Jens Mortensen for The New York Times This past March, standing outside a Shell station in Mellen, Wis., in the state’s far north, Mike Wiggins Jr. told me about a series of dark and premonitory dreams he had two years earlier. “One of them was a very vivid trip around the North Woods and seeing forests bleeding and sludge from a creek emptying into the Bad River,” Wiggins said. “I ended up at a dilapidated northern log home with rotten snowshoes falling off the wall. I stepped out of the lodge, walked through some pine, and I was in a pipeline. There was a big pipe coming in and out of the ground as far as I could see. Teri Fullerton for The New York ... Continue reading →
Gary Connery, a 42-year-old stunt diver from Britain, became the first person to complete a successful wing-suit landing without using a parachute. It was a scene fit for a Batman movie, Connery dropping from high above Henley-on-Thames, England, a dark speck in a clear blue sky. He launched from the helicopter at 3:32 p.m. and reached a speed of 75 miles an hour during his 40-second fall. “It was bliss,” Connery said of the flight in a telephone interview. “It’s a special, humbling day.” Cushioning his landing at Mill End Farm were over 18,500 cardboard boxes that formed a 350-foot runway, arranged by about 100 volunteers, friends and family members. After crashing into the boxes, an unharmed Connery emerged in good spirits, according to those ... Continue reading →
May 22, 2012, 11:24 amAn English Photographer Goes to California for Milk and Ping-Pong Balls By STACEY BAKERRobin MaddockPart of the job in the photo department is looking for new — new to us, anyway — photographic talents. When the photographer Martin Parr selected Robin Maddock’s “God Forgotten Face” as one of the best photography books of 2011 and called him “one of the freshest talents in the U.K.,” we knew we had to check out Maddock’s work. “God Forgotten Face” is the result of the two years Maddock spent taking pictures in the English coastal town of Plymouth, where he has family ties. He devoted the three years before that to documenting the police raids in Hackney, East London, where he used to live. ... Continue reading →
Topical Press Agency/Getty ImagesSir Cosmo Duff Gordon, right, later a Titanic survivor, and two British fencing teammates hold dueling pistols at the 1908 London Games, though the individual event was held only in 1906. And none of the duelists was actually shot.As the Olympics has grown and modernized over the years, many events have fallen by the wayside. While many are unmourned — does anyone miss club swinging? — others could easily return to the program. Here are the top 10 events that would be exciting to resurrect. (Hat tip to “The Complete Book of the Olympics” and Sports Reference’s Olympics section for much of the history below.)10. The 12-hour bicycle race, 1896The riders got on their bikes at 7 a.m. and rode until 7 ... Continue reading →
This story appears in the May 28 World Football Issue of ESPN The Magazine. Subscribe today!ON THE MORNING of Feb. 20, 2011, a man from Singapore walked into the central police station of Rovaniemi, Finland, a town that sits along the Arctic Circle. The man told officers that another Singaporean, Wilson Raj Perumal, was in Rovaniemi on a false passport. He offered no other information before leaving the station abruptly. Though puzzled by the seemingly random tip, Rovaniemi police put Perumal under surveillance. Three days later, they followed him to a French restaurant near the soccer stadium, where the local club, Rovaniemen Palloseura, had just completed a 1-1 draw. Officers watched as Perumal sat down with three Palloseura players. They saw him scold the players, ... Continue reading →
Pieter Ten Hoopen/Agence Vu, for The New York Times An orderly at the Emergency Surgical Center for War Victims in Kabul with a victim after a suicide bomber killed and injured scores during an attack on a Shiite holy day in December. Several miles west of Kabul, the village Qala-e Naw sits deep in the barren foothills of barrener mountains that are perennially half-sunk in cloud. The ruins of old homes strafed by Soviet gunships crowd a gravel streambed that is dry most of the year but runs swiftly with snowmelt come spring. One morning early in December, a 12-year-old girl named Gulali followed the bed for almost an hour, along with her mother and little sister, in search of dry timber to fuel their ... Continue reading →
