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In this week’s edition:
- Military influencers and warrior-culture capitalism.
- The joy of science, imagination, and discovery.
- Booking a table at a hot restaurant—for a price.
- The one-euro-house scheme that changed life in Sicily.
- An oral history of Go, 25 years later.
1. Full Metal Sponcon
Jasper Craven | The Baffler | April 3, 2024 | 4,546 words
In 2018, Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL, was court-martialed for allegedly murdering a prisoner in Iraq. If you followed the high-profile case, or listened to the excellent podcast about it, called The Thread, you likely know that Gallagher was acquitted after a key witness changed his story on the stand. The only charge that stuck pertained to Gallagher posing for photographs with the prisoner’s corpse. (He texted one image to a friend in California, with the message, “Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife.”) Gallagher was feted by conservative media and quickly pardoned by Donald Trump. And where has he been since? Apparently, hawking seasoned salt—as well as gun silencers, knives, and jiujitsu clinics. As Jasper Craven shows, Gallagher has spent the last several years turning himself into a brand—when he’s selling stuff, he’s really selling himself. He’s also written a book, started a podcast, and launched a foundation to support police officers and service members accused of crimes; among the beneficiaries to date is Daniel Penny, the former Marine who in 2023 choked an unarmed Black man to death on the New York subway. Gallagher embraces the backlash against his history of violence—in fact, it’s central to his appeal to consumers. Craven positions Gallagher in a “weird world” of influencers that includes “the likes of acquitted Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, who has written a memoir and recently partnered with a body armor company, and disgraced General Michael Flynn, who gives speeches, sells merch, and promotes a precious metals exchange.” This incisive feature offers a window into the commodification of right-wing aggression, anti-wokeness, and Trumpism. Call it warrior-culture capitalism, and call it gross, because that’s what it is. —SD
2. Discovering the First Other Earths
Lisa Kaltenegger | Nautilus | May 8, 2024 | 2,247 words
I love that this piece about planetary science starts with coffee. Lisa Kaltenegger is a scientist who tries to identify habitable worlds by modeling their light fingerprints. In this excerpt from her book, Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos, Kaltenegger is in Vienna—a land of great coffee—but alas, is stuck at a conference with terrible caffeine options in Styrofoam cups. Thus, with her drink woes, Kaltenegger becomes instantly relatable. With a disgusting coffee in hand, and anxious about entering a room late (which is also relatable), she dithers in a hall to look at posters when she bumps into William Borucki, an American astronomer at the NASA Ames Research Center. Borucki launched the Kepler mission—looking for other worlds—and informs Kaltenegger of the discovery of two new planets. This is her eureka moment, which she shares joyfully: “Suddenly, my research to find life in the cosmos went from visionary to practical, from far-fetched to applied, from future-oriented to needed-right-now.” Modeling these new planets, Kaltenegger discovers they could potentially support life. I never appreciated that scientists daydream about their work, but Kaltenegger is open in her fantasies, her excitement brimming from every word: “I saw two worlds covered in endless oceans and waves that never broke onto a shore. . . . Would the wind carry the smell of salt from the oceans as it does on Earth?” The topic of new worlds that could support life is a fascinating one, of course, but it’s Kaltenegger’s humanity that brings her writing to life. —CW
3. Why You Can’t Get a Restaurant Reservation
Adam Iscoe | The New Yorker | April 22, 2024 | 5,505 words
Adam Iscoe writes 5,000 words on NYC’s restaurant reservation ecosystem that I didn’t know I needed. His story is especially fitting this week, as I’ve tried to secure reservations at a restaurant—any nice restaurant—for Mother’s Day. “In the new world order, desirable reservations are like currency; booking confirmations for 4 Charles Prime Rib, a clubby West Village steakhouse, have recently been spotted on Hinge and Tinder profiles.” Iscoe writes a fair number of lines like this that make me laugh, eye-roll, and feel despair all at once. But while I could have stopped reading at any point, his great reporting and bits of humor kept the piece from becoming a hate read. Iscoe describes an exhausting world in which you have to join exclusive membership clubs like Dorsia to snag hard-to-get tables at the hottest restaurants, or search online marketplaces like Appointment Trader to buy reservations from a reseller. A reseller could be anyone: a college student making reservations with fake phone numbers and email addresses on their parents’ luxury credit card, a private reservationist for celebrities, or a “script kiddie” that uses bots to amass “a thousand reservations with the hopes of selling fifty of them.” As Iscoe reveals, reselling can be shockingly lucrative: “Another reseller, PerceptiveWash44, told me that he makes reservations while watching TV,” he writes. “Last year, he made eighty thousand dollars reselling reservations.” I admit there was a time, when my husband and I were childless and living in San Francisco, that we regularly dined out and spent over $500 on a single meal. Those days are long behind us, and I’m certainly not going to shell out $500-$1,000 today, simply for a reservation. Luckily, after a few hours of searching online, I managed to book a table for Sunday at a restaurant I know my mother will enjoy. Granted, I booked it through OpenTable, a platform for commoners. In the end, though, all that really matters is the time spent with her over a nice meal. —CLR
