Uncanny Valley

Anna Wiener on the hollow promise of San Francisco’s startup life. “’I just hope this is all worth it,’ she spits in my direction. I know what she means — she’s talking about money — but I also know how much equity she has, and I’m confident that even in the best possible scenario, whatever she’s experiencing is definitely not.”

Source: n+1
Published: Apr 27, 2016
Length: 25 minutes (6,416 words)

427: Ten Years Without Jen, Twenty-Six With

Seitz, on the 10th anniversary of the death of his wife, describes where’s he’s been and what he’s learned.

Source: Roger Ebert
Published: Apr 25, 2016
Length: 14 minutes (3,619 words)

Re-examining Monica, Marcia, Tonya and Anita, the ‘Scandalous’ Women of the ’90s

Marshall revisits some scandals involving women in the ’90s and has us reconsider their stories: “All these women confronted us with truths we did not want to consider, and so we terrorized them, mocked them, abused them, and rendered them finally voiceless.”

Source: Fusion
Published: Apr 19, 2016
Length: 15 minutes (3,902 words)

Madness

In Florida prisons, mentally ill inmates are routinely tortured and killed by guards. Staff are often witnesses to the abuse but remain silent out of fear of retaliation, cooperating with security officials who they depend on for protection.

Author: Eyal Press
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Apr 26, 2016
Length: 31 minutes (7,792 words)

An Exegesis on Spanking Fetishists

Jillian Keenan on her new memoir, which delves into her lifelong obsessions with spanking and Shakespeare.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 26, 2016
Length: 23 minutes (5,803 words)

The Defenders

What does the future of legal services for the poor look like?

Published: Apr 25, 2016
Length: 25 minutes (6,411 words)

How Lifetime Became One Of The Best Places In Hollywood For Women

A feminist history of the Lifetime channel, and their transition from “guilty pleasure” to a critically acclaimed home for groundbreaking television.

Source: BuzzFeed
Published: Apr 17, 2016
Length: 21 minutes (5,279 words)

Millennial Women At Work: A Reading List

These stories offer a glimpse into the weird world of “professionalism,” how young women are expected to adapt to rapidly changing, innately biased work environments.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 24, 2016

What Was Virtual Reality?

At Backchannel, a reprint of John Perry Barlow’s seminal 1990 essay on Virtual Reality, “Being in Nothingness.”

Source: Backchannel
Published: Apr 30, 2015
Length: 25 minutes (6,495 words)

The Secret History of Tiger Woods

Incredible reporting by Wright Thompson. An inside look at how Tiger Woods lost his way following the death of his father Earl — exploring an obsession with the Navy SEALS, pursuing affairs with women, and grappling with no longer being “the greatest.”

Source: ESPN
Published: Apr 22, 2016
Length: 46 minutes (11,516 words)