Letter from ‘Manhattan’

From 1979: Joan Didion reviews Woody Allen. “These faux adults of Woody Allen’s have dinner at Elaine’s, and argue art versus ethics. They share sodas, and wonder ‘what love is.’ They have ‘interesting’ occupations, none of which intrudes in any serious way on their dating. Many characters in these pictures ‘write,’ usually on tape recorders. In Manhattan, Woody Allen quits his job as a television writer and is later seen dictating an ‘idea’ for a short story, an idea which, I am afraid, is also the ‘idea’ for the picture itself: ‘People in Manhattan are constantly creating these real unnecessary neurotic problems for themselves that keep them from dealing with more terrifying unsolvable problems about the universe.’ “

Published: Aug 16, 1979
Length: 7 minutes (1,937 words)

A Bully Finds a Pulpit on the Web

Not only has a heap of customer complaints failed to deter DecorMyEyes, but as an all-too-cursory Google search demonstrated, the company can show up in the most coveted place on the Internet’s most powerful site. Which means the owner of DecorMyEyes might be more than just a combustible bully with a mean streak and a potty mouth. He might also be a pioneer of a new brand of anti-salesmanship — utterly noxious retail — that is facilitated by the quirks and shortcomings of Internet commerce and that tramples long-cherished traditions of customer service, like deference and charm.

Published: Nov 28, 2010
Length: 23 minutes (5,881 words)

The Incredible Flying Nonagenarian

Olga Kotelko, a 91-year-old track star, is considered one of the world’s greatest athletes, holding 23 world records, 17 in her current age category, 90 to 95. “Well, I still have the energy I had at 50,” she said. “More. Where is it coming from? Honestly, I don’t know. It’s a mystery even to me.”

Published: Nov 26, 2010
Length: 19 minutes (4,808 words)

All the Things That Remind Me of Her

After my wife died, music and movies we once loved became the very triggers I tried my hardest to avoid. A song, a poem, a scene from a film triggers memories. You’re startled, moved, shaken. And you’re faced with two options: 1) engage with the work and the memories it calls up, or 2) retreat, postpone, avoid.

Source: Salon
Published: Nov 24, 2010
Length: 9 minutes (2,419 words)

The Searchers

Zhou Chengliang is about 27 years old (he doesn’t know for sure), goes by the name Huang Jie, and is an entrepreneur based in the western Chinese city of Lanzhou. He suffers from memories of a lost past: he was one of countless young Chinese children kidnapped and sold to strangers to be raised as their own. Zhou’s story is a human tragedy, but it’s also emblematic of a country in the throes of rapid change, torn between tradition and modernity, challenge and opportunity, morality and corruption.

Source: Time
Published: Nov 22, 2010
Length: 9 minutes (2,483 words)

The Justin Bieber of Bullfighting

Twelve-year-old Mexican bullfighter Michelito Lagravere set himself the goal of becoming, at 14, the youngest person ever to achieve the status of professional matador—and to do so undeterred by all the animal-rights activists and child-welfare advocates who see him as a paramount example of primitive brutality and parental neglect.

Source: Details
Published: Nov 25, 2010
Length: 12 minutes (3,186 words)

A Q&A with a Vacuum Cleaner Salesman

Darrell did not cry when the mortgage crisis killed new home construction, putting him out of work. Instead, he packed up his bags and joined his girlfriend in South Florida, where he found a new job as an in-home salesman, pushing expensive vacuum cleaners and air purifiers to snowbirds and other crazy Floridians. While Darrell is but one of hundreds of such salesman in the South Florida area, we have obscured the city in which he works and changed his name to protect his identity.

Author: Mike Riggs
Source: The Awl
Published: Nov 24, 2010
Length: 25 minutes (6,342 words)

North Korea: The War Game

From 2005: Dealing with North Korea could make Iraq look like child’s play—and the longer we wait, the harder it will get. That’s the message of a Pentagon-style war game involving some of this country’s most prominent foreign-policy strategists

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Jul 1, 2005
Length: 37 minutes (9,283 words)

Can China Discover the Urge to Splurge?

For the rest of the world, the Chinese consumer is one of the best hopes for future economic growth. In the years ahead, when the United States, Europe and Japan will have no choice but to slow their spending and pay off their debts, China could pick up the slack. Millions of Americans — yes, millions — could end up with jobs that exist, at least in part, to design, make or sell goods and services to China.

Published: Nov 24, 2010
Length: 32 minutes (8,029 words)

The Waiting

Survivors of the Ted Stevens plane crash in Alaska wondered if help would reach them in time. The plane, full mostly of men and boys, fathers and sons, poker buddies on a fishing trip into the exotic and remote wilderness, had crashed without hint of warning, everything ripped from its rightful place and hurled forward into a single mangled heap of living and dead.

Source: Washington Post
Published: Nov 23, 2010
Length: 17 minutes (4,414 words)