Top of the weekend to you all. Regular readers may have noted my preoccupation with trying to find the joy in the world. This week, it was there in abundance, from humans playing a game at the highest level to a whale having a frolic and a man recreating the spaces that give us more joy than most. Read on.
1. This year’s models
David Hourigan made his first model of a Melbourne music venue – the venerated Cherry Bar – during the Victorian capital’s long Covid lockdowns. Now he has created enough mini masterpieces for an exhibition of his work. It is amazing stuff, detailed right down to the cigarette butts and beer kegs.
The power of art: The outpouring of love for Hourigan’s model of the Punters Club, defunct since 2002, inspired the venue’s new owners to restore it to its former bandroom glory a couple of years ago.
How long will it take to read: Three minutes.
2. One woman’s search for answers about pregnancy and psychedelics
Mikaela de la Myco noticed that taking psilocybin, the psychedelic compound active in “magic” mushrooms, lessened her cravings for alcohol. When she fell pregnant, she knew she would have to stop drinking. Was psilocybin the answer?
She found an Indigenous woman-led group with whom she could ingest mushrooms under the guidance of an elder. She gave birth to a healthy baby. And having found pregnant people omitted from research into the health benefits of psychedelics, she set about doing the research herself.
How long will it take to read: Seven minutes.
Further reading: Lauren McQuistin stopped drinking via more conventional means – and realised what friendship really meant.
3. A front row seat to the G7 from hell
“Hating Emmanuel Macron is a national sport in France,” writes Emmanuel Carrère, but it is a different story on away missions. The French president, Carrère argues, thrives on the international stage. So the writer tagged along for the most recent G7 summit in Canada, where Italian PM Giorgia Meloni came off as likable and Macron got to play the “alpha male” role when Donald Trump abruptly departed.
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“In general, it’s become an aim in itself for the six members of the club of former masters of the world to keep the damage to a minimum with the seventh. At the same time, they must remind everyone they’re still here and, all the while kowtowing, they puff out their chests as best they can.” – Carrère’s assessment of how the G7 functions.
How long will it take to read: Twelve minutes.
4. A 90s one-hit wonder’s return from rock bottom
Kavana had a brief flirtation with pop stardom in the late 90s. What’s more interesting is what happened to the British-born Anthony Kavanagh from there: dropped by his label, a misguided quest for Hollywood fame, smoking crack in a skip bin and self-medicating with booze while he grappled with his sexuality.
Kavanagh came out the other side mostly intact and shares his story in darkly comic fashion.
Who? I couldn’t remember Kavana either, but the internet assures me that in 1997 he hit No 32 in Australia with his cover of Shalamar’s I Can Make You Feel Good.
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
5. Why everyone feels pain differently
Withstanding pain has been heralded as heroism or a freakish anomaly. But what is happening in the body and mind of a person who does not seem to feel the pain they “should” be feeling?
Lorimer Moseley pondered that question as an undergraduate physiotherapy student, so he spent some time in emergency rooms asking questions. The curious case of a “totally fine” man with the claw of a hammer stuck in his neck gave him his answer.
A matter of genetics: Red-haired people have, on average, a different threshold at which their nerves are triggered by a change in temperature in a heat-based pain test.
How long will it take to read: Seven minutes.
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