silverguide.site –

Welcome back to our roundup of great writing from around the Guardian. This week’s selections have people saving species, teasing AI bots, enduring captivity, transforming America and making music for God – something for everyone, really.

Have a good weekend.

1. Voyage to the end of the world

An expedition is setting off from Norway in a race against time, to find new species while the Arctic’s sea ice is melting fast.

“We are losing species before we have time to discover them,” Romain Troublé, a microbiologist-turned-sailor, tells Karen McVeigh. “So we’re there to document these. In the next 20 years, everything will shift.”

Some stats: Months: eight. Temperatures: as low as -50C (-58F). Boat: 26m long, 16m wide.

A new frontier: Fellow crew member Dr Nina Schuback, a biological oceanographer, is both “excited and scared”. “I’ve never experienced polar night. My biggest fear is the darkness.”

How long will it take to read: Four minutes.

2. David Sedaris can’t stop, won’t stop, on Duolingo

I love the idea of Duolingo. I even love using it. But the intrusive, increasingly frantic notifications from that cartoon owl make me want to hurl my phone into the sea. Not so David Sedaris, who got truly bewitched by the language learning app – especially when he realised he could mess with its sarcastic AI interface.

In one example, “Lily”, bored in a cartoon supermarket, asks him what he would like to buy. “Yesterday, a doctor cut out my tongue with a chainsaw,” he replies.

“I’m sorry. I cannot continue this conversation,” she responds, and hangs up (an unusual response for a string of code).

You say tomato: Sedaris is piqued by Duolingo’s tendency to lean into the … vibe of different languages. His friend, learning Yiddish, is taught to say, “My uncle is a broken man.”

“In French, meanwhile,” Sedaris observes, “it’s ‘What is he doing in our bed?’”

How long will it take to read: Eight minutes.

3. Prison is hardest at sunset

Activist Umar Khalid, one of India’s most prominent political prisoners, communicated with Hannah Ellis-Petersen in his first interview since he was jailed in 2020. As a police investigation continues without any clear end, he remains imprisoned with no trial date. The evenings, he says, are the worst.

***

“Even Dostoevsky refers to this state of mind at sunset in his prison memoir … I guess maybe it is because it starts sinking in that another day of your life has been spent in captivity.” – Umar Khalid

Why was he locked up? The Muslim and leftwing activist is a fierce critic of Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which has been accused of weaponising the judicial system to go after opponents, and its Hindu nationalist agenda. The BJP maintains that India’s judicial system is independent and that Khalid’s prosecution is not connected to politics.

Famous friend: Zohran Mamdani sent Khalid a handwritten note expressing solidarity – and prompted outrage from the Indian government.

How long will it take to read: Five minutes.

4. Will 2028 be the year of the leftwing president?

While we’re on the subject of New York’s favourite democratic socialist, this analysis from our Washington bureau chief, David Smith, suggests the mayor embodies a “tectonic shift” in American politics. Some see him as “an overdue course correction”; others, including in the Democratic party, as an existential threat.

But he can’t even run for president! True – Mamdani, born in Uganda, isn’t eligible. But Smith lays out the ways the 34-year-old has already flexed his political muscle: backing three insurgent candidates in Democratic primary elections for the US House of Representatives and successfully backing five other candidates in the state legislative races.

Mamdani wants to “write a new chapter in our party’s history, where working people are back at the heart of that struggle” – and come 2028, could again play the role of kingmaker.

How long will it take to read: Five minutes.

5. ‘God is tasteful. He likes nice things. He’s not gauche’

This very chic description of God comes courtesy of Father Dionysios Tabakis. The Orthodox priest was catapulted “from utter obscurity to cult status” when music bible Pitchfork anointed his homemade doom metal record with a princely score (7.6). God also invented the guitar, says Tabakis, 53. “The devil cannot create something. God has created all.”

It’s complicated … because, as Fonie Mitsopoulou explains, the Greek Orthodox church has traditionally deemed instruments and secular tunes satanic. But Father Tabakis hopes to change this – believing, simply, that making something beautiful is a way to honour his faith.

More beauty: He shares a line by Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos: “I was never jealous of big houses, but of big windows”. “Every musical instrument is a window,” he adds, “through which you can see a part of the universe, a part of the sky.”

How long will it take to read: Less than five minutes.

Sign up

If you would like to receive these Five Great Reads to your email inbox every weekend, sign up here. And check out out the full list of our local and international newsletters.