What We Loved This Week: ‘The Language of Soccer,’ Diving with Rays and Ira Glass on Being Wrong

Alicia Imbody
Sneaking away to do some hardcore hiking on Mt. Mitchell and some equally serious relaxing at the winery on the Biltmore Estate. I love little mountain towns like Asheville, North Carolina, that know how to serve up just the right mix of outdoors and creature comforts. Here’s a photo of America’s largest home, with the Great Smoky Mountains as a backdrop:

Eva Holland
I loved seeing Yukon cuisine get some love in The Globe and Mail this week. I tried my first caribou burger last weekend, and the whole local/wild food scene is really growing on me. Bring on the spruce tips and birch syrup!

Alison Stein Wellner
I was recently in a Toronto gift shop and bought a pair of earrings from a “bus stop jewelery” collection—these are pieces made from glass cubes recovered from Canadian bus shelters that have been shattered, either by snowplows or, apparently, by frustrated passengers(!). In the accompanying artist’s statement, jeweler Catherine Sutherland said the collection was a reference to place, or perhaps a reminder of a misspent youth, or just a way to take a piece of the city home. I liked all that. Plus, there’s something pleasing about the transformation of an accident (or an act of aggression) into something beautiful.

Lianne Yu
I loved getting up close and personal with a bunch of six-foot long, 1000-pound manta rays swooping and somersaulting right over our heads, feeding on the plankton that our flashlights attracted. Jack’s Diving Locker on the Kona side of the Big Island, Hawaii, organizes amazing night dives to see these gentle giants. Here’s video:

Frank Bures
I loved this funny and insightful report on U.S. v. UK soccer on The World, the language of soccer.

Michael Yessis
William Finnegan’s Letter From Mexico in the New Yorker. He traveled to hill town of Zitácuaro in the Mexican state of Michoacán to report on La Familia Michoacana and how drug cartels are changing the country. An excellent story about a brutal situation.

Jim Benning
I loved this interview with “This American Life” host Ira Glass on storytelling and being wrong. I couldn’t help but think about all the great travel stories by writers who realized during a journey that their assumptions about a place or culture turned out to be completely wrong.

©2026 World Hum, All Rights Reserved