Mike Hudson, the founder of the weekly tabloid Niagara Falls Reporter, freely refers to his town as “a godforsaken place,” and it was hard to argue with the assessment in the neighborhood surrounding the bar. The area is the worst the city has to offer, a place of drugs and crime and boarded-up brick houses. Hudson knocked back a shot of Sambuca and rummaged around for his cigarettes, shouting epithets and contributing jokes to a running discussion on local politics. “It’s been all downhill in this town since 1969,” said one of the other patrons, a ruddy-faced man who had his first name, Fred, sewn onto his windbreaker. “Ever since they knocked down the whole goddamn downtown,” muttered the bartender, Frankie G.
The Longreads Blog
Teen Mathletes Do Battle at Algorithm Olympics
Teen Mathletes Do Battle at Algorithm Olympics
Neal Wu’s last chance for international glory, and maybe America’s, too, begins with a sound like a hippo crunching through a field of dry leaves—the sound of 315 computer prodigies at 315 workstations ripping into 315 gray envelopes in unison. “You have five hours,” a voice booms across the packed gymnasium. “Good luck.”
By Jason Fagone, Wired
The Pentagon Papers Trial
There were, inevitably, some individuals who spoke up eloquently, providing dramatic courtroom examples of Americana and of the war’s impact upon society. Jan Sirois, a 24-year-old divorced mother of two from a military family, said that the only publication she ever read was Hairdo magazine, a supplement to studies at a beauticians’ school. Her brother had served with the CIA in Vietnam, she revealed; but she insisted upon her ability to disregard his opinion or that of her father, who “has strong feelings on things like secrecy at the top.” Just as she was leaving the courtroom after her second round of individual questioning, she blurted out, “I think a person who has access, if they find something wrong, they have a moral obligation and should let the public know….”
By Sanford J. Ungar, The Atlantic, 1972
Matt O'Rourke: My Favorite Longreads from 2010
Matt O’Rourke is interactive group creative director for Crispin Porter+Bogusky in Boulder.
For those of you that like the internet for things other than cats and boobies, I give you 5 of my favorite Longreads from the past 12 months.
Hit-and-run vicitm was quiet, dependable, co-workers say
If you’re really lucky, Andrew Meacham will still be alive when you die.
The 2010 Rapha Gentleman’s Race Report
Heidi Swift on bikes, dirt, enduring love and lots of vomit.
A simple story told beautifully by one of the best sports-writers on earth.
Joan Didion’s original review of Woody Allen’s last great movie.
On the surface this seems like one of the dumbest interviews ever documented. It is.
Choire Sicha: Five Longreads from 2010: Boundary Issues
Choire Sicha is (of course) co-founder/editor of The Awl, which also happened to publish some of my favorite longreads of 2010.
In honor of the Longreads year-end fiesta of Things That People Have Read That Are Considered Long (And Also Worthy) from 2010, herewith, five things that stuck with me.
But first, a note about what was excluded. For starters, a number of things from The Awl, which were of course my ultimate favorites. (I won’t name names, because I love everyone who writes for us equally but also in a unique and special way, but I will point out that we have a delightfully browsable Longreads tag!)
Then also, what I think is my favorite story of the year, Janet Malcolm’s “Iphigenia in Forest Hills,” is subscription-only online. (It is here.) So it can’t be included, because, democracy now! Or something. (Attention currency now?) Likewise, Emily Witt’s excellent “Miami Party Boom” is excerpt-only online (it is here) and so must also be excluded. (But you should buy that issue just to read it. And I do mean “just”! (I’m kidding, n+1! Love you! Because also the second part of the Elif Batuman travelogue about Samarkand in that issue is totally worth reading.)
Preamble over!
So here are five complicated, thorny, sometimes even aggravating pieces of writing that stuck with me throughout the year, usually for better, only rarely for worse. These address, in different ways, issues of how we we write. With what sort of language? What do we disclose and when? How do we discuss ourselves? What is the value of talking to other people when writing about our experiences? And then what do we do with that information? Most importantly, exactly how can and should we write about others? (That is another reason why the Janet Malcolm piece was so important.) What obligations do we have?
• Maureen Tkacik, “Look at Me!”
• Jay Caspian Kang, “The High is Always the Pain and the Pain is Always the High”
• Emily Gould, “Death and Blogging”
• Sady Doyle, “13 Ways of Looking at Liz Lemon”
• Pitchfork Reviews Reviews, “wrote this last night on my blackberry at
the forever 21 flagship launch party”
I, Reader by Alexander Chee
This is a wonderfully rambling essay over at The Morning News on reading books in the age of the iPad. Appropriately enough, I read it on my iPhone, in bed last night, thanks to Instapaper. (I didn’t post immediately because I couldn’t remember who’d directed me to it; this morning I realized it was Daring Fireball)
Deadly Medicine
During the congressional hearings, lawmakers heard from former F.D.A. scientists who had criticized their agency’s oversight of the Ketek trials and the drug-approval process. One was Dr. David Ross, who had been the F.D.A.’s chief reviewer of new drugs for 10 years, and was now the national director of clinical public-health programs for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. When he explained his objections, he offered a litany of reasons that could be applied to any number of other drugs: “Because F.D.A. broke its own rules and allowed Ketek on the market. Because dozens of patients have died or suffered needlessly. Because F.D.A. allowed Ketek’s maker to experiment with it on children over reviewers’ protests. Because F.D.A. ignored warnings about fraud. And because F.D.A. used data it knew were false to reassure the public about Ketek’s safety.”
By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Vanity Fair
The Sports Infidelity Equation
The Sports Infidelity Equation
John Nazarian, a former police officer, has been a private investigator for 20 years. He says that on average, he has about a half-dozen pro athletes a year as clients. Usually, it’s because they were involved in extramarital affairs and the mistress is seeking money for her silence. He says he recently had an athlete have GPS devices put on his wife’s car, not because he was worried about his wife’s infidelity, but because he wanted to make sure that when he was with a mistress, his wife was nowhere near. “He’d go online and see where she’s at,” Nazarian says.
By Elizabeth Merrill and Amy K. Nelson, ESPN
The New Gawker Media
The problem with Gawker Media’s current model—and this is true of many other sites, too, including the Huffington Post—is that it’s based on pageviews and those tyrannical CPMs. It’s essentially a junk-mail direct marketing model, which Batty is very comfortable with: watch him talk about how Gawker Media has “massively scaled our ability to deliver consumer activations,” whatever that means.
By Felix Salmon, Reuters
Jamie Dimon: America's Least-Hated Banker
Jamie Dimon: America’s Least-Hated Banker
At Bank One, Dimon had ceased buying mortgages from outside brokers because their performance was poor. At Chase, he bought them. When I asked why, Dimon said underlings convinced him they were exercising proper caution, adding, “It was a huge business, packaging and selling [the loans] to Fannie Mae.” Turning silent, Dimon rotated his palms face up — as if nothing could excuse his error. “I bought that crap,” he concluded.
In honor of the
You must be logged in to post a comment.