the tiny decorative fabric patches that were all the rage in 18C London. These black blotches were "solely applied for the purpose of inviting attention". A patch at the corner of the mouth conveyed "impishness", whereas putting one on the cheek indicated a desire for flirtation. Only the proud applied them to the forehead (1,512 words)

Play And Devotion

Lawrence Weschler | Orion | 29th March 2022

Account of a visit to London's Natural History Museum with an exuberant Oliver Sacks. He once considered becoming a "gentile zoologist in California", and still loves a display of invertebrates. Afterwards, having seen sea cucumber specimens, he moves the interview to a Chinese restaurant so he can eat some. "Very rarely does one get to eat something this primitive," he enthuses (2,181 words)

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