Hello and welcome to Five Great Reads, your mid-morning wrap of slow news and great writing, lovingly placed in a ziplock bag by me, Alyx Gorman, Guardian Australia’s lifestyle editor (more on the ziplock later).
If you’d like your news a little harder and faster, please head over to our live blog. If you’d rather be reading about the tennis, we’ve got that covered too. And if you just want to look at one thing that’s hectic and compelling, I have two options for you: a serial killer cold case from New York that may be getting warmer; and a piece on how Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly have double-handedly revived the weird rock’n’roll celebrity relationship (“You smell like weed”/“I am weed”).
Now we’re done with that meme, on to the reads.
1. A visual timeline of the Tonga volcano eruption
From 30km-high smoke plumes to tsunami warnings across the Pacific rim, this multimedia explainer shows what happened, where and when during the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption.
Show me on a map:
Bonus read: Initial reports suggest there have been no mass casualties from the eruption but significant damage. Tonga’s deputy head of mission in Australia, Curtis Tuihalangingie, is urging patience when it comes to offering aid. Concerned with private fundraising efforts, he has asked the public to wait until a disaster relief fund is announced. “When people see such a huge explosion they want to help.”
2. Christine Baranski’s sass and class
In her profile of Christine Baranski, Hadley Freeman describes the Good Fight star as an “Oh, her …” kind of actor. “Casual observers might not recognise her name, but they always, instantly, know her face.” Now, as she takes on “the Maggie Smith role” in what is being pitched as an American Downton Abbey, we’re likely to hear a fair few more “Oh hers”.
Notable quote: “I can look back and think: ‘how often did I not get a role because I wasn’t pretty enough?’” Baranski says. “But look at the position I’m in now – two great roles, [my characters are] both No 1 on the call sheet. I’m like: ‘Damn! Late 60s and here I am.’ There is progress!”
How long will it take me to read? About four minutes.
3. Parental impostor syndrome
Usually we talk about impostor syndrome in a workplace context; it’s that feeling that everyone else knows something you don’t. But what happens when that sense of playacting creeps its way into your home?
Notable quote: “I remember walking into the playground and thinking, ‘everyone knows you’re not a real mum,’” says Ranee of the period shortly after she adopted her two children. “It was as if I had … ‘fake’ written on my forehead.”
Feelgood solution: “We think we have to live to other people’s rules but then we feel inadequate when we don’t meet the mark,” says Blair, a single mother of three. “All the parenting books are templates. You have to invent your own way of parenting, because every child is unique.”
4. Why a 50-year-old art doco is still a must-watch
John Berger’s Ways of Seeing “has inspired generations of writers, artists and curators, spawning academic conferences and tribute programmes,” writes Olivia Laing. Oh, and Emily Ratajkowski is a fan too.
Flashback moment: “Broadcast in the pre-VCR, pre-digital age, the program itself was swiftly inaccessible,” Laing writes. “It was repeated once in 1973, after winning a Bafta, but was not screened again until 30 July 1994. Unless you had resorted to that new technology the video recorder, as some prescient teachers did, it was the companion book that gave Ways of Seeing its longevity.”
How long will it take me to read? About four minutes.
5. Helpful tip: bag your mask
If you’ve found yourself wearing your face mask as an elbow guard when it’s not on your face (guilty), this guide to caring for Covid masks is a handy refresher.
So, I shouldn’t string it on my forearm? No. Instead, make like Angela Merkel and bag it up.
