Stories Abound Of The Animatronic Shark Stalling The Moment It Hit Water And Sinking

To mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, NPR’s Cory Turner set out on a journey to find Bruce, the fabled mechanical shark star of the film, and ended up at a junkyard in Sun Valley, California.

I Watched Him Struggle And Squirm And Try To Recall Which Child He Murdered First

Eight years ago, Christian Longo brutally murdered his wife and three small children in Oregon. On the lam, he assumed the identity of disgraced journalist Michael Finkel, a man he’d never met.

Since then, their lives have become entwined — one on death row for unspeakable crimes and one settling down to begin a family — to the point that the only way Finkel thought he could bury the horror of Longo’s actions was to witness his execution. Finkel sat down to write about what happened next for Esquire:

Christian Longo entered my life at a moment of extreme weakness for me. At the same time I learned that Longo had become Michael Finkel of The New York Times — I mean the exact day — I was officially no longer Michael Finkel of The New York Times. I’d been fired by the paper because I fabricated an article I wrote about child labor in West Africa, combining quotations from several individual laborers into one fictitious composite character. A local aid agency uncovered my lie, and after it was reported to my editors, my career there was finished. At this instant of panic and vulnerability and shame, along came Longo.

Click here to read the story.

American Society Had Come to Resemble a Shattered Mirror Still in Its Frame

Today is the 40th anniversary of the May 4, 1970 shootings at Kent State University. The Ohio National Guard opened fire upon unarmed college students. Shots rang out for 13 seconds that day, killing Allison Krause,Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer. Many writers, poets, songwriters, filmmakers, and other artists have tried to make sense of the tragedy over the years. Here is an excerpt from Philip Caputo’s book 13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings, published five years ago on the tragedy’s 35th anniversary.

Click here to read the excerpt.

Writing Out of a Sense of Confusion, With Humility, Is a Way of Raising The Stakes

Robert Loss interviews Griel Marcus on the publication of the cultural critic’s new book, When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison:

People who listen to Bob Dylan’s songs and want to know if this song is about Joan Baez and exactly what incident in his relationship with her is it about—this is just a way of keeping the song away from your own life.

Click here to read the interview.

Being a Writer is in Defiance of Darwin’s Observation

Joyce Carol Oates lost her husband, Raymond Smith, of 48 years in 2008. For The Atlantic’s 2010 Fiction Issue, Oates writes “I Am Sorry to Inform You” — a beautiful tribute to her relationship with Raymond and to what’s become part of the legacy they share.

Click here to read the essay.

There’s a Baptismal Font of Purell Hand Sanitizer on the Wall

There is an excerpt over at PopMatters from Tom Jokinen’s new book Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker-in-Training:

Two rules for picking up a body at the hospital, known as a “removal”: (1) Make sure it’s the right one. This business, when you shake it down to first principles, is the burial or cremation of the dead, two relatively irreversible acts. Mistakes are frowned upon. Please check the ID tag carefully; and (2) Never stop for food on the way back to the funeral home when you’re “carrying,” not even at a drive-thru. It’s bad for the brand, and is apt to put other drive-thru-ers off their doughnuts.

Click here to read the excerpt.

That Desperate Desire For Safe Miracles

Jennifer Fulwiler reflects on the recent news regarding the Catholic sexual abuse scandal from the perspective of a convert to the faith:

If the same priest who abused disabled children also once had the power to make Jesus Christ’s own flesh fully present in the form of bread, if the bishops who have mishandled or covered up these cases of abuse really are the direct descendants of the original men upon whom Jesus conferred his power, then we’re standing in the face of the most unnerving truth of all.

Click here to read the essay.

There’s No Such Thing as Originality Anyway, There’s Only Authenticity

At 17, Helene Hegemann became the new star of the German literary scene with her first novel, Axolotl Roadkill – a wild, tumultuous coming-of-age story. But it turns out that whole passages of the novel were lifted from the web, which brought claims of plagiarism and a whole new take on the concept of authenticity.

Click here to read coverage in English from the Berliner Zeitung, and here for coverage from the New York Times.