Five Great Reads: Steve Bannon, curing insomnia, and the dressing-gown DJ

Top of the weekend to you all. Adding the Céline Dion documentary to my watchlist was not on my bingo card for the week, but the world moves in mysterious ways.

If you’re in the market for some unsolicited advice from someone too dumb to take their own, may I offer: get your flu shot. Your waiting room reading is below.

1. How War Room is shaping Republican narratives

The first presidential debate is out of the way and US election season is in full swing, which means we would be hearing a lot more from Steve Bannon if it weren’t for the small trifle of a four-month jail term starting 1 July.

The Trump White House strategist vows that War Room, his talking heads show/podcast which generates 22 hours of content a week across multiple platforms, will continue in his absence. David Smith stepped into Bannon’s Washington man cave to learn Donald Trump is a mere “moderate” of the Maga movement and the people to his right are “not so kind-hearted”.

Facts or alternative facts? Bannon says he and his team “do a ton of work to make sure that we’re not wrong on things”. Madeline Peltz, a US media monitor, reckons War Room is “an endless stream of nonsense”.

How long will it take to read: Six minutes.

Further reading: The election operators series profiles the individuals shaping Trump’s campaign.

2. The loneliness of the low-ranking tennis player

You might not be surprised to learn that the lower rungs of the global tennis circuit are not all love triangles with Zendaya. As Conor Niland, Ireland’s former No 1 player, describes it, the Futures tour (where those below the top 300 duke it out) is a kind of purgatory “that exists only to be got out of as quickly as possible”.

Niland did get out, eventually playing grand slam tennis against Novak Djokovic. But his journey included regular boredom, constant uncertainty, and being ignored by former practice partners once they’d started dating Maria Sharapova.

$480: Niland’s prize money (before tax) for making the semis in Edinburgh in 2005.

How long will it take to read: Nine minutes.

3. A cure for lifelong insomnia

“Have you tried a warm bath?”

That was the first well-intentioned but useless advice the novelist Lara Williams received as a potential cure for her insomnia. She tried it all: valerian tea, relaxation podcasts, ASMR videos. Then motherhood (and the traumatic labour that preceded it) made things worse, extending her sleepless spells to days at a time.

The solution for Williams came in the form of a paradox: depriving herself of sleep in order to access it.

***

“I stare at the ceiling until the early hours of the morning, my heart beating so fast it is as if I am being hunted for game.” – How Lara Williams experienced insomnia as a teen

How long will it take to read: Five minutes.

4. The dressing gown-wearing viral DJ sensation

Old ravers never die, they just go viral on TikTok and get booked to play Glastonbury. So it turns out there’s hope for me yet and my spirit animal is Fish56Octagon (not his real name), who knocks out social posts about club classics over breakfast before starting his “serious” (and undisclosed) day job.

Some rave know-it-alls of his vintage are cynical about his success. But Fish says he is getting 500 DMs a day from people feeling the love and realising “that you can just put yourself out there and not care what other people think”.

How long will it take to read: Three minutes.

Further viewing/listening: Check out Fish bigging up what he reckons is the biggest trance tune of them all, even if the Nalin & Kane remix of said tune is in fact bigger.

5. In praise of best friends

Let’s see things out with the sort of “awwww” we all need at the end of a hectic week. The Guardian asked readers to tell us about the friends who have stuck with them through the good, the bad and the boring. Like Claire and Meg, pictured above, who played in a band more than 20 years ago and started recording each other a voicemail message every day at the height of the pandemic. Awwww.

Close friends are good for you: So says the American Psychological Association, which says people with confidants are more satisfied, less susceptible to depression and “less likely to die from all causes”.

How long will it take to read: Three minutes.

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