A Talking Cure

[Fiction] A couple shares their secrets with each other:

“We live together in a third-floor apartment near campus and are both A.B.D. We’ve been dating for about three years, and engaged for exactly seven weeks. It’s Friday night. We’re just getting home—late—from a reception at the school followed by a few nightcaps with some of our fellow grad students. Both of us are drunk, and I’ve got this idea in my head that we should do our own version of the truth session from ‘Water Liars,’ that Barry Hannah story where the husband and the wife tell each other about their sexual pasts.

“At first Zachary doesn’t want to, but I kind of stick it to him so he says, Okay, sure. So I get another set of nightcaps going and we start. But the thing of it is, even though we’re about the same age as the people in the story that couple had been married for ten years already. What I mean is that they had plenty of—how to put this?—distance from what they were talking about. And of course the basic point of ‘Water Liars’ is how the wife’s news sends the husband for a brutal loop anyway—distance nothing. Distance be damned.”

Published: Jan 11, 2013
Length: 13 minutes (3,482 words)

Longreads Member Exclusive: Let’s Dance

For this week’s Longreads Member pick, we’re thrilled to share “Let’s Dance,” Sasha Frere-Jones‘s 2010 New Yorker profile of LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy.

Frere-Jones writes: 

“When you begin writing a profile, your first worry is access. Does the subject talk in soundbites? Will he or she let you see anything that hasn’t been rehearsed? (‘Accidental’ meetings with famous friends, fans showing up en masse at coffee shops, etc.) Will you just get an hour in the hotel lobby? Will the publicist sit by your elbow as you talk for what ends up being less than an hour?

“James Murphy, as a subject, presented none of these problems. Over the course of eighteen months, he opened his home and his studio and his rehearsal space to me. The profile could have been almost any length. His monologue, in Laurel Canyon, on Louis CK’s genius deserved a page-long block quote, and his stories about his family in New Jersey could have made for a complete, stand-alone piece. But what I wanted to focus on in The New Yorker piece was how functionally, logistically independent Murphy is—he can really execute any single part of the record-making process, from conception to fabrication of widgets. And he isn’t just obsessive about detail but obsessive first about locating the important details, and then obsessive about attending to them thoroughly. I’ve spent my life playing with and observing musicians, and I’ve never seen a bandleader make so many small, ongoing demands of a band without alienating anyone. I did not expect all the hugging.

Read an excerpt here.

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Source: The New Yorker
Published: May 10, 2010
Length: 16 minutes (4,103 words)

Close to the Machine (Excerpt)

The first chapter from Ellen Ullman’s 1997 book—a reflection on the life of a programmer:

“Joel and I started this round of debugging on Friday morning. Sometime later, maybe Friday night, another programmer, Danny, came to work. I suppose it must be Sunday by now because it’s been a while since we’ve seen my client’s employees around the office. Along the way, at odd times of day or night that have completely escaped us, we’ve ordered in three meals of Chinese food, eaten six large pizzas, consumed several beers, had innumerable bottles of fizzy water, and finished two entire bottles of wine. It has occurred to me that if people really knew how software got written, I’m not sure if they’d give their money to a bank or get on an airplane ever again.”

Source: Medium
Published: Jan 1, 1997
Length: 15 minutes (3,808 words)

I Was Wayne Gretzky’s (Hungover) Linemate

A Wayne Gretzky fan grows up to be his hero’s teammate on the New York Rangers:

“‘Gretz, I’m hungover. Maybe even a little drunk still. Can you keep the puck away from me today?’

“I could not believe I was saying this even as the words were coming out of my mouth. Was I really telling the greatest player in the history of the game—not to mention the finest passer ever—to keep the puck away from me?

“I was. And the Great One was great about it. ‘No problem, Prongs, I’ve been there myself.’

“Wait. Did he just call me Prongs? He knows my name? Somehow, that one line from Wayne put my mind at ease. Wayne knew my situation and he had my back. What a guy.”

Source: Deadspin
Published: Jan 10, 2013
Length: 11 minutes (2,890 words)

Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie

Director Paul Schrader and writer Bret Easton Ellis attempt to make a film with Lindsay Lohan and porn star James Deen—with a budget of $250,000:

“Lohan sits down, smiles and skips the small talk.

“‘Hi, how are you? I won’t play Cynthia. I want to play Tara, the lead.’ Braxton Pope and Paul Schrader nod happily. They’d been tipped off by her agent that this was how it was going to go. They tell her that sounds like a great idea.

“Schrader thinks she’s perfect for the role. Not everyone agrees. Schrader wrote ‘Raging Bull’ and ‘Taxi Driver’ and has directed 17 films. Still, some fear Lohan will end him. There have been house arrests, car crashes and ingested white powders. His own daughter begs him not to use her. A casting-director friend stops their conversation whenever he mentions her name. And then there’s the film’s explicit subject matter. Full nudity and lots of sex. Definitely NC-17. His wife, the actress Mary Beth Hurt, didn’t even finish the script, dismissing it as pornography after 50 pages. She couldn’t understand why he wanted it so badly.

