10 Weekend Reads – The Big Picture

• The ‘bottom whisperer’ will see you now. Back there. Proctologist Evan Goldstein has made a life — and a fancy living — off anal interventions, drawing ardent fans and curious skeptics. (Washington Post)

• The Curious Case Of The Underselling Arena Tours: Welcome to the Summer of the Mysteriously Flopping Arena Tours. Why are so many tours struggling to sell seats? How is this kind of large-scale misjudgment possible with so much data available? Experts say… well, it’s complicated. (Stereogum) see also How ‘Swiftonomics’ is impacting the music industry. Taylor Swift is not just a musical phenomenon, but a business unicorn too. The Eras tour which has arrived in Edinburgh is reckoned to be pushing her wealth well north of $1bn (£785.51m). Forbes, the money magazine, reckons she is worth $600m (£471m) from performance and her back catalogue is worth as much, while she has around $125m (£98.2m) worth of real estate. (BBC)

• They Built a $100 Million Watch Empire. Then the Market Tanked. The website Hodinkee reinvented watch culture, giving luxury timepieces the same air as a pair of rare Nikes. Now it faces a market downturn and accusations of mismanagement. (Wall Street Journal)

• A Big Decision for Boeing’s Next C.E.O.: Is It Time for a New Plane? Some analysts say building a new plane soon would help the company regain ground it has lost to Airbus. But doing so would be difficult and expensive. (Vox)

• The Napoleon of Your Living Room: Gary Friedman, who runs RH (formerly Restoration Hardware), is out to conquer the world, one luxurious sofa at a time. Next stop, Waterloo? (New York Times) see also What Retail Apocalypse? Shopping Centers Are Making a Comeback. Vacancy is the lowest it has been in two decades, at 5.4 percent, according to a recent report. The properties are thriving even as retailers like Macy’s and Express shutter many stores. (New York Times)

• The world’s on the verge of a carbon storage boom: Hundreds of looming projects will force communities to weigh the climate claims and environmental risks of capturing, moving, and storing carbon dioxide. (MIT Technology Review)

• The inside story of Israel’s dramatic Gaza hostage rescue: The JC can reveal previously unknown details of the daring mission, which was the result of weeks of intelligence work culminating in a 45 minute shoot-out with Hamas terrorists (The Jewish Chronicle)

• How to Lead an Army of Digital Sleuths in the Age of AI: Eliot Higgins and his 28,000 forensic foot soldiers at Bellingcat have kept a miraculous nose for truth—and a sharp sense of its limits—in Gaza, Ukraine, and everywhere else atrocities hide online. (Wired)

• I was watching basketball in the 1980s. I’ve never seen the NBA be this good. As the NBA Finals tip off, we should all admit that we are living in what is likely the best moment ever to be a basketball fan. (New York Times)

• “Directors Don’t Cry!” Madonna, Rosanna Arquette, and the Wild Birth of Desperately Seeking Susan: In an excerpt from her memoir, Susan Seidelman watches Madonna go from newcomer (“I’ll do anything to get this part”) to icon. (Vanity Fair)