Savage's essay has attracted both derision and amens in newspapers and journals, on social media and Substacks, over drinks and in group chats. "I think the nerve I hit is fairly obvious," Savage said in an interview, adding, "being able to put numbers behind it was cathartic to some people and triggering to others." Humming underneath the disputation is a less tangible but more significant question. Let us say the perspective of the straight white man is being dampened in the world of literary fiction. Should we care? from The Death and Life of the Straight White Man's Novel [NY Times; ungated]

We'll debunk the myth created by Hollywood that a firearm can be completely silenced, reduced only to a "pew". I'll pull together some examples of silenced firearms and show what silencers/suppressors can and can't do, and compare the noises you'd get to some other types of sound. Then I'll go into the components which make up firearm noise: mechanical, sonic boom, and muzzle blast. Then I'll discuss the advantages that silencers bring, even though they're not as impressive as they seem in the movies. Finally, I'll sum up by discussing the limitations of silencers and why they are not universal. from Silencers: not very silent [Military Realism]

"Spot-fixing" is the practice of manipulating small, discrete events that have little to no bearing on the outcome of a game—the timing of a yellow card in soccer, a wide ball in cricket, a single double-fault in tennis. Or, in the case of Ortiz, the result of one of the roughly 300 pitches thrown in the average baseball game. What makes spot-fixing so insidious is how inconsequential the occurrences appear in real time. from The Scourge of 'Spot-Fixing' Is Coming for American Sports [WSJ; ungated]

Related: The psychology of spot fixing – why athletes might gamble their careers [The Conversation]

This is our way to fight back against the forces of evil—the forces that are pushing back against LGBT equality, all of these horrible anti-trans laws, the banning of trans kids from sports and all of that stuff. For us as artists and writers, this is our only weapon. from "Wow, This Is So Gay": An Oral History of But I'm a Cheerleader [Vanity Fair; ungated]

In that bygone world, the postman was of paramount importance. Fat envelopes were fatal, thin ones ecstatic. Plath and Hughes stared through the blinds and accosted him when he came. Had they won an oatmeal-naming contest? Had a poem been taken? I caught the very tail end of this life. It was important – we can no longer imagine it – to believe in this way. In a dream she recounts in the journals, Plath describes her brother, Warren, 'discovering me about to bed with someone whose name was Partisan Review'. You may believe these institutions create your ambition; they do not. It is inherent, or inborn, or created in you by adversities, luck, love or the lack of it. The real document is already written: her diaries, a biography of aim. from Arrayed in Shining Scales by Patricia Lockwood [LRB; ungated]

Gobsmacked provides a high-level snapshot of your recipe, highlighting the essential ingredients and core actions to help you quickly grasp what's involved. Key times are included to help you plan your cooking schedule, so you can manage prep and cooking phases efficiently without feeling rushed. Ingredients and main steps are visually grouped to reveal how the dish progresses from start to finish, giving you a clear sense of the overall cooking sequence.

In this sense, the post-1990 monetary-policy regime contributed to global stability by ensuring that central banks remained focused on putting their own house in order. But can the cooperative model of global monetary policy survive in an age of geopolitical fragmentation? Will central banks remain independent and maintain their commitment to price stability above all? The answers will depend on the frameworks adopted to govern the interplay between fiscal and monetary policy in an increasingly conflictual world. from The Twilight of Bretton Woods by Giancarlo Corsetti [Project Syndicate; ungated]

What happens when you choose to do something simple and do it well What kind of paper would you use to fold flowers? As folders, we know that finding the right paper for the model we want to fold (and vice versa) is important for achieving the right form and appearance. Personally, I've used a lot of different materials for my work, including everything from printer paper and aluminum foil to cellophane, fabric and more. When folding origami flowers, why not use flower petals? from The Art of Hanakami [The Fold]

At its broadest, the collection spanned from the New Jersey nuptials of David Thomas and Helena Van Boskerk in June 1728 ("the first Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord GEORGE the Second") to the 2013 marriage of Loreen M. Bloodgood and Alicia A. Terrizzi, the first same-sex couple to wed in Pennsylvania, before it was even clear their union would be recognized in the commonwealth. Gold-Bikin framed scores of these marriage mementos and displayed them in the hallways of the Norristown, Pennsylvania, law firm where she worked as one of the country's top divorce attorneys. from First Comes Love [Jstor]