Happy Saturday! The world felt like a scary place this week, but these five reads kept me going – as did the campaigners who forced Jeff Bezos to relocate his wedding in Venice. If only we got the inflatable crocodiles – but at least there was a Bezos lookalike confusing the crowds.
1. Trump Island
Continuing with the theme of the rich, Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, have spent more than $1bn on an Albanian island – one of the last undeveloped islands in the Mediterranean.
Unlike in Venice, the Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, has welcomed the purchase of Sazan Island, saying “We need luxury tourism like a desert needs water.”
Albanians call Sazan Ishulli i Trumpëve – Trump Island. Until now mostly untrammelled by development, the island, which was once home to a military base, is on the verge of becoming a mecca for ultra-luxury tourism – once the unexploded ordnance has been removed.
Environmental concerns: Environmentalists such as Olsi Nika, a marine biologist and the director of the NGO EcoAlbania, are worried about the development. “This area is in the Karaburun-Sazan maritime national park. It means the beaches and waters within 2km (1.25 miles) of the shore are protected. What will large public works, the building of docks, yacht traffic and sewage run-off do to the place?”
How long will it take to read: five minutes.
2. A self-aware nepo baby?
It’s been hard to shake the image that the character Lena Dunham’s landmark series, Girls, gave Allison Williams. In this interview, the actor reflects on privilege, growing up with a famous parent, and her role in sci-fi horror film M3gan.
What does she think of AI, tech and parenting? Williams recounts using ChatGPT to answer one of her three-year-old son’s questions. “Watching what happened to his face was like when Gemma sees her niece interacting with M3gan. Like, I have connected my kid to a drug, this is so immediately addictive and intoxicating,” she says. She quickly put her phone away and made a mental note to go to the library next time to get out a book. “I can’t justify it, logically,” she says. “It just felt like an innate instinct.”
And her thoughts on Botox? She loves having it when she’s not filming – “because, you know, you need to make facial expressions when you’re shooting”.
How long will it take to read: five minutes.
Further reading: if you want to be really terrified, read what Paula Cocozza learned recording thousands of hours of teenagers on their phones.
3. ‘History has lessons to teach us’
This year marks 80 years since the US dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 people.
Today, every one of the crew members who carried out the bombings is dead. One of the last writers to interview them reopens his files.
***
“Just in the last week, war has broken out in the Middle East over fears that Iran may be very close to having a bomb. In such times, perspective matters … History has lessons to teach us.”
How long will it take to read: 11 minutes.
Further reading: one million and counting: Russian casualties hit milestone in Ukraine war.
4. The unsolved skyjacking
On 24 November 1971, a man who called himself “Dan Cooper” hijacked a plane for US$200,000. He then parachuted out in his suit and dress shoes, never to be seen again.
“It’s like the best book I’ve ever read, but I’m missing the first and last chapters,” podcaster Darren Schaefer tells writer Daniel Lavelle, who both potentially suffer from the “Cooper curse” (a term coined by author Geoffrey Gray about being totally obsessed with the case). I’ve personally still got whiplash from the opening of this story.
DB Cooper effect: the mind-boggling mystery has inspired news article after article, books, podcasts, movies, documentaries, even a DB Cooper-themed bar – and an annual convention held in Oregon.
How long will it take to read: five-and-a-half minutes.
5. Residencies in storied venues
Imagine performing at a theatre in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, that was built between AD 98-117 in “Europe’s longest continually inhabited city”. Or a former panopticon Lukiškės prison in Vilnius, Lithuania, or the Lycabettus hill theatre in Athens.
Laura Snapes takes us inside Australia’s experimental rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s European residency tour, where the group of six don’t rehearse but do make time to be tourists in the cities they perform in.
Photography: Maclay Heriot captures it all on film.
Hot tip: throw on the band’s existential new record in the background while reading.
How long will it take to read: five minutes.
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