Our weekly recap highlighting the best feature stories from around the internet.
Photo: AFP
The Promise Keeper – by Lee Jenkins, Sports Illustrated
“His crusade began July 10, 2014, with three words uttered on the 58th story of the Wynn hotel: “I’m coming home.” It ended June 19, 2016, with three more words bellowed on the court at Oracle Arena. “Oh my God!” he shouted, falling into the arms of teammates and friends. “Oh my God!” After 52 years without a championship in a major sport, Cleveland wears the crown, bestowed by basketball’s forever king.”
Fafswag Is The Auckland Collective Celebrating Queer Pacific Islander Culture – by Wendy Syfret, i-D
“So yeah, we do have a responsibility to keep people in check and be part of a wider discussion. But it doesn't have to happen on their terms. We have to say no to your pantomime caricatures of our complex identities, no to your to your legislation that treats us like illegal citizens in our home, no to your moral restrictions on love, no to your rigid gender binaries and transphobia, no to your political oppression and social deprivation and no to your shitty art!”
Vince Staples, Regular Genius – by Jeff Weiss, The Fader
“In the course of playing back Prima Donna in Hollywood, Staples learns about the murder of Lil Stomp, a friend from North Long Beach, who was killed over a gang feud during a game of basketball. There is frustration, but no tears. He’s furious but totally calm — the grief of someone who has received these phone calls too many times, and whose only real wish is to make them stop.”
Roger Shepherd: The Story of Flying Nun Records – by Kiran Dass, Stuff
“I just found out how to do it by making mistakes. It's like learning to drive around London. You can have the map but you've gotta make the wrong turn and get lost every day. And then you'll learn the right way.”
Patti Smith: ‘You decide your fate. Are you going to fall apart or own it?’ – by Tim Jonze, The Guardian
““I’m going to be 70 soon,” she says. “And I know I can’t sing like Amy Winehouse or Rihanna. I can’t rely on that physical beauty or certain things that you have when you’re young. But what I can rely on is that, when I go on stage, I am only there for one reason and that’s to communicate with the people.”
Gawker Was A Great Place To Become A Journalist – by Adrian Chen, The New Yorker
“In order to find an audience, I had to be entertaining and provocative. At the site’s best, these two often conflicting impulses encouraged writing with a spontaneity, humour, and self-assuredness that wasn’t like anything else on the Internet. At its worst, it led to gratuitous meanness and a bad lack of self-awareness.”