longreads

Shane Bauer on Solitary Confinement and American Prisons

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Shane Bauer was one of the three American hikers imprisoned in Iran after being apprehended on the Iraqi border in 2009. He spent 26 months in Tehran’s Evin Prison, 4 of them in solitary confinement. In his latest feature for Mother Jones, Shane Bauer writes a powerful piece on his experience of solitary confinement in that Iranian prison:

“There was a window,” I say. I don’t quite know how to tell him what I mean by that answer. “Just having that light come in, seeing the light move across the cell, seeing what time of day it was—” Without those windows, I wouldn’t have had the sound of ravens, the rare breezes, or the drops of rain that I let wash over my face some nights. My world would have been utterly restricted to my concrete box, to watching the miniature ocean waves I made by sloshing water back and forth in a bottle; to marveling at ants; to calculating the mean, median, and mode of the tick marks on the wall; to talking to myself without realizing it. For hours, days, I fixated on the patch of sunlight cast against my wall through those barred and grated windows. When, after five weeks, my knees buckled and I fell to the ground utterly broken, sobbing and rocking to the beat of my heart, it was the patch of sunlight that brought me back. Its slow creeping against the wall reminded me that the world did in fact turn and that time was something other than the stagnant pool my life was draining into.

But then he goes to an American prison, and the experience is much, much worse:

Acosta, Pelican Bay’s public information officer, is giving me a tour of the Security Housing Unit. Inmates deemed a threat to the security of any of California’s 33 prisons are shipped to one of the state’s five SHUs (pronounced “shoes”), which hold nearly 4,000 people in long-term isolation. In the Pelican Bay SHU, 94 percent of prisoners are celled alone; overcrowding has forced the prison to double up the rest. Statewide, about 32 percent of SHU cells—hardly large enough for one person—are crammed with two inmates.

The cell I am standing in is one of eight in a “pod,” a large concrete room with cells along one side and only one exit, which leads to the guards’ control room. A guard watches over us, rifle in hand, through a set of bars in the wall. He can easily shoot into any one of six pods around him. He communicates with prisoners through speakers and opens their steel grated cell doors via remote. That is how they are let out to the dog run, where they exercise for an hour a day, alone. They don’t leave the cell to eat. If they ever leave the pod, they have to strip naked, pass their hands through a food slot to be handcuffed, then wait for the door to open and be bellycuffed.

You should read the entire story here.

A Rebellious Spring Break in Libya

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Last year, Chris Jeon, a 21-year-old UCLA math major, left his $9,000-a-month internship at BlackRock, a financial firm in San Francisco, in search of “real experience.”  He wound up fighting with the rebels in Libya. Men’s Journal describes Chris’s desperation and ultimate decision to leave his job (and school) to pursue a spontaneous idea.

On the nonchalant entry into Libya:

The rebels guarding the border were playing FIFA soccer on a PlayStation when he arrived. Jeon waved at them. They glanced at his passport and went back to their video game. “OK, cool,” Jeon said, and simply walked into Libya.

This comes across as careless:

Jeon didn’t speak Arabic and hadn’t done much research on the region, but he’d read the Wikipedia page on Libya and watched a bunch of YouTube videos documenting the war.

On bonding through music:

He [Jeon] was becoming part of the katiba, the Libyan word for brigade. He still didn’t speak much Arabic, but that didn’t seem to matter. There was a cheap Casio keyboard in the town house and when they weren’t on patrol, Jeon taught a skinny 17-year-old named Akram how to play Beethoven. In exchange, Akram showed him how to assemble and break down an AK-47. After two days, the Casio was covered in gun grease, but Akram could play “F ür Elise” and Jeon could field-strip the gun in less than 90 seconds.

And in the midst of rebel fighting, Jeon discovered true happiness:

A couple of days later, the katiba drove into the desert and fired cannons at loyalist positions. Jeon helped load the ammunition. “My lips were cracked and bleeding, I hadn’t brushed my teeth in days, and my face was peeling, but it didn’t matter,” Jeon says. “I was totally happy – happier than I’d ever been.”

