One of the most expansive memories ever documented belonged to a Russian newspaper reporter named Solomon Shereshevsky. For much of his life, he was oblivious of the peculiar nature of his memory. Then, in his late twenties, the young reporter’s habit of never taking notes during morning staff meetings caught the attention of the editor of his Moscow newspaper. Shereshevsky told the editor he never wrote anything down because he didn’t need to, then repeated verbatim the long list of instructions and addresses for that day’s assignment.
The editor was impressed, but even more interesting to him was that Shereshevsky seemed to think there was nothing unusual about this. Wasn’t this how everyone’s mind worked? The editor had never seen anything like it, so he sent Shereshevsky to have his memory tested.
While there’s no evidence yet that the dark dimension exists, the scenario does make testable predictions for both cosmological observations and tabletop physics. That means we may not have to wait long to see whether the hypothesis will bear up under empirical scrutiny—or be relegated to the list of tantalizing ideas that never fulfilled their original promise.
For 35 years, Soul Train was the beating heart of Black pop culture in America, considered appointment television for the millions of people who tuned in to discover the latest trends in music, dance, and fashion. In its more than 900 episodes, it launched musicians like Teena Marie, Curtis Mayfield, and the Jackson Five, and others like Vivica A. Fox, Jody Watley, and Rosie Perez, to new heights of fame. Now, 54 years after the groundbreaking show’s premiere, its impact on culture and history hasn’t diminished.
When designing their layouts, malls took a cue from an industry that has perfected the art of separating people from their money: casinos.
How is it that these brainless, disgusting maggots are doing a better job than doctors? Well, they’re hungry.
Had I ever seen so much bare flesh in one room? Naked in a mixed-gender Austrian sauna, I sat opposite two dozen other nude people on wooden benches. Even after more than a year of living in Europe, as an American, I still felt a little uncomfortable sitting there in nothing but my own skin.
The sauna master came in to warm things up. Tall and lanky, wearing just a towel wrapped around his hips, he wheeled in a cart with several grapefruit-size balls of crushed ice infused with essential oils like black pepper, lime and eucalyptus. After a short speech telling us to leave immediately if we felt dizzy, he placed one of the ice balls onto a tray of hot coals, and it began to sizzle. The smell reminded me of an expensive aromatic candle: a touch sweet, a touch spicy.
Of course, in reality, no one cared. Do you care if you see someone alone at a museum, church, lecture, or book signing (all of which I’ve, of course, attended solo)? No, because you’re too busy thinking about your own life. You’re at the event to see a superstar, an author, a famous painting—not fixate on some random person. If I do notice someone alone in an unusual setting, like a national park or a festival, I admire their chutzpah. They’re not sitting around waiting for the planets to align, they’re off and adventuring on their own.
Unapologetically queer (in both senses of the word), this story of grief, love and mental illness unravels slowly. The pace means that in lesser hands it might founder, but Matthews’s writing is brilliantly assured. Skipping effortlessly between past and present, she wields language powerfully and brutally, yet with a lightness of touch that is deceptively seductive. It’s hard to believe it’s the work of a first-time novelist.
Flock thereby aligns her subjects with the divine and the damned. Just as these women alchemized their pain into power, so too does The Furies forge their narratives of loss into myths of reclamation.