Featured: Eric Steingold’s #longreads page. See his story picks from The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, plus more.
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How did the 1970s and Los Angeles end up creating such idiosyncratic singer-songwriters as Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson and Van Dyke Parks? The first thing you should know about Harry Nilsson is that he won a Grammy for covering a schmaltzy Badfinger ballad called ‘Without You’ in 1971. The second thing you should know is […]
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A strange real-life murder inspires a new film starring Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine. How does the victim’s real family feel about being the subject of a black comedy? I was living in Los Angeles when Aunt Marge was murdered in 1996 and hadn’t been to Carthage, where I was born, in quite a few […]
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On riots and race. What has changed, and what’s still bubbling under the surface, 20 years after the riots in South Central Los Angeles: The L.A. Riots (or uprising, civil unrest, or rebellion, depending) are often considered the first ‘multiethnic’ riots. As a pivot point of race and urban relations, they constitute a resonant moment […]
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The complicated business of helping Cuban baseball talent find their way to the U.S., and eventually the Major League: At some point — either before leaving Cuba or postdefection — every player needs a baseball agent. The seedier practitioners of this trade are often called buscónes, or searchers. Sometimes they bully clients into paying. ‘I’ve […]
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A review of Tom Bissell’s new book of essays, Magic Hours: The best thing about Tom Bissell: He is fun. I think of him as “a wild and crazy guy.” I’m by turns entertained and completely aghast at his antics. He is totally obsessive. He’s watched that appalling movie The Room a bajillion times. I […]
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American Airlines once sold a lifetime pass for unlimited first-class travel. They soon regretted it: In September 2007, a pricing analyst reviewing international routes focused the airline’s attention on how much the AAirpass program was costing, company emails show. ‘We pay the taxes,’ a revenue management executive wrote in a subsequent email. ‘We award AAdvantage […]
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Top 5 #Longreads of the Week: The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Washington Monthly, #fiction from The New Yorker, plus a guest pick from Amy Whipple.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI Japanese-pop star Hatsune Miku has millions of YouTube hits, sells tickets to her concerts at $76 a pop and has adoring fans from all around the world. She’s also not human: Created by Crypton Future Media, Miku is the most popular avatar created to sell Vocaloid 2, the singing synthesizer application originally developed by […]
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On the role of nannies in a child’s upbringing, and the complications (emotional and financial) and joy that come with it: Seeing Michele Asselin’s portraits, I remember the heightened sensitivity of my first months as a parent. The pictures are beautiful and idealized. The women look at the children with love. No one looks frustrated. […]
