Rafael Nadal had to return to tennis some time (hallelujah!), but why Chile? Reeves Wiedeman on Rafa’s rationale: http://nyr.kr/XrbvMe

Like an opera singer coming back from vocal-chord surgery at a performance with the local community symphony, he’s hoping to make sure everything’s in working order before he takes on a tougher crowd. 

Jessie Wender:

On the last day of 2012, the photographer Magda Biernat-Webster and her husband, the illustrator Ian Webster, began a journey in Chile that they’re calling North via South: from Antarctica to Alaska. After landing in Santiago, Chile, via New York City via Williamsburg, they drove fifteen hundred miles south, through Chile, to catch a cruise boat headed to Antarctica, which will be the official starting point of their voyage. Over the coming months, we’ll be following their journey and publishing dispatches from road, boat, and plane.

Click-through for a selection of Magda’s photographs from Chile, with captions from the couple: http://nyr.kr/WefYVR

(Source: newyorker.com)

“At the end of the world,” the photographer Brigitte Grignet writes, “lies one of the most remote and undisturbed areas of Patagonia.” This sparsely populated region in southern Chile, called Aysén, is also one of the most endangered, threatened by plans to dam two of the region’s rivers in order to send hydro power north along thousands of miles of power lines.

Grignet followed the proposed route of these planned power lines, photographing a landscape and way of life that would be forever altered should these plans be carried out. Though Aysén’s hundred thousand inhabitants lead difficult lives—the cost of living is higher than in other parts of Chile due to its isolation, travel is dictated by weather and volcano conditions, electricity is sparse—it remains a legendary place, Grignet said. “I went to Aysén to create the memory of what exists there now and might be disappearing soon,” she told me. “This project is about the Patagonia that could be lost.”

Click-through for a slideshow of Grignet’s photographs: http://nyr.kr/PIncPy 

(Source: newyorker.com)

Labyrinth: By Roberto Bolaño

They’re seated. They’re looking at the camera. They are captioned, from left to right: J. Henric, J.-J. Goux, Ph. Sollers, J. Kristeva, M.-Th. Réveillé, P. Guyotat, C. Devade, and M. Devade.

There’s no photo credit.

They’re sitting around a table. It’s an ordinary table, made of wood, perhaps, or plastic, it could even be a marble table on metal legs, but nothing could be less germane to my purpose than to give an exhaustive description of it. The table is a table that is large enough to seat the above-mentioned individuals and it’s in a café. Or appears to be. Let’s suppose, for the moment, that it’s in a café.