4. Sicily Sold Homes for One Euro. This Is What Happened Next.
Lisa Abend | AFAR | April 30, 2024 | 3,001 words
You’ve seen the ads: a home in Italy for a euro. I have had many questions. Can you really buy a home in Europe for a euro? What’s the catch? Are people taking advantage of the offer? What’s happened as a result? Lisa Abend’s entertaining journey of discovery starts in Cammarata, Italy, a community in Sicily located about 40 miles southeast of Palermo. There, some homes have stood abandoned for decades after residents migrated, looking for modern conveniences in larger centers. Recently, some young locals have returned, post-education, looking for a quieter life. In a bid to reinvigorate their community, they’re actively encouraging owners of abandoned properties to sell to foreigners via a group called StreetTo. They’ll even help you navigate red tape and find contractors to renovate your new dream home. What’s more, to get you out of your new courtyard and into the local piazza, they “organize exhibitions, concerts, and gatherings for townspeople old and new.” If you’re thinking of booking a flight to shop for real estate, however, Abend suggests that you prepare yourself for disrepair. While many dwellings are severely dilapidated, they’re not beyond hope—yet their rehab will cost much more than the touted price tag. Abend also interviews Michael McCubbin, a man who, after working for chef Jamie Oliver in London for 17 years, moved to Italy and made it his home, motivated by low real estate prices. An accomplished chef, he’s turned his house into a community kitchen. “These days, the Good Kitchen also supplies weekly meals for the elderly and has taught some of Mussomeli’s youth to cook,” Abend writes. “A clutch of older men use the space as an afternoon hangout, and there’s also a free Sunday afternoon lunch. (The only requirement for those with means is that they bring something to share.)” While properties typically cost more than a single euro and require extensive renovation, one thing seems clear from Abend’s fun fact-finding mission: both buyers and locals seem to be getting more than what they bargained for. —KS
5. How ‘Go,’ the Wildest, Druggiest, Horniest Cult Movie of 1999 Got Made (And Almost Didn’t)
Paul Schrodt | GQ | April 30, 2024 | 7,543 words
I can’t remember if I saw the movie Go in the theater, but I’m guessing I didn’t. (Not many did, thanks in large part to The Matrix sucking up all the oxygen at the multiplex around that time.) I have seen it approximately eight gazillion times since then, however, which made Paul Schrodt’s oral history for GQ even more of a delight than it would have been anyway. The gang’s mostly all here: director Doug Liman (who made this in his transition from Swingers indie golden boy to The Bourne Identity franchise A-lister); screenwriter John August; the cast, save for Katie Holmes and Taye Diggs. But crucially, the piece communicates how much fun it can be to make a movie outside of the tentpole factory. Improvisational shoots, handheld cameras, and a crew of rising stars who are utterly sold on the director’s vision—it all makes clear that the movie’s enduring cult success stems from the “dance like no one’s watching” ethos of its creation. People tend to compare Go to Pulp Fiction because of its nonlinear timeline and crime elements, but it’s really more like Wet Hot American Summer—small, scrappy, and overflowing with the love the cast and crew had for the project. That’s a rare thing these days outside the arthouse circuit, and I have a feeling that number eight gazillion and one is right around the corner. —PR
Audience Award
Streaming Behind Bars
Philip Vance Smith II | Film Comment | April 22, 2024 | 1,805 words
If you’ve seen any docuseries set in jails or prisons recently, you may have seen incarcerated people holding tablets. As Philip Vance Smith II writes from inside a medium-security prison, these aren’t just telecom devices to handle phone and payment services. They also deliver movies and television—at costs that vary from facility to facility, but are consistent in their exorbitance. —PR
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