The Longreads Blog

An author meets a full-time gambler at the racetracks, who later ends up becoming his roommate:

The Scholar, the Human Computer, and I were interested in a horse named Keys to Astro. According to The Scholar’s speed figures, Keys to Astro was two or three lengths faster than the rest of the field. A horse that talented is likely to set off a bidding war. Keys to Astro opened at 6-5. The Scholar had an investment rule, which I’d learned to follow as well: Never bet a horse at less that 2-1. The risk isn’t worth the reward. It’s easy to follow when you go to the track every day, as The Scholar and I were doing. You can always wait for tomorrow’s 2-1 horse. But The Human Computer’s work interfered with his gambling; he couldn’t get to the track more than once a week.

When the track announcer intoned, ‘You have five minutes to wager,’ Keys to Astro was still 6-5. The Human Computer folded his arms.

‘I refuse,’ he shouted at the speakers.

“Gambling Through The Recession: A True Story Of Horses, Dreams & Sleeper Sofas.” — Edward McClelland, ChicagoSide

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Life as a mob boss’s girlfriend:

By the early 1990s, Stanley began to crack under the years of control and psychological domination. She and Bulger were arguing constantly, sometimes violently, at home and in public. Once, at a wedding party, Teresa was approached by Bulger’s partner, Flemmi, who said, ‘Teresa, I know you and Jimmy are going through a rough patch, but there’s something you need to understand. That man will never let you go.’

Stanley felt trapped. She went into a deep depression. She had become financially and emotionally dependent on Bulger; she could see no way out. Then, the ‘other woman’ entered the picture.

Stanley was home alone one night when she got a call. An unfamiliar female voice said, ‘I think we need to talk.’

“Whitey Bulger’s Women.” — T.J. English, The Daily Beast

More from The Daily Beast

On Manny Pacquiao and gay marriage:

It’s here at this church that Manny Pacquiao comes to pray after his fights. He kneels down and gives thanks. In that same way we knelt with a rosary all day when my kuya died of AIDS. All day for seven days, with lots of food, and lots of prayers, on your knees everyday. It’s what we do when someone dies. I heard that a woman had a pin in one of her knees and couldn’t kneel and I pictured a sewing needle stuck there and I silently wished to get pricked by that same needle— because I couldn’t see how what I was doing there in that church was helping any of us out there on the dirt—in the land, on the fields with the farmers, and the trash heaps, and the kids with the little blue-brown faces left by the chapel, or the boys, with their bloodied underpants and soiled shorts, and all the musk from all the work, and the distant gaze from all the glue. How was this rosary tending to this life?

“Here We Are Becoming Champs.” — Melissa Chadburn, The Rumpus

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On June 10, 1912, a family was brutally murdered in a small Iowa town. The murders remain unsolved:

The Moores were not discovered until several hours later, when a neighbor, worried by the absence of any sign of life in the normally boisterous household, telephoned Joe’s brother, Ross, and asked him to investigate. Ross found a key on his chain that opened the front door, but barely entered the house before he came rushing out again, calling for Villisca’s marshal, Hank Horton. That set in train a sequence of events that destroyed what little hope there may have been of gathering useful evidence from the crime scene. Horton brought along Drs. J. Clark Cooper and Edgar Hough and Wesley Ewing, the minister of the Moore’s Presbyterian congregation. They were followed by the county coroner, L.A. Linquist, a third doctor, F.S. Williams (who became the first to examine the bodies and estimate a time of death). When a shaken Dr Williams emerged, he cautioned members of the growing crowd outside: ‘Don’t go in there, boys; you’ll regret it until the last day of your life.’ Many ignored the advice; as many as 100 curious neighbors and townspeople tramped as they pleased through the house, scattering fingerprints, and in one case even removing fragments of Joe Moore’s skull as a macabre keepsake.

“The Ax Murderer Who Got Away.” — Mike Dash, Smithsonian

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[Fiction] A couple returns home from Israel: 

It’s six-thirty now and the boys are back in bed; it’s early afternoon Israel time. For the moment, Noelle feels as if she’s in a bubble, lying awake next to Amram while the children are asleep. She presses her ear to the wall to see if her sisters are awake; it’s been a fitful night for them too.

She rolls over onto her stomach and back again. She wonders what she looks like from up on the ceiling, lying sleepless in her childhood bed. This is where she spent summer after summer. And Christmas vacation and spring break. Amram, who has risen, is in a T-shirt and cutoff jeans, his thighs thick as ham hocks, his prayer fringes sticking out from under his shirt, twisted as always around his belt loops. His yarmulke, blown by the breeze coming through the open window, flips over itself so that it’s barely hanging from a few tendrils of hair; it droops to the side like a single earmuff.