Joshua Davis, the author of “Arab Spring Break,” joined Chris on his return trip to Libya. An interesting read overall, though the brazenness and recklessness of Jeon isn’t without criticism.

The Cats of St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum

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Sally McGrane writes a wonderfully quirky piece on the cats of the Hermitage Museum, certainly the most famous museum in St. Petersburg and perhaps all of Russia (I visited it in 2007).

First, the obligatory history:

There have been cats in the palace since Peter the Great’s daughter, Empress Elizabeth, issued a decree, in 1745, that the biggest cats, capable of catching mice, be sent immediately from Kazan to the court of her imperial majesty. Catherine the Great is thought to have favored Russian Blues as indoor palace cats; under the last Czar, the royal family’s pet cats, who were left behind in the palace, fared better than the dogs, who were taken along to Yekaterinburg with the family to their deaths. During the three-year siege of Leningrad, all of the animals in the city died—except for the rats, said to have been so numerous as to form a gray, moving mass in the streets. When the blockade was lifted, Haltunen said, as we continued our walk beneath the museum, Russians sent their cats to the city to help fight the vermin.

On the variation of the cat names:

Stepping into the little cat hospital, a cozy, cluttered space that the oldest and sickest cats call home, Haltunen greeted Irina Popovetz, one of the volunteers who looks after the cats. Then she greeted Kusya (“Oh, this one has no tail!”), Jacqueline (“Look how fat we are!”), Sofiko (“You are very old!), and Assol, a tabby named for an impoverished literary heroine who waited at the seaside for a man sailing a ship with scarlet sails to come for her.

The cats aren’t allowed in the galleries, but that hasn’t stopped them from proliferating around the Museum:

The cats themselves, who are no longer afraid of people, have a positive effect on staff morale, she said. “People here become kinder, because they have the possibility to show this kindness,” said Haltunen, as we made our way back outside, where an orange cat was asleep in the sun beneath a classical statue. “It is very good when you have the possibility to show your best qualities.”

Earlier this year, Hermitage Museum even dedicated an entire day to the cats dubbed “Day of the Hermitage Cat.” Since April 21 fell on a Saturday, this must have been the ultimate Caturday of the year.

Do you know of any other examples where a public place is inhabited by animals, but the people not only accept it, but love it?

The Atlanta Food Truck Scene

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As part of their 2012 Fall Dining Guide, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution rounds up the dozen best food trucks in and around Atlanta. A lot of these names were new to me:

Grilldabeast

The owners of this relative newcomer to the truck scene got their start catering on movie sets, and then decided to bring their food to the rest of us with their truck, Grilldabeast. Dishes like the smoked-then-fried wings with mango Thai chili glaze or the panko-fried avocado with eel sauce are not to be missed. Regularly seen for dinner Thursdays and lunch Saturdays at the Atlanta Food Truck Park. 404-719-6563

Happy Belly Curbside Kitchen

With a strong focus on local ingredients, this “farm-to-street” truck is a great spot for distinctive sandwiches, salads, and pasta. Powering the kitchen is an on-board Big Green Egg, giving each of their dishes that fresh-from-the-backyard smokiness you can only get on a charcoal grill. Regularly seen at dinner Tuesdays at the Taylor Brawner Park in Smyrna (3180 Atlanta Road, 6-9 p.m.), lunch Thursdays at 12th and Peachtree streets in Midtown (11 a.m.-2 p.m.) and lunch Sundays at the Atlanta Food Truck Park. 404-719-3257

Honeysuckle Gelato

Combining his Southern roots with his training at the hands of legendary gelato maker Jon Snyder, Jackson Smith has crafted a dessert truck definitely worth checking out. With more than 100 flavors to date, like ginger molasses or mint julep, the prolific team at Honeysuckle constantly changes up the menu, but many of its staple flavors can also be found at restaurants like La Tavola, Atlanta Fish Market and STG Trattoria. Regularly seen for dinner Thursdays and Fridays at the Atlanta Food Truck Park. 404-228-7825

