Search Results for: GQ

Being Gay in Russia Today: A Reading List

Longreads Pick

This week’s picks from Emily include stories from n+1, GQ, and The New York Times.

Source: Longreads
Published: Feb 9, 2014

Being Gay in Russia Today: A Reading List

Unfinished hotel rooms, terrorist threats, egregious human rights violations and thrilling athletic feats: Sochi’s got it all. But Russia’s dangerous, government-sanctioned homophobia precedes and extends far beyond this year’s Olympic games.

1. “Closed, Destroyed, Deleted Forever.” (Dmitry Pashinsky, n+1, February 2014)

Incredible interview with Lena Klimova, founder of Children 404, a social networking resource for the oppressed LGBTQ community in Russia. As a result, Klimova has been accused of disseminating “gay propaganda.” Now, Children 404 faces deletion and Klimova faces thousands of dollars in fines, all for attempting to create a supportive community of teenagers, parents, psychologists and other advocates.

2. “Inside the Iron Curtain: What it’s Like to be Gay in Putin’s Russia.” (Jeff Sharlet, GQ, February 2014)

The police bring cages to Pride parades. The right-wing fringes have their children beat LGBT activists. Violence is acceptable, even appreciated. Homophobia is sanctioned by the government and the Orthodox church. One gay man compared Russia today to Germany in the 1930s.  (I wept while reading this story.)

3. “On Holding Hands and Fake Marriage: Stories of Being Gay in Russia.” (David M. Herszenhorn, The New York Times, November 2013)

Heartbreaking, powerful personal testimonies from LGBTQ folks living in Russia today.

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Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also get them as a Readlist.

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'The Lost Girls of Rocky Mount': A Guest Pick by Douglas Williams

Douglas Williams is currently a doctoral student in political science at the University of Alabama, where his research centers around public policy and politics as it relates to disadvantaged communities and the labor movement. You can find him on Twitter at @DougWilliams85, at a collaborative blog on Southern progressivism called The South Lawn, as well as at The Century Foundation, where he blogs about the labor movement.

The Lost Girls of Rocky Mount

Robert Draper | GQ | June 2010 | 22 minutes (5,382 words)

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This article, y’all. Whew.

I happened upon this article a couple of years ago while doing some unrelated research, and it is something that has stuck with me ever since. It is hard for a story like this to not have some effect on you, for the author provides the grim details of the murders and their investigation with such vividity as to allow readers to place themselves smack dab in the middle of the story. It was also an article that reinforced a lot of concepts that have lived with me since birth: the gut-wrenching despair of persistent poverty; the lack of importance placed on Black women’s bodies; and the fecklessness of law enforcement when it comes to investigating crimes in communities of color, particularly when there is such a large separation between those communities and the political establishment that represents them. It is all here for you to dissect, with few stones, if any, unturned.

This is one of the easiest recommendations that I have ever been able to make.

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Photo: Harris Walker

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9 Traits of Southern Writing: A Reading List

Elizabeth Hudson (@elizahudson) is editor in chief of Our State magazine, an 81-year-old regional magazine all about the people, places, and things that make living in North Carolina great. Read more…

Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also get them as a Readlist.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

Read more…

Your Body Is a Composite of Other Beings

In recent years, research has shown that what people commonly think of as “their” bodies contain roughly 10 microbial cells for each genetically human one. The microbial mass in and on a person may amount to just a few pounds, but in terms of genetic diversity these fellow travelers overwhelm their hosts, with 400 genes for every human one. And a decent share of the metabolites sluicing through human veins originates from some microbe. By these measures, humanity is microbial.

In Science News, Susan Milius examines the world of microbes and looks at how animals are really “composite beings.” Read more science stories on Longreads.

Read the story

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Photo: NIAID

A Brief History of Epic Parties: Reading List

The following reading list comes courtesy Michelle Legro, editor at Lapham’s Quarterly.

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No doubt you are on your way to one right now: an epic party, a night to end all nights. But will your epic party be as legendary as those thrown attended by Truman Capote, Cher Horowitz, Jay Gatsby, Jordan Belfort, Silvio Berlusconi, or the kids from Saturday Night Fever?

1.  “The Great Fratsby” (Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, December 2013)

While Jay Gatsby may have spent lavishly, in the end he did it for love;  in Martin Scorese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort does it all for the money.

2. “Suck and Blow: The Oral History of the Clueless Party Scene” (Jen Chaney, New York magazine, December 2013)

Before we were rolling with the homies, director Amy Heckerling had to figure out if Cher Horowitz would totally gag if she had to go to a party in the Valley.

3.  “The Best Night $500,000 Can Buy” (Devin Friedman, GQ, September 2012)

The hottest club in Las Vegas has Italian princes, ten-thousand dollar tables, a champagne fairy, air of pure oxygen, and you’re not invited.

4. “Basta Bunga Bunga” (Ariel Levy, The New Yorker, June 2011)

The era of Berlusconi may be at an end, but the legend of this  Italian version of Benny Hill will never be forgotten, nakedly chasing after topless nymphettes while running the country into the ground.

5. “A Night to Remember” (Amy Fine Collins, Vanity Fair, July 1996)

Truman Capote kept telling people that he was going to invite everybody to his party at the Plaza Hotel in November of 1966. Guests were required to wear only two colors, black and white, to mirror the ascot races in My Fair Lady. Masks were to be worn by all upon entry and  removed only at midnight.

6. “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” (Nik Cohn, New York magazine, 1976)

By day, Vincent sold paint in a Bay Ridge hardware store; by night he was the best disco dancer in all of New York City. And in 1977, he would be played on screen by John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Cohn, meanwhile, later admitted to making most of the story up.

Longreads Best of 2013: 22 Outstanding Book Chapters We Featured This Year

This year we featured not only the best stories from the web, but also great chapters from new and classic books. Here’s a complete guide to every book chapter we featured this year, both for free and for Longreads Members: Read more…

Longreads Best of 2013: Best Old Story That I Didn’t Read Until This Year

Longreads Pick

Mark Lotto (@marklotto) is a senior editor at Medium, and a former editor at GQ and The New York Times Op-Ed page.

Author: Mark Lotto
Source: Longreads
Published: Dec 20, 2013