The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
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Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.
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“Deadhead.” —Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, on the recorded history of the Grateful Dead
Twin Freaks: On High-Altitude Skiers the Marolt Brothers
A number of renowned ski mountaineers told me, without wanting their names to be used, that they resented the attention the Marolts had received for their exploits—or, more to the point, the attention the Marolts had sought out. The criticism is that the Marolts ski (and climb) unremarkable, unstylish lines (“tourist routes,” as one put it), that they care less about summits than about altimeter readings, and that, above all, they make more of their feats than those feats merit. The fact that they’ve skied so often above 7,000 meters elicits a collective “So what?” from the sport’s elites, who favor first descents and technical derring-do. One of them told me, “All it proves is that they have more time and money to waste on trying to get one boring run.”
Rich Ziade is partner and lead strategist at Arc90, notable for many things including creation of the wondrous Readability app.
(Ed. note: We know: One of the stories below is from 2009, and another is from 2007.)
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• Paul Graham ruminates over the deflationary value of stuff.
• Zak Smith debates which is more offensive: the porn industry or Tyra Banks exploiting the porn industry in Barely Legal Whores Get Gang-F***ed.
• The New York Times (Wyatt Mason) deep dives into the mind of The Wired’s David Simon.
• The New Yorker (Nick Paumgarten) profiles John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods.
• The CBC investigation (by Neil Macdonald) of the assassination of Lebanon’s prime minister Rafik Hariri plays like an international procedural thriller. Ben Affleck as the protagonist?
Master of Play: Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s Man Behind Mario
Jamin Brophy-Warren, who publishes a video-game arts and culture magazine called Kill Screen, told me that there is something in the amplitude and dynamic of Mario’s jumps—just enough supernatural lift yet also just enough gravitational resistance—that makes the act of performing that jump, over and over, deeply satisfying. He also cited the archetypal quality of Mario’s task, that vague feeling of longing and disappointment which undergirds his desperate and recurring quest for the girl. “It’s a story of desire,” Brophy-Warren said.
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