Ibiza Bites

This truck serves “SoLa” cuisine, a blend of Latin American and Southern food that shines through best with dishes like Lola’s coconut fried chicken, served with a mango chili glaze atop a bed of fresh jicama, pineapple, mango and basil slaw. Regularly seen for dinner Tuesdays at Taylor Brawner Park in Smyrna and Fridays for lunch at Atlantic Station in Midtown (17 1/2 St., 11 a.m.-2 p.m.). 404-857-9308

Mix’D UP

The mobile truck of the Cuzine Chef catering company, Mix’D UP is a rock-‘n’-roll inspired truck that serves up some pretty serious burgers. Go for the Rockin’ Hero, a lamb burger topped with tzatziki sauce, spinach, tomatoes and feta served on a ciabatta bun, or the super-sloppy open-faced Texan, an Angus patty topped with bacon, cheddar, pulled pork and slaw. Regularly seen for dinner on Tuesdays at Taylor Brawner Park in Smyrna, dinner on Wednesdays in Virginia Highlands in Atlanta (841 N. Highland Ave., 6-9 p.m.) and lunch on Thursdays at 12th and Peachtree streets in Midtown. 404-822-6758

I wish more of these trucks stationed near Buckhead rather than Midtown/Downtown.

On Louis C.K. and His Comedy Show

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Adam Wilson’s Los Angeles Review of Books piece on Louis C.K.’s comedy show is a brilliant piece of journalism. It’s entertaining and highly informative:

The format of the American sitcom held steady for almost 40 years. The most noteworthy innovation was a negation; in the early nineties, HBO comedies like the short-lived Dream On ditched the pervasive canned laugh track, paving the way for the so-called cringe comedy of shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm. On Curb, the absence of a laugh track makes it difficult for viewers to know when to laugh. We cringe because we’re holding in laughter, waiting for a cue that it’s okay to release. But there is always a breaking point, an explosion into an absurdity so deep — Larry rushing into the water to “save” a baptismal candidate from drowning, for example — that the tension is relieved, and the laughter is released.

Louie both reacts to the failure of Lucky Louie and advances on Curb’s cringe comedy by creating something tenser, more tonally ambiguous. Louie’s singularity lies in its ability to further confound viewers by setting up jokes, and then providing pathos instead of punch lines. Not only does Louie’s audience not know when to laugh, they don’t even know if what they’re watching is supposed to be funny. For the Laptop Loner, this ambiguity is made all the more palpable by the absence of viewing partners; we use other people’s reactions to gauge the correctness of our own. But it also makes the ambiguity less assaulting. Alone, we can be comfortable in our discomfort.

I recommend reading the whole thing. I didn’t really know anything about the guy until his $5 comedy show hit the Internet last year. I bought it and enjoyed it.

A Violin Once Owned by Goebbels Keeps Its Secrets

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The setting was Berlin; the gift an 18th-century instrument said to be from the hands of a master luthier whose works mark the apex of three centuries of violin making. The ceremony a chance to cement an alliance and to thank the violinist for playing for Germans wounded in World War II.

Much is documented — if little remembered — about Goebbels’s gift on Feb. 22, 1943. But the origins of the violin itself remain a mystery. Was it confiscated property, one of thousands of musical instruments plundered by the Nazis, or otherwise obtained under duress from those persecuted during the Nazi era?

When Ms. Suwa and her violin returned to Japan, the whispers followed. They have trailed the instrument for nearly 70 years.

That’s from this fascinating piece in The New York Times, penned by Carla Shapreau, a violin maker and lawyer, who writes that she is:

conducting a project on musical losses, file by file, name by name. The analysis of authenticity and the history of ownership and possession, the provenance, are essential to the mission. 

The lady that’s the subject of the piece is Nejiko Suwa. Born in 1920, she was a prodigy by 10 and studying with the Russian violinist Anna Bubnova-Ono, Yoko Ono’s aunt by marriage. She risked her life to protect the Stradivarius violin, eventually making it back to Japan.

