A list of good reads

• GQ takes a look at the new, very painful and expensive trend of leg-lengthening surgery among men.
• Speaking of male fashion, Wired has an excellent read on male facial hair—which is biologically totally useless and yet enduring. 
• CNBC looks at the rise of ‘bai lan’ (let it rot) driving young Chinese to reject the traditional culture of hard work, hustle and ambition. 
• Vogue has an interesting piece on how the pandemic, climate change, and social media may have transformed fashion forever.
• Scientific American offers an excellent analysis of ‘gaslighting’—a term we all use but don’t fully understand. No, it’s not just gender.
• BBC News has an off-beat piece on how the Queen’s English—recorded in various speeches over decades—reflected the societal changes of the past century. (h/t subscriber Udaya Nath)
• This poignant New Yorker essay tries to reconstruct the solitary life of the ‘indio do buraco’—the last member of an uncontacted indigenous Brazilian tribe—who died last month. 
• Bishan Samaddar in The Hindu offers an entertainingly scathing take at our obsession with the Windsors.
• Gizmodo argues that Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s decision to give away his company isn’t quite as altruistic as it may seem. 
• Last but not least: The Atlantic’s essay on scientific efforts to explain the physics of a cat’s strange super powers—example: surviving falls from potentially infinite heights.