A Long Day at ‘The Office’ With Mindy Kaling

When she joined the show, Kaling was 24, new to Los Angeles and the only woman on a writing staff of eight. As she recalls in her comic memoir, “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns),” to be published by Crown Archetype this November, she rented a small apartment on Fairfax Avenue and Fountain Boulevard, which she did not know was the nexus of transvestite social life in West Hollywood. “I . . . enjoyed late-night interactions with strangely tall, flat-chested women named Felice or Vivica, who always wanted rides to the Valley. If my life at the time had been a sitcom, an inebriated tranny gurgling, ‘Heeeeey, giiiirrrrrl!’ would have been my ‘Norm!’ ”

Published: Sep 23, 2011
Length: 10 minutes (2,589 words)

The Surreal Ruins of Qaddafi’s Never-Never Land

Everyone in Tripoli, it seemed, had been with Qaddafi, at least for show; and now everyone was against him. But where did their loyalty end and their rebellion begin? Sometimes I wondered if the speakers themselves knew. Collectively, they offered an appealing narrative: the city had been liberated from within, not just by NATO’s relentless bombing campaign. For months, Qaddafi’s own officers and henchmen had quietly undermined his war, and ordinary citizens had slowly mustered recruits and weapons for the final battle. In some cases, with a few witnesses and a document or two, their version seemed solid enough. Others, like Mustafa Atiri, had gruesome proof of what they lived through. But many of the people I spoke with lacked those things.

Published: Sep 21, 2011
Length: 29 minutes (7,392 words)

Autistic and Seeking a Place in an Adult World

Justin is among the first generation of autistic youths who have benefited throughout childhood from more effective therapies and hard-won educational opportunities. And Ms. Stanton-Paule’s program here is based on the somewhat radical premise that with intensive coaching in the workplace and community — and some stretching by others to include them — students like Justin can achieve a level of lifelong independence that has eluded their predecessors. “There’s a prevailing philosophy that certain people can never function in the community,” Ms. Stanton-Paule told skeptics. “I just don’t think that’s true.”

Author: Amy Harmon
Published: Sep 18, 2011
Length: 30 minutes (7,524 words)

My Family’s Experiment in Extreme Schooling

My three children once were among the coddled offspring of Park Slope, Brooklyn. But when I became a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, my wife and I decided that we wanted to immerse them in life abroad. No international schools where the instruction is in English. Ours would go to a local one, with real Russians. When we told friends in Brooklyn of our plans, they tended to say things like, Wow, you’re so brave. But we knew what they were really thinking: What are you, crazy? It was bad enough that we were abandoning beloved Park Slope, with its brownstones and organic coffee bars, for a country still often seen in the American imagination as callous and forbidding. To throw our kids into a Russian school — that seemed like child abuse.

Published: Sep 17, 2011
Length: 17 minutes (4,263 words)

What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?

The most critical missing piece, Randolph explained as we sat in his office last fall, is character — those essential traits of mind and habit that were drilled into him at boarding school in England and that also have deep roots in American history. “Whether it’s the pioneer in the Conestoga wagon or someone coming here in the 1920s from southern Italy, there was this idea in America that if you worked hard and you showed real grit, that you could be successful,” he said. “Strangely, we’ve now forgotten that. People who have an easy time of things, who get 800s on their SAT’s, I worry that those people get feedback that everything they’re doing is great. And I think as a result, we are actually setting them up for long-term failure. When that person suddenly has to face up to a difficult moment, then I think they’re screwed, to be honest. I don’t think they’ve grown the capacities to be able to handle that.”

Author: Paul Tough
Published: Sep 14, 2011
Length: 27 minutes (6,952 words)

Getting Here From There

But there has been a chasm between expectations and reality. The prophecy of more attacks on the United States has not been the case, not yet at least. Bumbling attempts got close — involving underwear and a shoe and a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder — but the actuality has been that terrorist acts on American soil in the succeeding years have been, as always, largely homegrown. So many things were expected to be different that have not been. Time passes, and passes some more. Exigencies of living hammer away impatiently. People — most of them, at least — began to become themselves. New York, which by its nature accommodates so much, was willing to absorb 9/11 and keep moving. #Sept11

Published: Sep 8, 2011
Length: 12 minutes (3,148 words)

One Path to Better Jobs: More Density in Cities

When it comes to economic growth and the creation of jobs, the denser the city the better. How great are the benefits of density? Economists studying cities routinely find that after controlling for other variables, workers in denser places earn higher wages and are more productive. Some studies suggest that doubling density raises productivity by around 6 percent while others peg the impact at up to 28 percent. Some economists have concluded that more than half the variation in output per worker across the United States can be explained by density alone; density explains more of the productivity gap across states than education levels or industry concentrations or tax policies.

Author: Ryan Avent
Published: Sep 5, 2011
Length: 6 minutes (1,726 words)

Lost and Found

I never got a chance to say goodbye to the twin towers. And they never got a chance to say goodbye to me. I think they would have liked to; I refuse to believe in their indifference. You say you know these streets pretty well? The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone. It saw you steeling yourself for the job interview, slowly walking home after the late date, tripping over nonexistent impediments on the sidewalk. It saw you wince when the single frigid drop fell from the air-conditioner 12 stories up and zapped you. It saw the bewilderment on your face as you stepped out of the stolen matinee, incredulous that there was still daylight after such a long movie. It saw you half-running up the street after you got the keys to your first apartment. It saw all that. Remembers too. #Sept11

Published: Nov 11, 2001
Length: 7 minutes (1,884 words)

The Survivor Who Saw the Future for Cantor Fitzgerald

Ten years and a lifetime ago, Howard W. Lutnick was a prince of Wall Street. Forty years old, and already the head of a powerful financial house, he could peer down on rivals from his office on the 105th floor of One World Trade Center. Then — you know the rest. American Airlines Flight 11 struck Tower One. Three out of every four people who worked in New York City for Mr. Lutnick at the brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald died that September morning, 658 in all. Among the dead was his younger brother, Gary. That Howard Lutnick survived was, he concedes, blind luck. Some people died because they happened to be at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. Lutnick lived because he happened to be taking his son, Kyle, to his first day of kindergarten. #Sept11

Published: Sep 3, 2011
Length: 11 minutes (2,873 words)

New York Times Photographer Joao Silva: ‘This Is What I Do. This Is All That I Know.’

It’s been an amazing experience. One would not choose to go through it, but I’ve gone through it. It happened. My time came, I guess. From the very moment that I stood on that land mine, that morning on Oct. 23, 2010, I was pretty pragmatic about the whole thing. So many people had been killed around me — friends dying at my feet, no exaggeration — that when it happened to me, I was like: “O.K. My number came up. It’s time to move on.” And here I am, nine months later. I’m standing upright, seeing a lot of wonderful faces looking at me, and it’s an absolute pleasure. It’s been a rough time for the industry. This April in particular was pretty bad. We lost three friends, Tim, Chris and Anton. As it turned out, Libya was a pretty harsh mistress — not only for the foreign expat journalists working there, but for local journalists, too.

Author: Joao Silva
Published: Aug 30, 2011
Length: 16 minutes (4,087 words)