“The World Without You.” — Joshua Henkin, Guernica Magazine

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How two comic-book artists created the characters beloved by kids during the 1980s and ’90s. The original turtles weren’t so cuddly:

The original Mirage comic book really wasn’t made for youngsters. The Turtles diced up enemies while spouting the occasional curse word, and one of the Turtles’ allies was hockey mask-wearing vigilante Casey Jones, who beat down even low-level crooks with baseball bats and hockey sticks. But when Playmates Toys expressed interest in producing TMNT action figures in 1986 (we’ll get to those), the comic’s PG-13 attitude wouldn’t fit Playmates’ 4-8 year old target audience. In addition, part of Playmates’ marketing was an animated cartoon, which had to pass television censors. So to make the Turtles viable for the younger set, the Turtles had to soften up.

Among other changes, the Turtles became wise-cracking jokers obsessed with pizza, the Shredder became a typical bumbling cartoon villain, members of the Foot Clan were now robots so parents wouldn’t complain that the Turtles were too violent, and instead of ‘Damn,’ the Turtles shouted easily-marketable catchphrases like, ‘Turtle Power!’ and ‘Cowabunga!’

“The Complete History of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” — Rob Lammle, Mental Floss

Experiencing firsthand the boredom that overtakes the courtroom during the perjury retrial of the seven-time Cy Young winner:

As far as jury duty goes, you might think the perjury trial of the most decorated pitcher in baseball history would be the kind of blockbuster assignment you tell your grandchildren about. But if you’re enough of a baseball fan to recognize Roger Clemens, you would have been booted out of the pool in short order. The ladies and gentleman of this jury have been carefully selected on the basis of their ambivalence toward the nation’s pastime. That’s why witnesses must pause to define elementary baseball nomenclature like ‘foul pole.’ To clarify what it means for an athlete to be ‘in the zone.’ To explain that the game is played both indoors and outdoors, and that Fenway Park is home to the Boston Red Sox.

So you can begin to see why two jurors have already been dismissed for napping during testimony. Only 13 remain, and Judge Reggie Walton is determined not to lose another. The survivors have been encouraged to take advantage of the complimentary coffee in the jury lounge, for the defense is expected to argue deep into June.

“Asleep at the Roger Clemens Trial.” — Chris Felciano Arnold, Salon

More from Salon

Japanese-pop star Hatsune Miku has millions of YouTube hits, sells tickets to her concerts at $76 a pop and has adoring fans from all around the world. She’s also not human:

Created by Crypton Future Media, Miku is the most popular avatar created to sell Vocaloid 2, the singing synthesizer application originally developed by Yamaha. In Japan, it is common to create a character associated with software, and at first glance, Miku may seem like little more than an animated mascot, not unlike the Pillsbury Doughboy or the Snuggle fabric softener bear. But Miku inspires an unparalleled creativity.

Instead of passively worshipping her, fans have mobilized into an interactive artistic community. Using Vocaloid 2, they write melodies and lyrics, sharing their songs on YouTube or the Japanese equivalent, niconico (“smilesmile”). Since Miku’s ‘birth’ in August 2007, amateurs have used her likeness in hundreds of thousands of songs, illustrations, videos, games, animations—and one rather creepy, dead-looking Miku robot. She’s a cosplay (costume role play) favorite at anime conventions and elsewhere.

“I Sing the Body Electric.” — Margaret Wappler, Los Angeles Times Magazine

More from the L.A. Times

[Not single-page] A difficult life with a father remembered through his favorite words and phrases:

He never once found comfortable shoes, and when he’d come home from the plant after a double overtime, the searing pain in his feet would have him whimpering like a child. Swornin’ to goodness! was his pain expression. Was it his horrible feet?

His maniacal mother, my grandmother, Letha (we called her ‘Lethal’), taught him that ‘if it isn’t perfect, its not worth doing,’ thus paralyzing my father for life. It was she who dragged my father, aged eight, to a hotel in downtown Baton Rouge, busted into a room, and showed him his father in bed with another woman. ‘Look at your father,’ she said. Was it Lethal?

Or are unhappy people born unhappy?

Would he have been the way he was if he had never had children? Did I turn my father into a monster?

“Daddy: My Father’s Last Words.” — Mark Warren, Esquire

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Top 5 #Longreads of the Week: Michael Hastings, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Paul Ford, VICE, fiction from The New Yorker, plus a guest pick from Matt Cardin.