Longreads Best of 2012: Nicholas Jackson
Nicholas Jackson is the digital editorial director for Outside magazine. A former associate editor at The Atlantic, he has also worked for Slate,Texas Monthly, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and other publications.
Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
The story of 16 world-class skiers and snowboarders who decided to go skiing together in Washington’s Cascades in February 2012, and what happened to them when an avalanche hit. This six-part series uses interviews, photos, videos and simulations to reconstruct the day:
“‘Just as I had the thought about what I’m going to do, wondering if it was going to bury me, that’s right when I could feel it,’ Castillo said. ‘It was like a wave. Like when you’re in the ocean and the tide moves away from you. You’re getting thrashed and you feel it pull out and you’re like, O.K., I can stand up now.’
“Castillo saw daylight again. His camera captured snow sliding past his legs for another 13 seconds. The forest sounded as if it were full of sickly frogs. It was the trees, scrubbed of their fresh snow, still swaying and creaking around him.
“Castillo turned to look back up the hill.
“‘Where there were three people, there was nobody,’ Castillo said.”
Longreads Best of 2012: Elliott Holt’s Favorite New Yorker Fiction
Elliott Holt‘s first novel, You Are One of Them, will be published by The Penguin Press in June 2013.
Jerry Seinfeld Intends to Die Standing Up
Joke-telling as a muscle:
“Since Richard Pryor, at least, confession has been prized in stand-up, and this is as true today as ever. The biggest stand-up story of 2012 came this summer, when the comedian Tig Notaro took a Los Angeles stage and wrung laughs from a saga of personal misery that included the sudden death of her 65-year-old mother followed by a breast-cancer diagnosis. At Seinfeld’s office, I asked him what he’d do, onstage, if he had a month like that, and I appended a ‘God forbid’ to the question. ‘Thank you for “God forbid,” ‘ he said. ‘I love it. Hilarious. You have to say that.’ He clapped his hands with delight. ‘If I had a month like that, I’d do a whole bit about “God forbid.” ‘”
Longreads Best of 2012: Jamie Mottram
Jamie Mottram is the Director of Content Development for USA Today Sports Media Group and a proud supporter of Longreads.
How a Gun-Loving West Texas Girl Learned to Fear Assault Weapons
A personal history of guns in the writer’s life:
“I have no idea where that gun is now, I only know that he took it back from me and that I don’t own it, and frankly not knowing where it is also fucking terrifies me.
“If I could have taken it apart and destroyed the pieces, I would have, for reasons I didn’t even understand then; I only knew that I hated it, and something I had such a strong, immediate spiritual reaction to was not a good thing.
“I’d understand those feelings a lot more intimately after college.”
Longreads Member Exclusive: The Junket
This week we’re thrilled to feature Mike Albo’s “The Junket” as our Longreads Member pick. Albo is the author of The Underminer and Hornito, and “The Junket” was recommended by Longreads managing editor Mike Dang, who writes:
“I’ve never read a piece by Mike Albo that I didn’t like. He’s written for lots of glossies and websites like The Awl and Narratively, and his pieces are always honest, relevant and brutally funny. This week’s exclusive is no different. ‘The Junket’ is Albo’s novella about the story behind how he lost his part-time column at a prominent newspaper in New York that he calls ‘The Paper’ due to a media firestorm that unfairly accused him of violating the publications’s ethics policy when he went on an all-expenses-paid media junket to Jamaica. It’s also a story about the difficulties of earning a living as a full-time freelancer in an expensive city, and how independent contractors, who don’t earn a steady salary or receive benefits of any kind from the places they consistently work for, are so easily disposable. ‘The Junket’ is a thinly veiled, fictionalized account of what happened to Albo, but it’s wickedly funny, and will ring true for anyone who’s ever had to file an invoice and cross their fingers for a paycheck.”
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Longreads Best of 2012: Maria Bustillos
Maria Bustillos is a Los Angeles-based writer whose work for The Awl and Los Angeles Review of Books was featured on Longreads this year.
Players Club
A brief history of Shakespeare and alcohol:
“Shakespeare didn’t just enjoy the interplay of drinking, fantasy, and theater at his favorite taverns, he also enacted this productive relationship onstage. Shakespeare began his popular comedy The Taming of the Shrew with a curious framing device, one that bears little relation to the famous barbs of the lovers’ plot. The play opens with the drunken tinker Christopher Sly arguing with a tavern hostess. He has broken beer glasses and refuses to pay. As she heads to fetch the constable, Sly falls into a stupor; upon waking, he finds himself dressed and pampered as a nobleman. This transformation has occurred because a passing Lord, who stopped at the tavern for refreshment, saw the drunken Sly and came up with a plan for his own amusement: he would take the tinker to his ‘fairest chamber’ to be pampered with ‘wanton pictures’ and ‘rose water.’ Sly then struggles comically to adjust to his dramatically changed circumstances. The prologue ends as the Lord insists that Sly enjoy himself and take in a play.”
Longreads Best of 2012: Reyhan Harmanci
Reyhan Harmanci is deputy editor of Modern Farmer, a not-yet-launched publication devoted to issues of farming and food (and animals!).
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