On Another Type of Tournament, Magic: The Gathering

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Noah Davis has a long feature about the three day Magic: The Gathering tournament in Seattle. As he recounts, it’s not just the nerds who enter this event:

The tournament at Showbox is both unusually intense and unusually laid back for a high-level Magic event. The pressure comes from the cash at hand and the extremely high quality of play, while the intimate feeling stems from the small group involved. Normal Pro Tour events — there are three every year — feature upwards of 400 players. The Grand Prix, tournaments that anyone can pay to enter, routinely draw more than 1,500 contestants and are played in massive convention spaces. “The laid back feel is nice. It’s nice not to have to walk around a big event hall,” David Ochoa says of the Players Championship, although he and others will admit they miss being recognized by adoring fans.

After a photo op of the entire group, the day kicks off with a Cube draft, one of the many formats of the game. Individual players are better at different variations of Magic, so the tournament features three varieties: Cube draft, booster draft, and Modern constructed. For our purposes here, the specific details of each format are not really important. Basic ones include which cards are allowed to be chosen and whether the decks are constructed before the tournament or drafted in a fantasy football-esque manner the day of the event.

After drafting, the players get 30 minutes to build their decks, then the action begins. Except it doesn’t. There’s a problem with the audio on the Internet stream. The Players Championship is a spectator experience, but it’s an online spectator experience. Fans are welcome inside the Showbox, but there will only be a handful throughout the weekend. The event isn’t promoted as an in-person experience. There’s little room because the space is dedicated to creating the Internet experience. Seven thousand viewers consistently watch the stream at all times, peaking just below 9,000 on the final day. The stage holds three tables, while five tables sit stage right for the other games. Equipment for the broadcast takes up the entire left side of the venue. Staff responsible for getting the tournament online outnumber the players nearly two to one. Two announcers at a time — over the course of three days, six men total will offer play-by-play and color — provide commentary throughout the tournament, focusing on the on-stage “feature match.” A large boom camera on the floor and two other cameras offer the producers three different angles on the action, allowing commentators and the audience at home to see into the players’ hands. But the game cannot start until the audio is ready. Brian Kibler suggests the group “hurry up and wait.” An organizer responds, “That’s what an event like this is about.” Everyone laughs, then sits patiently at their tables while the techs scramble to fix the issue. Soon, they do. Game on.

A fascinating read, even if I’ve never played a full game of Magic in my entire life.

Why Do So Many People Die Trying to Summit Mount Everest?

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Grayson Schaffer’s “Take a Number” is an excellent piece in Outside Magazine, profiling the challenges climbers face in ascending Mount Everest in the modern era. As he notes, scores of people die attempting to climb the world’s highest peak not because of weather conditions, but due to other elements (overcrowding, for-profit-companies that won’t refuse the cash, etc.):

What I saw was a situation that resembled ’96 in some respects but in most ways did not. As happened back then, some of the 2012 teams lost precious time waiting in long lines in the Death Zone, above 26,000 feet, and summited too late in the day. But 2012’s victims weren’t caught by a freak, fast-moving storm. Their deaths were the result of exhaustion, climbing too slowly, ignoring serious altitude sickness, and refusing to turn around—which is to say, the steady toll of human error. Nobody was killed by the mountain’s roulette wheel of hazards such as rockfall, avalanches, and blizzards.

This matters because it points to a new status quo on Everest: the routinization of high-altitude death. By and large, the people running the show these days on the south side of Everest—the professional guides, climbing Sherpas, and Nepali officials who control permits—do an excellent job of getting climbers to the top and down again. Indeed, a week after this year’s blowup, another hundred people summited on a single bluebird day, without a single death or serious injury.

But that doesn’t mean Everest is being run rationally. There are no prerequisites for how much experience would-be climbers must have and no rules to say who can be an outfitter. Many of the best alpinists in the world still show up in Base Camp every spring. But, increasingly, so do untrained, unfit people who’ve decided to try their hand at climbing and believe that Everest is the most exciting place to start. And while some of the more established outfitters might turn them away, novices are actively courted by cut-rate start-up companies that aren’t about to refuse the cash.

Worth reading in its entirety. And if you’ve never read Jon Krakaeur’s Into Thin Air, you must put it on your reading list.

