Disney, Hummingbird, Jazz, Stranded, Tribalism

Your weekly free edition of The Browser, perusing the internet for writing worth reading. Want to get five outstanding article recommendations each day, hand-chosen and beautifully summarised, with no ads and no fuss? Join now.

On Sunday 18th April at 6pm UK(10am PT / 1pm ET), we are honoured to welcome Stephen Dubner, co-author of the Freakonomics books and host of Freakonomics Radio, to talk about the (freak)onomics of health care and so much more. Please do reserve your spot at https://thebrowser.com/conversations/

Deconstructing Disney

Jeanna Kadlec | Longreads | 13th April 2021

Dissection of how pop culture communicates power, as shown by Disney's use of queer stereotypes to separate villains from heroes. The antagonist is the character who will not assimilate into the happily ever after. "In Pocahontas, Disney pulls off the magic trick of telling a story about colonisation and genocide where the only thing that’s actually punished is the 'wrong' kind of masculinity" (2,999 words)

Hummingbirds And The Ecstatic Moment

Jeff VanderMeer | Orion | 7th April 2021

As a sickly child, this novelist was dragged around the world by warring parents engaged in a "ten year divorce". Bedridden in Cuzco, Peru, he had a sudden vision of two hummingbirds at the window, a pair of "iridescent flames, feathered in red and gold and black and emerald, hovering there". Rare, direct writing about craft and a writer's perpetual attempt to verify an unreliable memory (3,108 words)

The Real Book

Mikel McCavana | 99% Invisible | 6th April 2021

Unveiling the "bootleg bible of jazz", an anthology of sheet music for "hundreds of common jazz tunes" compiled by two students at Berklee and known to all jazz musicians since the 1970s as The Real Book. It was photocopied and passed from hand to hand because it was illegal, a "totally unlicensed publication", created "without permission from music publishers or songwriters" (2,270 words)

The Browser Classifieds

Get one eclectic music streaming recommendation in your inbox each weekday from Ecléctico. Good for your ears and algorithms. Subscribe here.

On the Better Known podcast, hear six things which should be better known – people, places, stories and ideas. The Guardian called it “fascinating” with a levity which makes you “laugh out loud”, with guests including journalist Helen Lewis and statistician David Spiegelhalter

Subscribe to Podcast Review, a free newsletter bringing you the week’s five best podcast episodes every Wednesday. Enjoyed by over 5,000 subscribers, including top podcasters and staff from NPR, Spotify, and The New Yorker.

Want to reach 50,000 smart, curious readers every week? Advertise in the Browser

Audio of the Week: Locked Out

Episode: "Meet The Stranded Australians" | Podcast: The Signal | 17m 40s

Elsewhere, the way that Australia has handled the pandemic is much admired — a draconian quarantine system and swift local lockdown measures have meant many aspects of life in person can resume. But for some Australian expats stuck abroad, this regime has effectively locked them out of their own country. This is the moving personal story of one couple trapped in the Covid bureaucracy (17m 40s)

Book of the Week: Breaking the Social Media Prism

by Chris Bail | Courtesy of Five Books

A sociologist who runs a ‘polarisation lab’ takes issue with some of the common social media narratives we now take for granted. Echo chambers, foreign interference, microtargeting, all-knowing algorithms: little of it is backed up by any evidence. “Our focus upon Silicon Valley obscures a much more unsettling truth: the root source of political tribalism on social media lies deep inside ourselves” (132 pages)

Afterthought:
"The correct lesson to learn from surprises is that the world is surprising"
— Morgan Housel

Tired of waiting for the latest instalment? Subscribers get:
- five hand-chosen, expertly-summarised pieces each day
- the latest, greatest articles from publications you wouldn't read otherwise
- additional selections of audio, videos and quotes
- a weekly Best Of featuring our absolute favourite pieces
- no ads, and no fuss.

Caroline Crampton, Editor
Robert Cottrell, Editor
Jodi Ettenberg, Associate Editor
Raymond Douglas, Associate Editor
Uri Bram, Publisher

Editorial comments and letters to the editor: editor@thebrowser.com
Technical issues and support requests: support@thebrowser.com
Or write at any time to the publisher: uri@thebrowser.com