Good morning. Please peruse these incredibly good stories, published this week. I\u2019m Emma Elsworthy.<\/p>\n
1. \u2018Connection in a small corner of the internet\u2019\u2018By pausing at these liminal spaces, I discover a secret side to the city\u2019 \u2026 Caitlin Cassidy. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Caitlin Cassidy visited 50 payphones in a day to play a game, inspired by Pok\u00e9mon Go, that has caused \u201ca strange sense of connection in a small corner of the internet\u201d. Our intrepid reporter encountered a dirty high chair, a broken-off manicured nail and pigeons feasting on \u2026 well, never mind.<\/p>\n
But there was something touching about how PayphoneGo promotes exploration and community. And the voicemails \u2013 some of which can be listened to in the story<\/a> \u2013 can be oddly poignant. \u201cThere are people talking about their favourite local areas, people talking about what they can see,\u201d Brisbane student and creator Kris Norris says. \u201cSometimes people are venting. People are singing.\u201d<\/p>\n Notable quote: \u201cIn my delirium, I start visiting the same payphones twice, sometimes three times. I pass others without noticing them, even though I have their location on a map.\u201d<\/p>\n How long will it take to read: five minutes<\/p>\n Further reading: An AI model trained on data collected from users of the game Pok\u00e9mon Go will potentially help military drones find their location in war zones<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2. A hundred \u2018unlikely items\u2019 that reveal historyThe Billy Possum. Photograph: christies\/Courtesy of Christie\u2019s<\/p>\n On a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902, Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear that others had cornered, clubbed and tied to a tree. He told his team to shoot it instead. Oddly, the public loved this story, and a line of teddy bears was released. No other stuffed toy has come close to its popularity, though many tried \u2013 including the Billy Possum.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of the 100 items Roman Mars has chosen to summarise the US in 100 objects<\/a>, along with the screw thread and a coin that sparked a gold crisis. Mars also chose a failed time capsule \u2013 itself an attempt to contain \u201cobjects to tell the story of our country\u201d. Instead, as he tells it, \u201ccompletely random and meaningless objects fell out\u201d. How meta.<\/p>\n Notable quote: \u201cIt\u2019s a humbling story about how hard it is to tell our own story and the impossible challenge of choosing objects to represent our history.\u201d<\/p>\n How long will it take to read: five minutes<\/p>\n Further reading: More weird North Americanness \u2013 sasquatch \u201csightings\u201d<\/a> have reignited fervour and scepticism about the ape-like beast.<\/p>\n 3. Dementia as a diagnosis for \u2018creative possibilities\u2019George Rook, who was diagnosed with dementia. Photograph: Courtesy of George Rook<\/p>\n When George Rook was diagnosed with dementia, he got three pieces of advice: \u201cFirst, don\u2019t take risks. Second, don\u2019t get tired. Third, prepare.\u201d What he wished he\u2019d been told is: \u201csocialise, keep active, learn new things, volunteer\u201d. People with dementia \u2013 Australia\u2019s leading cause of death \u2013 are routinely advised to disengage and prepare to die, as Anne Karpf writes.<\/p>\n But a group of four dementia rebels<\/a> are taking on the the ageism and ableism by helping people see the \u201chopeful, creative possibilities\u201d after a diagnosis. It\u2019s an uplifting read about a debilitating illness with a simple idea driving changemakers: \u201cHow do we empower and enable people to live as well as possible, for as long as possible, with as much autonomy and independence as possible?\u201d<\/p>\n Notable quote: \u201cWe underestimate what\u2019s possible because of the idea that the person has already died.\u201d<\/p>\n How long will it take to read: five minutes<\/p>\n Further reading: In this fun story from April about 12 ways to stay sharp in a mind-frazzling world<\/a>, Joel Snape urges us to stop the brain rot!<\/p>\n 4. \u2018A cross between a ballerina and Janis Joplin\u2019Kate Moss seen on the stairs of the Donmar Warehouse threatre. Photograph: Greg Brennan<\/p>\n In the 90s, Kate Moss nipping out for a martini would cause a \u201cstampede\u201d of 200 male photographers, Greg Brennan tells Lauren Cochrane. And there were fewer photographers then \u2013 perhaps because the job was so different. Brennan would shoot celebrities at night, develop the photos until dawn and drop them off to the picture desks of glossy magazines at 6am.<\/p>\n He had photographed Moss many times but he had no idea a snap of her leaving a play would become his most famous<\/a>. It has \u201ca certain fallen angel quality about it\u201d, he says, and it fitted the media narrative: the preeminent party girl, pictured crouched on a stairwell in a fur. But Brennan has a complex relationship with the iconic photo: that sensationalism \u201ccouldn\u2019t have been any further from the truth\u201d. <\/p>\n Notable quote: \u201cShe looked at me, she recognised me because I\u2019ve been photographing her for many years. I started taking the picture. She didn\u2019t react, didn\u2019t say anything.\u201d<\/p>\n How long will it take to read: three minutes<\/p>\n Further reading: The before-and-after photos of Donald Trump\u2019s $14.2m makeover showing \u2026 a blue pool<\/a>.<\/p>\n 5. \u2018Felt like razor blades in my eyes\u2019Police use OC spray amid violent clashes at a 2021 anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne. Photograph: Dave Hewison\/Speed Media\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n \u201cProjectiles that release powder designed to burn the eyes and throat. Flashbang grenades. Teargas. Launchers that resemble semi-automatic rifles.\u201d These are some of the \u201cless lethal\u201d weapons Australia\u2019s police use<\/a> on crowds with little scrutiny. But \u201call of these weapons can kill people\u201d, says Rohini Haar, a medical doctor who has researched their health impacts on protesters around the world.<\/p>\n Dive into this incredible interactive story from Guardian Australia\u2019s investigations team that explores the shocking impacts of these weapons on crowds and exposes how police \u201cdeliberately hide the detail of these weapons behind closed doors\u201d.<\/p>\n Notable quote: \u201cThey\u2019re bringing their kids along and seeing these police fully kitted up with guns and grenades and having to explain \u2026 what\u2019s going on. This is the new normal.\u201d<\/p>\n How long will it take to read: 10 minutes<\/p>\n Sign up<\/p>\n If you would like to receive these Five Great Reads to your email inbox every weekend, sign up here<\/a>. And check out out the full list of our local and international newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning. Please peruse these incredibly good stories, published this week. I\u2019m Emma Elsworthy. 1. \u2018Connection in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[61,60,80,210,211,212],"class_list":["post-496994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-virtual-reality","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology","tag-virtual-reality","tag-virtualreality","tag-vr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}