Let's begin the week with a feel good story, so good that it will give you positive associations with orange. Not that orange. Tommy Orange, author of the highly acclaimed There There who just released a new, highly acclaimed novel. Our story begins with a pony-tailed Bronx high school English teacher who has been assigning There There for years, and who lobbed in a 827-word cold email request to Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau. The cold email got a warm response. That's what gets us to the crux of the story; a classroom of high school students experiencing a novel experience: they're there with their favorite author. And Orange himself may have been the one who enjoyed being there the most. NYT (Gift Article): A Bronx Teacher Asked. Tommy Orange Answered. "It’s not often that an author walks into a room full of readers, let alone teenagers, who talk about characters born in his imagination as if they’re living, breathing human beings. And it’s equally rare for students to spend time with an author whose fictional world feels like a refuge. Of all the classroom visits he’s made since 'There There' came out in 2018, the one at Millennium Art Academy earlier this month was, Orange said later, 'the most intense connection I’ve ever experienced.'" We've all followed the infuriating, politically-motivated increase in the number of banned books in America. I thought I'd share a story that is the opposite of that one. Orange you glad I did?

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Mike Drop

"I understand that Joe Biden is old and I agree that his age is a relevant and legitimate concern. But also, I have read approximately 87,236 stories in the New York Times alone on this subject. But Donald Trump’s own vice president refuses to endorse his candidacy because he believes Trump is a traitor to the Constitution and a danger to America. How many times has the NYT mentioned this ENORMOUSLY SIGNIFICANT FACT? So far: Twice." Mike Pence Should Be the Biggest Story of the 2024 Campaign. I'm not sure about the biggest, but it certainly seems like a hell of a big deal when someone's own VP, one that could not have been more obsequiously devoted during his tenure, says he cannot endorse his former boss. And the veep's decision is not just a response to the fact that Trump remains a fan of the mob that called for Pence's death on Jan 6. Over the weekend, I started scrolling the NYT to find some coverage of the non-endorsement story. I'm still scrolling. Somehow, the media is downplaying a story that should stand out like a fly in milk (or on some very white hair).

+ Those who saw Trump up close in the White House are among those who seem most opposed to his return. Here are a couple pieces from the archives: NYT: What 17 of Trump’s ‘Best People’ Said About Him. And from WaPo: 17 of the ‘best people’ Trump hired — and then attacked.

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Witness Fitness

"'I don’t know these children,' she testified in one 2017 case, adding, 'I have not met anybody.' Still, she said, she 'strongly' recommended that those children’s birth parents’ rights be permanently terminated and that the kids be adopted. Baird is so consistent in this view that she sometimes copies and pastes from her own past evaluations." ProPublica: An Expert Who Has Testified in Foster Care Cases Across Colorado Admits Her Evaluations Are Unscientific. And yet, her testimony has prevented a lot of kids from being reunified with their birth parents.

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Stache and Carry

There is a disconnect between how the economy is doing and how people seem to think it's doing. But one place where the economy is undeniably and unequivocally roaring is in the marketplace for stuff owned by, used by, or even touched by celebrities. The New Yorker: The Place to Buy Kurt Cobain’s Sweater and Truman Capote’s Ashes. "In the past year, the fine-art market has cooled, owing to uncertainty about the economy, but prices for celebrity-adjacent objects keep going up. A few weeks before the Julien’s event, Sotheby’s had auctioned off Freddie Mercury’s estate, drawing the most bidders the house had seen in two decades. 'There was zero rationality to the valuations,' Chase McCue, the director of memorabilia at Hard Rock International, told me. 'His mustache comb went for almost two hundred thousand.' The sale brought in more than fifteen million dollars, nearly quadruple the high estimate." Lunacy is recession proof.

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Extra, Extra

In the Drill of the Night: "Nearly every night, it is the same drill. A call comes in that mobile missile launchers have popped up somewhere in Yemen near the coastline, preparing to fire. Except, aboard the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is not a drill." The war America is fighting that we don't hear that much about. A visual piece from the NYT (Gift Article): Aboard the U.S. Aircraft Carrier Battling the Houthis in the Red Sea.

+ Havana Hard Time: "Two rigorous government studies found no unusual pattern of injury or disease in the brains of people with the mysterious cluster of symptoms known as Havana syndrome." The sufferers of whatever this is are like an extreme version of much larger cohort suffering from syndrome-like symptoms that no one has been able to figure out. The alarming rise in Americans with long Covid symptoms.

+ Call of Duty: "During a critical phone call Monday, President Joe Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Israel carrying out a planned military operation in Rafah."

+ Junk Bond: "Trump’s attorneys said he has approached 30 underwriters to back the bond." Trump is unable to make $464 million bond in civil fraud case.

+ Minor Trauma: "In many cases, the children shot themselves, while others killed siblings or friends, according to the gun control advocacy group." Children unintentionally shot and killed at least 157 people last year.

+ Q and A-Less: "What is the universe made out of? How should we define death? Where did dogs come from?" 17 astounding scientific mysteries that researchers can’t yet solve.

+ Cycle of Life: "Five competitive cyclists – women in their 50s and 60s – met at the Tokul Creek trail north of Snoqualmie. At the yellow gate before riding into the deep forest, the women took a group selfie. They had no premonition that 19 miles in, a young male cougar would attack one of them, and that they’d spend 45 minutes in a battle for their lives." Wow.

+ Airing Landry: "If he had to put money on it, Plemons said, most people probably know him as Todd, the genteel psychopath he played on Breaking Bad. But he’s also gotten Game Night, thanks to his meme-spawning turn as a creepy Machiavellian cop. Then there are those fans, particularly back in Texas, who will forever know him as Landry, the awkward smart-ass he played on Friday Night Lights. That role started small too—'sort of an afterthought,' the show’s creator, Peter Berg, says. Just the sidekick to the star quarterback. But Plemons clambered into the main ensemble thanks to his almost supernatural ability to steal scenes. 'Everything we gave him, he just made the absolute most of it,' Berg said, so they kept giving him more." And so did every other director. Texas Monthly: How Jesse Plemons Came to Star in, Well, Pretty Much Everything.

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Bottom of the News

GQ (Gift Article): We Regret To Inform You That You May Have ‘Email Apnea’ and Not Even Realize It. I blame myself. My newsletter writing can be pretty breathtaking...