{"id":258360,"date":"2024-01-16T14:43:32","date_gmt":"2024-01-16T14:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=258360"},"modified":"2024-01-17T14:51:23","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T14:51:23","slug":"an-iowa-paperboys-disappearance-41-years-ago-remains-a-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2024\/01\/16\/an-iowa-paperboys-disappearance-41-years-ago-remains-a-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"An Iowa paperboy’s disappearance 41 years ago remains a mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Thomas Lake for CNN<\/a>: “Johnny Gosch left home for the last time on a warm Sunday in late summer, in the pale morning light before sunrise. Just before 6 a.m., a neighbor heard a wagon rattling through the yard and figured it was Johnny taking his usual shortcut on his way to pick up his newspapers. A boy saw a blue car pull up, and saw Johnny talking to a stranger. What happened in the next few minutes would resonate for the next four decades, far beyond the rolling green hills of Iowa. Johnny would become a tragic abstraction, a face on a milk carton, a story that warned other kids away from paper routes and changed the way police handled missing-children cases.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This language was long believed extinct but then one man spoke up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Natalie Alcoba for the NYT<\/a>: “As a boy, Blas Omar Jaime spent many afternoons learning about his ancestors. His mother, Ederlinda Miguelina Yel\u00f3n, passed along the knowledge she had stored in Chan\u00e1, a throaty language spoken by barely moving the lips or tongue. The Chan\u00e1 are an Indigenous people in Argentina and Uruguay whose lives were intertwined with the mighty Paran\u00e1 River, the second longest in South America. Ms. Miguelina Yel\u00f3n urged her son to protect their stories by keeping them secret. So it was not until decades later that he made a startling discovery: No one else seemed to speak Chan\u00e1. Scholars had long considered the language extinct.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my personal newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

He spent his life building a $1 million stereo but the real cost was much higher<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Geoff Edgers for the Washington Post<\/a>: “Ken Fritz was years into his quest <\/strong>to build the world\u2019s greatest stereo when he realized it would take more than just gear. It would take more than the Krell amplifiers and the Ampex reel-to-reel. More than the trio of 10-foot speakers he envisioned crafting by hand. And it would take more than what would come to be the crown jewel of his entire system: the $50,000 custom record player, his \u201cFrankentable,\u201d nestled in a 1,500-pound base designed to thwart any needle-jarring vibrations. He later estimated he spent $1 million on his mission, a number that did not begin to reflect the wear and tear on the household, the hidden costs of his children\u2019s unpaid labor.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor’s note<\/strong><\/em>: If you like this newsletter, please share it with someone else. It is free to read \u2013 but if you could spare a small donation through <\/em>my Patreon<\/em><\/a>, I would be honoured.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m an ultrarunner, but Taylor Swift\u2019s workout just about wrecked me<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Zo\u00eb Rom for Outside magazine<\/a>: “Taylor Swift released her training regimen for the Eras Tour, her three-and-a-half-hour stadium extravaganza, and the running internet went wild. Swift said she began training for the tour six months before the first show, saying, \u201cEvery day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud. Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.\u201d That\u2019s three and a half hours on a treadmill, singing the entire time. Swift said that she would also increase the incline for songs that required more movement during the show. Keep in mind that during the actual show, she\u2019s romping around in sparkly boots with three-inch heels.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside the abandoned apartments above New York City’s public libraries<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Sarah Laskow for Atlas Obscura<\/a>: “There used to be parties in the apartments on the top floors of New York City\u2019s branch libraries. On other nights, when the libraries were closed, the kids who lived there might sit reading alone among the books or roll around on the wooden library carts\u2014if they weren\u2019t dusting the shelves or shoveling coal. Their hopscotch courts were on the roof. A cat might sneak down the stairs to investigate the library patrons. Andrew Carnegie had given New York $5.2 million to create a city-wide system of library branches, and these buildings were heated by coal. Each had a custodian, who was tasked with keeping those fires burning and who lived in the library.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bees can sense the electric field that surrounds a flower<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Ed Yong for National Geographic<\/a>: “A bumblebee visits a flower, drawn in by the bright colours, the patterns on the petals, and the aromatic promise of sweet nectar. But there\u2019s more to pollination than sight and smell. There is also electricity in the air.Dominic Clarke and Heather Whitney from the University of Bristol have shown that bumblebees can sense the electric field that surrounds a flower. They can even learn to distinguish between fields produced by different floral shapes, or use them to work out whether a flower has been recently visited by other bees. Flowers aren\u2019t just visual spectacles and smelly beacons. They\u2019re also electric billboards.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man who first wore a top hat in public almost started a riot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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15 January 1797. The first top hat was worn in public by John Hetherington, a London haberdasher. His appearance on the street caused a huge commotion. He was charged with \u201cbreaching the peace and incitement to riot\u201d and had to pay a bond promising future good behaviour. pic.twitter.com\/BQRCsXzqSv<\/a><\/p>— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) January 15, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>