“But Schrader was running out of chances.”

Published: Jan 10, 2013
Length: 31 minutes (7,752 words)

The Importance of Being Francesa

The popular radio host on the infamous “Francesa Snoozefest” clip, and why he’s so good at his job:

“The turning point in the conversation is the transition to the subject of technology. Francesa suddenly perks up. He’s got opinions about everything, but his opinions on this subject are infused with an unmistakable passion. He can’t wait to tell you about the inherent dangers that exist in this new media age.

“He has already experienced them first-hand – the backlash to the sleeping incident being the most noteworthy recent example. But some of Francesa’s resentment towards technology may also stem from the role that he believes it played in getting his friend, and former colleague, Don Imus fired from the station in April of 2007.

“‘In the old days, I’m not sure the Imus thing would’ve happened,’ he says – a trace of regret in his voice. ‘I think it would’ve been passed over.'”

Published: Jan 8, 2013
Length: 29 minutes (7,320 words)

Breaking Bread with Breitbart

Bill Ayers hosts a right-wing dinner party:

“Right wing blogs erupted, with some writers tickled by Carlson’s sense of humor and others earnestly saluting his courage and daring in service to ‘the cause’ for his willingness to sit in close quarters with us—radical leftists and enemies of the state. But others took a grimmer view: ‘Don’t do it, Tucker,’ they pled. ‘This will legitimize and humanize two of America’s greatest traitors.’

“Carlson got a congratulatory letter from the IHC that offered ten potential dates for dinner and noted that ‘all auction items were donated to the IHC [which] makes no warranties or representations with respect to any item or service sold’ and that ‘views and opinions expressed by individuals attending the dinner do not reflect those of the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, or the Illinois General Assembly.’ I imagined the exhausted scrivener bent over his table copying that carefully crafted, litigation-proof language—does it go far enough?

“Carlson chose February 5—Super Bowl Sunday.”

Author: Bill Ayers
Source: Boston Review
Published: Mar 28, 2012
Length: 11 minutes (2,966 words)

Public Influence: The Immortalization of an Anonymous Death

A crowd watches a suicide in San Francisco:

“Some people look on silently, hands over mouths. A teenage girl in a sundress wipes tears from her eyes. A circle of high school-age kids debate whether a fall from that height would be fatal. A woman in a pantsuit talks into her phone, excitedly describing the scene. Others peck away at keypads. More phones pop up above the mass, angling for a snapshot. A light buzz of chatter hums along, punctuated by a shout.

“‘Jump!’

“Heads turn, seeking out the class clown in the sea of faces. Laughter rising all around, compressed snickers and knee-slapping roars.

“In between chuckles, a man in a blue button-down blurts, ‘He said “Jump!”‘”

Source: SF Weekly
Published: Jan 10, 2013
Length: 15 minutes (3,892 words)

Storytellers

The 2012 Nobel Literature Prize laureate on how he crafts his stories:

“My greatest challenges come with writing novels that deal with social realities, such as The Garlic Ballads, not because I’m afraid of being openly critical of the darker aspects of society, but because heated emotions and anger allow politics to suppress literature and transform a novel into reportage of a social event. As a member of society, a novelist is entitled to his own stance and viewpoint; but when he is writing he must take a humanistic stance, and write accordingly. Only then can literature not just originate in events, but transcend them, not just show concern for politics but be greater than politics.

“Possibly because I’ve lived so much of my life in difficult circumstances, I think I have a more profound understanding of life. I know what real courage is, and I understand true compassion. I know that nebulous terrain exists in the hearts and minds of every person, terrain that cannot be adequately characterized in simple terms of right and wrong or good and bad, and this vast territory is where a writer gives free rein to his talent. So long as the work correctly and vividly describes this nebulous, massively contradictory terrain, it will inevitably transcend politics and be endowed with literary excellence.”

Author: Mo Yan
Source: Outlook India
Published: Dec 10, 2012
Length: 21 minutes (5,289 words)

Author-Editor Interview: George Saunders and Andy Ward

How an editor and writer work together:

Ward: A lot of people say to me, ‘God, it must be so fun to work with George Saunders. Do you even have to edit him at all?’ And they say it like they assume you shun all editing, or don’t allow editing, which is always really funny to me, because you are a person who craves feedback, who wants to be pushed and challenged and sent off in new directions. This all sounds self-serving, I realize, so I should add: Of course, at this stage, you don’t need an editor. But you want an editor. Why?

Saunders: No, I definitely need and enjoy having an editor, and for the exact reasons you state. There’s a really nice moment in the life of a piece of writing where the writer starts to get a feeling of it outgrowing him—or he starts to see it having a life of its own that doesn’t have anything to do with his ego or his desire to ‘be a good writer.’ It’s almost like an animal starts to appear in the stone and then it starts to move, and you, the writer, are rooting for it so hard—but may not be able to see everything clearly after working on that stone for so long.”

Source: Slate
Published: Jan 9, 2013
Length: 11 minutes (2,939 words)