Month: November 2022
-
Braydon Bringhurst Versus the Beast: Climbing The Whole Enchilada
Is This Mountain Biking’s Greatest Uphill Achievement?
Braydon Bringhurst is the rare athlete who can blend explosive power with precision and control. But he’d need a lot more than that to ride his bike up this insanely technical downhill trail.
via Bicycling: https://www.bicycling.com/rides/a41821655/braydon-bringhurst-climbs-whole-enchilada-trail/
He had also crafted a signature style of riding he called “upduro.” He floated up trails most riders would only consider riding down. He did it without hopping, in one fluid motion, like water flowing uphill.
-
A Murder Roils the Cycling World | The New Yorker
A Murder Roils the Cycling World
In gravel racing—the sport’s hottest category—the killing has exposed a lot of dirt.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/14/a-murder-roils-the-cycling-world
Then a rider waiting for the next race walked up, confirmed that I was a reporter, and angrily told me to leave. When I asked him who he was, he said, “My name is Fuck You, Bro.”
-
A Dangerous Game Over Taiwan | The New Yorker
A Dangerous Game Over Taiwan
For decades, China has coveted its island neighbor. Is Xi Jinping ready to seize it?
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/21/a-dangerous-game-over-taiwan
Wu, the foreign minister, told me that Tsai was trying to strike a balance between deterring the People’s Republic and exhausting the Taiwanese people by warning them too often. To some Taiwanese, though, her handling of the missile tests amounted to wishful thinking. “When something like this happens and there’s no response, the government looks like it doesn’t know what it’s doing,” Alexander Chieh-cheng Huang, a former Taiwanese foreign-service officer in the U.S., told me. “The attitude is ‘Don’t look up.’ ”
-
‘Love and Rockets,’ a Series that Helped Redefine Comics, Turns 40 – The New York Times
‘Love and Rockets,’ a Series that Helped Redefine Comics, Turns 40
With its Chicana punk rockers and panels of untranslated Spanish, “Rockets” was unlike anything else — and, it turns out, just what the world of comics was craving.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/books/love-and-rockets-hernandez-bros.html
In 1981, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez were living in Oxnard, Calif., working as janitors to fund the trips they took down the 101 to see punk bands like Black Flag in Los Angeles, and their work on a comic book series they called “Love and Rockets.”
-
Annie Ernaux Turns Memory Into Art | The New Yorker
Annie Ernaux Turns Memory Into Art
Many authors write about their lives. Over nearly fifty years, the Nobel laureate has discovered new ways to do it.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/21/annie-ernaux-turns-memory-into-art
The purpose of Ernaux’s writing, she believes, is not merely to record things that have happened but to “make things exist.” This is strong, but it is hardly the strongest thing she has to say about her work. “I am a medium,” she told me. “I feel that I’m someone who can transmit things.”
-
Why Vladimir Putin Would Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine | The New Yorker
Why Vladimir Putin Would Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine
The more the Kremlin has signalled its readiness to drop a nuclear bomb, the more the rest of the world has sought a reason to believe that it will not.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-vladimir-putin-would-use-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine
Even some of my smart colleagues had Russian propaganda playing on their televisions all day,” Bondarev, who had been stationed in Geneva, wrote. “It was as if they were trying to indoctrinate themselves