March Golden Giraffe for Writing
Every day, The Browser newsletter selects and presents the most intriguing writing from around the web, and every month we choose the best of the best for a cash prize of $100.
And the Golden Giraffe for March 2019 goes to….
Every Decision My Kids Made Me Make In A Day
Emma Marris | Last Word On Nothing | 28th March 2019
A shoo-in for the most popular piece of the year, at least among parents. “My modern American lifestyle, with its endless variety of choices, from the yogurts at the grocery store to the movies on Netflix, breeds decision fatigue. But it is my kids that really fry my brain. I decided to write down every question that my two kids asked me during a single day. Limiting myself to just those queries that required a decision, here are the results”. They are legion, and a surprising number of them involve mittens (1,330 words)
ALSO BRILLIANT: Jill The Ripper
Tori Telfer | Longreads | 12th March 2019
What if Jack The Ripper was a woman? A midwife, perhaps, whose “seeming obsession with removing uteruses would make sense if her day job was spent dealing with the female reproductive system”? A female Ripper “would have been practically invisible to the cops and the media of the day”, even when leaving the scene. “Is it sexist to imagine that Jack the Ripper was a spiteful, mutilation-happy woman, or sexist to imagine that Jack the Ripper could never be a spiteful, mutilation-happy woman?” (4,200 words)
ALSO BRILLIANT: The Phantom Gambler
Michael LaPointe | Paris Review | 5th March 2019
In September 1980 a man walked into Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas, placed a $777,000 bet on the backline at a craps table, doubled his money, and walked out again. In March 1984 he came back, placed a $538,000 bet, doubled his money, and walked out again. In November he came back and bet $1 million. By now the casino knew a bit about the “phantom gambler”. He was called William Bergstrom, he was in the thirties, he speculated in property, he was deep in debt to the bank, and he carried a bottle of sleeping pills. His plan was to win money. And, if he lost, to kill himself (1,930 words)
Congratulations to Emma, Tori and Michael! We hope you’ll enjoy their wonderful writing as much as we have.
