2Pz long-ish reads

i recommend these articles to you personally.

this one is written by david sedaris about his sister's suicide, but don't worry. it's full of laughs.

Unlike the cottages of our youth, this one did not have a maid’s room. It was too new and fancy for that, as were the homes that surrounded it. Traditionally, all the island houses were on stilts, but more and more often now the ground floors are filled in. They all have beachy names and are painted beachy colors, but most of those built after Hurricane Fran hit the coast, in 1996, are three stories tall and look almost suburban. This place was vast and airy. The kitchen table sat twelve, and there was not one but two dishwashers. All the pictures were ocean-related: seascapes and lighthouses, all with the airborne “V”s that are shorthand for seagull. A sampler on the living-room wall read, “Old Shellers Never Die, They Simply Conch Out.” On the round clock beside it, the numbers lay in an indecipherable heap, as if they’d come unglued. Just above them were printed the words “Who cares?” (via)

this one is the new yorker's take on college football fandom in alabama, or as they call it, "mayhem". it's real snooty, and i loved reading it.

Then there is the fact that, like any one person or institution, the state is rightly proud of the thing in which it is most successful. After the game, Auburn’s athletic director declared that, if his team wins next week’s S.E.C. championship, against Missouri, it would be “a disservice to the nation” were Auburn to be left out of the national championship. (Barring losses, Florida State and Ohio State seem likely to face off in that game.) It’s a ridiculous sentiment, but one I sympathize with: there is no other moment, save for regularly scheduled football games and unscheduled tragedies, like the tornados that struck Tuscaloosa in 2011, when the state of Alabama has the attention of their three hundred and nine million fellow Americans. Who are we, in parts of the country with professional sports to cheer and (relatively) thriving economies to enjoy, to deny Alabamans a bit of crowing? (via)