Paul Ford was an editor at Harper’s Magazine; now he’s wandering around, looking at stuff and writing computer programs. *** Tony Judt, “Night,” New York Review of Books (January 14) This was the year of the dying critic. Most writers would do themselves, and their readers, a service by dying without all the self-elegies (“selfegies”?). […]
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MIRRORINGS: The late great Lucy Grealy on her face, tragedy, beauty and identity
Thanks to Julia Arthur for two #longreads on Lucy Grealy. Below, from Grealy herself in Harper’s (1993), and here from her friend Ann Patchett in New York Magazine, 2003. lostangelesca: There was a long period of time, almost a year, during which I never looked in a mirror. It wasn’t easy, for I’d never suspected […]
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Out of Lehman's Ashes Wall Street Gets Most of What It Wants
Out of Lehman’s Ashes Wall Street Gets Most of What It Wants “We continue to listen to the same people whose errors in judgment were central to the problem,” said John Reed, 71, a former co-chief executive officer of Citigroup Inc., who estimated only 25 percent of needed changes have been enacted. “I’m astounded because […]
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AIDS and Media Coverage, the Early Years: A Longreads List
Logan Sachon is a writer and editor based in Portland. *** Rare cancer seen in 41 homosexuals 1981. New York Times. Lawrence K. Altman. 903 words / 3.5 minutes No mention of AIDS, no utter of HIV, but this is where mainstream media’s coverage of AIDS starts, with the New York Times first mention of […]
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Moby-Duck: Or, the Synthetic Wilderness of Childhood
Moby-Duck: Or, the Synthetic Wilderness of Childhood Let’s draw a bath. Let’s set a rubber duck afloat. Look at it wobbling there. What misanthrope, what damp, misty November of a sourpuss, upon beholding a rubber duck afloat, does not feel a crayola ray of sunshine brightening his gloomy heart? Graphically, the rubber duck’s closest relative […]
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“Writers rooms may vary in terms of the decor or the available food (“Everybody Loves Raymond” was always the champ in that regard), but the basic atmosphere is the same from room to room, show to show. You will have a large space (in this case the common room of a suite of offices), usually […]
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The Top 10 Longreads of 2011
I should preface this by saying I didn’t plan to do a list, because all of your Top 5 Longreads of 2011 really represent what the Longreads community is all about. But, in true WWIC form, I couldn’t resist. Thank you for an incredible year. Special thanks to the entire Longreads team: Joyce King Thomas, Kjell Reigstad, Hakan Bakkalbasi and […]
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[National Magazine Awards finalist, Public Interest] An investigation of rampant sexual violence that goes unpunished at a Sioux reservation: Kim reported the rape, and Mike was arrested and jailed. As soon as she returned to the reservation, his family began threatening her, calling her a liar and a bitch. Whenever they saw her on the […]
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The demolition of the Cabrini-Green housing project in Chicago was supposed to open up new opportunities for low-income families. But the community has disappeared: The fifteen-story high-rise was known by its address, 1230 N. Burling. Already stripped of every window, door, appliance, and cabinet, the monolith was like a giant dresser without drawers. The teeth tore […]
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Harper Reed went from running a T-shirt community to running digital operations for Obama’s reelection campaign. Inside the team’s top-secret efforts to refine voter targeting to a granular (or: “creepy”) level: By the 2000 election, political data firms like Aristotle had begun purchasing consumer data in bulk from companies like Acxiom. Now campaigns didn’t just […]