Want a Book Review? Hire Me.

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The New York Times has a fascinating piece on people who write book reviews for cash. If the publishing industry isn’t a crapshoot as it is, people like Mr. Rutherford aren’t really helping the cause:

In the fall of 2010, Mr. Rutherford started a Web site, GettingBookReviews.com. At first, he advertised that he would review a book for $99. But some clients wanted a chorus proclaiming their excellence. So, for $499, Mr. Rutherford would do 20 online reviews. A few people needed a whole orchestra. For $999, he would do 50.

There were immediate complaints in online forums that the service was violating the sacred arm’s-length relationship between reviewer and author. But there were also orders, a lot of them. Before he knew it, he was taking in $28,000 a month.

So why is Mr. Rutherford in this business?

Mr. Rutherford’s insight was that reviews had lost their traditional function. They were no longer there to evaluate the book or even to describe it but simply to vouch for its credibility, the way doctors put their diplomas on examination room walls. A reader hears about a book because an author is promoting it, and then checks it out on Amazon. The reader sees favorable reviews and is reassured that he is not wasting his time.

“I was creating reviews that pointed out the positive things, not the negative things,” Mr. Rutherford said. “These were marketing reviews, not editorial reviews.”

In essence, they were blurbs, the little puffs on the backs of books in the old days, when all books were physical objects and sold in stores. No one took blurbs very seriously, but books looked naked without them.

One of Mr. Rutherford’s clients, who confidently commissioned hundreds of reviews and didn’t even require them to be favorable, subsequently became a best seller. This is proof, Mr. Rutherford said, that his notion was correct. Attention, despite being contrived, draws more attention.

The most shocking statistic from the piece: about 1/3 of all consumer reviews on the Internet are fake. So I’m now going to be more vigilant than ever checking Amazon for glowing reviews.

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Also, I don’t mention this often, but yes, if you’re a publisher you can send me books for review.  There’s no guarantee that I will provide a positive review, however, since I do it for free.

 

The Con Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower for Scrap

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Once called “the smoothest con man that ever lived,” this fascinating Smithsonian story briefly recounts the exploits of one Victor Lustig. He made money by traveling aboard luxury cruise ships and convincing rich men that he owned a money box that could duplicate $100 bills. But perhaps his biggest con was how he sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap metal:

By 1925, however, Victor Lustig had set his sights on grander things. After he arrived in Paris, he read a newspaper story about the rusting Eiffel Tower and the high cost of its maintenance and repairs. Parisians were divided in their opinion of the structure, built in 1889 for the Paris Exposition and already a decade past its projected lifespan. Many felt the unsightly tower should be taken down.

Lustig devised the plan that would make him a legend in the history of con men. He researched the largest metal-scrap dealers in Paris. Then he sent out letters on fake stationery, claiming to be the Deputy Director of the Ministere de Postes et Telegraphes and requesting meetings that, he told them, might prove lucrative. In exchange for such meetings, he demanded absolute discretion.

He took a room at the Hotel de Crillon, one of the city’s most upscale hotels, where he conducted meetings with the scrap dealers, telling them that a decision had been made to take bids for the right to demolish the tower and take possession of 7,000 tons of metal. Lustig rented limousines and gave tours of the tower—all to discern which dealer would make the ideal mark.

The crazy part? Lustig got away with the crime without getting caught. So judicious was he in his conning abilities that Lustig once scammed Al Capone for $50,000.

Another interesting detail: Wikipedia mentions that “The Ten Commandments of Con Men” are attributed to Victor Lustig:

  1. Be a patient listener (it is this, not fast talking, that gets a con man his coups).
  2. Never look bored.
  3. Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them.
  4. Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones.
  5. Hint at sex talk, but don’t follow it up unless the other person shows a strong interest.
  6. Never discuss illness, unless some special concern is shown.
  7. Never pry into a person’s personal circumstances (they’ll tell you all eventually).
  8. Never boast – just let your importance be quietly obvious.
  9. Never be untidy.
  10. Never get drunk.