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- The psychology of a mass shooter.
- Wrestling with the phenomenon of Novak Djokovic.
- Using plant anatomy to understand human emotion.
- Lunches with a literary legend.
- Surfing . . . in a mall.
1. Lessons From a Mass Shooter’s Mother
Mark Follman | Mother Jones | May 16, 2024 | 14,073 words
In 2014, Elliot Rodger murdered six people, wounded 14 others, and killed himself in Isla Vista, California. As Mark Follman shows in this thoughtful, compassionate feature, Rodger was an unwell, unstable young man whose actions—like those of many mass shooters—were likely preventable. The key component of any prevention strategy for gun violence is reducing people’s access to firearms, but Follman approaches the matter from a complementary angle: one focused on a troubled person’s experiences, needs, and risks. “Many mass shooters remain ambivalent about killing themselves and others—and most engage in observable warning behaviors well before they attack,” Follman explains. If these red flags are documented and reported, what’s known as “behavioral threat assessment” can kick into gear: “Made up of psychologists, administrators, law enforcement, and other trained practitioners who meet regularly to handle cases, the team conducts interviews and gathers information to gauge the danger. Then, over weeks or months, they use constructive tools like counseling, social services, and education support to guide the troubled person away from what the field calls ‘the pathway to violence.’” Follman delves into threat assessment as a growing field of study and action through the lens of Rodger’s mother, Chin, who became interested in it a few years after her son’s crime. Chin is now using her son’s story and her experience as his mother to help experts better understand what compels mass shooters to act and what it takes to stop them. In a profound act of grief, love, and generosity, she has made herself a case study. Follman’s piece is essential reading, going beyond the headlines and assumptions about mass shootings to illuminate root problems and cracks in various systems—social, familial, educational, therapeutic—that people like Rodger too often slip through. —SD
2. The Unbearable Greatness of Djokovic
Scott Stossel | The Atlantic | May 28, 2024 | 4,580 words
Many years ago, I was fortunate enough to study with the late, great Phyllis Garland, an arts critic who believed that criticism deserved the same rigor and care as any other form of journalism. I think of her often, but one thing she said influenced me more than any other: it’s easy to write a negative review; it’s much harder to write a positive one. That axiom has an unwitting corollary, though. In truth, writing a memorable takedown—one that interrogates not just the subject, but the critic’s own stance—is an art of its own. Scott Stossel’s piece about tennis player Novak Djokovic emobdies this phenomenon. At its heart, it’s a deconstruction of why Djokovic has a legitimate claim to being the best men’s tennis player of all time, yet Stossel manages to seethe through the compliments: “He revels in playing possum, cavalierly frittering sets away early against weaker players in order to make the eventual comeback and execution all the more delicious.” The piece lacks the usual hallmarks of a takedown. It’s meticulously reported and venomously structured. There are no zingers or insults, just Djokovic’s play style, off-court carriage, and gamesmanship. (Seriously, what’s with the bathroom breaks?) Stossell even cops to the smallness of his own resentment, adding yet more seasoning to a thoroughly enjoyable read. He’s by no means the first person to dislike a win-at-all-costs champion, but he’s one of a rare few who can marshal facts and critical acumen to elevate a sports fan’s grudge to something more like art. —PR
3. Little Seed
Wei Tchou | Virginia Quarterly Review | May 14, 2024 | 8,135 words
Have you ever felt helpless and illegible to others, searching for a way to process loss and turmoil? For Virginia Quarterly Review, Wei Tchou uses her deep appreciation for ferns to better understand herself, and her brother’s mental illness. Studying books and field guides she becomes a taxonomist, finding inspiration in their variation and resilience. Ferns “make a home out of catastrophe,” she writes. “In a world where so much truth is malleable and relative, there is a subset of that world in language where truth is fixed. Either way, ferns grow regardless of our names for them. They spiral relentlessly.” In learning about the plant’s parts and varieties she absorbs a new vocabulary to better understand the world and her place in it: a new poetry, courtesy of ferns. “Instead of leaves, for instance, ferns have pinnules (the tiniest petallike leaves) and pinna (a set of them, waving from the body of the fern-like a feather). Stems or stalks are called petioles. You call the full articulation of pinnae, without the petiole, a blade.” Through this stunning essay, Tchou puts us in that rare place where the ordinary and the extraordinary sit together for a time, in conversation—that fertile spot where understanding and insight can grow. —KS
4. My Lunches with Judith Jones, the Queen of Cookbooks
Sara Franklin | Taste | May 28, 2024 | 4,156 words
“This is a story told in lunches,” writes Sara Franklin at the start of this sumptuous essay. The technique works. Each exquisite new meal description joins a joyous thread that will leave you craving fresh, home-cooked food. And Franklin takes even more delight in her lunch companion: celebrated editor and writer Judith Jones, perhaps best known for discovering Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl in a publisher’s slush pile. Serendipity calls when The Julia Child Foundation asks Franklin to collect Jones’ oral histories for an archive. (Jones edited Child.) An ardent fan, Franklin is thrilled by this opportunity. But, in this piece, the interviews take a back seat, with just a few snippets of Jones’ life history thrown in: this essay is on friendship. (And food, but the food is the conduit of friendship.) Before each interview, Franklin and Jones make their lunch and, over each one, steadily develop a companionship, preparing their spread in a lovely, unrushed, sometimes silent waltz that becomes more adept with time. The slow formation of their friendship—despite the 60-year age difference—is written with tenderness and beauty, and, toward the end, I found I had to brush away a tear. You will come away replete.—CW
5. Surfing the American Dream
Alexander Sammon | Slate | May 23, 2024 | 5,569 words
I’ve always wanted to learn how to surf. I’ve lived near the California coast for most of my life and have traveled to many places where beginner lessons are plentiful, but I still haven’t taken the opportunity. What if there was a more accessible and less intimidating way to get me closer to my goal? In this enjoyable Slate read, Alexander Sammon visits the American Dream mall, a massive entertainment complex in New Jersey, to ride the artificial waves at Skudin Surf, the largest indoor surfing wave pool in the US. I expected Sammon, who grew up surfing outside in San Diego, to dismiss the chlorine-filled, Shrek-themed experience in a climate-controlled dome as completely soul-stripping, and to write a piece bemoaning another beloved activity now commodified, privatized, and optimized. But Sammon is thoughtful and nuanced, with insights on today’s youth, the future of IRL retail and the American mall, the death of subculture, the unique pastime of surfing, and ultimately, the things we choose to do that bring us joy. He writes that his $250 surfing session was a silly and manufactured experience, but it was also sort of fun and memorable: “[D]espite seeming like the fakest fucking thing imaginable for an activity obsessed with authenticity, there was actually something somewhat legit in the root of the experience.” —CLR
Audience Award
Which piece got our audience reading this week?
Blood Money
Krista Diamond | May 18, 2024 | Slate | 1,915 words
Faced with crushing academic debt and unable to find gig economy jobs in Las Vegas, Krista Diamond started to sell her plasma. After some react with horror when she reveals how she makes ends meet, she considers the far more demeaning work experiences she’s had in the past—in contrast with the kindness she’s experienced at the plasma bank. —KS
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