Search Results for: Pacific Standard

The Painful Business of Running a Franchise

It’s not just the workers who get a lousy deal. Over the years, Bob Baber, the Quiznos franchisee, became increasingly frustrated by the terms of his contract. One of the issues that galled him the most was that Quiznos was allowed to (and did) place additional sub shops in his franchise area, creating what he felt was direct competition that cut into his profits. Baber formed the Quiznos Subs Franchise Association, a sort of franchisees’ union, through which he hoped to leverage better terms. A month later, the Denver-based company terminated Baber’s franchise, claiming his restaurants were not being maintained properly, and other contractual defaults. When a franchise agreement is terminated, all investment by the franchisee—including acquisition cost, equipment, and fees—is effectively flushed away. Baber and Quiznos became enmeshed in a protracted legal struggle, with Baber refinancing his house and spending nearly $100,000. (A public relations spokeswoman representing Quiznos told us it is the company’s position to not comment on any litigation past or present.)

Despite such stories, people still buy into the franchise dream.

Timothy Noah, in Pacific Standard, on the increasingly difficult economics of running your own franchise.

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Photo: thomashawk, Flickr

Does Writer's Block Exist?

At Pacific Standard, Ted Scheinman talks to his favorite writers about how they deal with writer’s block. Some step away from their work and return to it later, while others look to their favorite writers for inspiration. One of the most interesting responses came from The Awl’s Choire Sicha, who says he hasn’t had to deal with writer’s block:

A minority of respondents, comprising one man named Choire Sicha, does not believe in writer’s block. Effacing himself and everyone else (such is his way), Sicha writes: “I, like … don’t ever have writer’s block? I SHOULDN’T JINX MYSELF. HEH. Generally I just figure when people have ‘writer’s block’ they should either go to therapy or get sober or break up with their boyfriend or just figure out they’re not cut out for being a writer and should go get a job folding scarves.” In this respect, Sicha resembles a certain J. Alastair Frisby, who once told P.G. Wodehouse the humorist would “never [finish] a book” and suggested Wodehouse “get a job selling jellied eels.” Scarves at least represent a less slimy option.

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Photo: Drew Coffman

Yes, All Women Part II: A Reading List of Stories Written By Women

My last Yes, All Women reading list was a hit with the Longreads community, so here’s part two. Enjoy 20 pieces by fantastic women writers.

1. “When You’re Unemployed.” (Jessica Goldstein, The Hairpin, June 2014)

“The first thing to go is the caring…You develop a routine: changing out of sleeping leggings and into daytime leggings.”

2. “No Country for Old Pervs.” (Molly Lambert, Blvrb, June 2014)

Dov Charney, Terry Richardson…and the Iraq War? The 2000s were rough.

3. “For Writers with Full-Time Jobs: On the Work/Other Work Balance.” (Megan Burbank, Luna Luna Mag, June 2014)

Seven helpful tips for living practically and creatively. I’m particularly fond of “use your commute.”

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The 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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Stories About Ghosts: A Reading List

Longreads Pick

This week’s picks from Emily include stories from Pacific Standard, Esquire, London Review of Books, and Bitch Magazine.

Source: Longreads
Published: Mar 16, 2014

Stories About Ghosts: A Reading List

This week is all about ghosts: ghosts that haunt houses, girl ghosts in movies, ghostwriters and Ghostbusters.

1. “If You Believe in Ghosts, You’ll See a Ghost.” (Katie Heaney, Pacific Standard, November 2013)

Katie Heaney writes about the supernatural for Pacific Standard — everything from Bigfoot sightings to seances. In this installment, she visits the oldest home in New York in search of its rumored ghostly matriarch.

2. “The Oral History of ‘Ghostbusters.'” (Jason Matloff, Esquire, February 2014)

“You never expect that big a hit. But there was a great sense that we were doing something special right from the beginning.”

3. “Ghosting Julian Assange.” (Andrew O’Hagan, London Review of Books, March 2014)

A sprawling, spectacular account of O’Hagan’s attempt to help the founder of Wikileaks write his memoir, and the total chaos that ensued.

4. “The Feminist Power of Female Ghosts.” (Andi Zeisler, Bitch Magazine, September 2013)

A shorter piece about the role of malevolent women ghosts in cinema. (Hint: It’s their righteous fury that makes them so angry.)

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Photo: spectrefloat

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…

Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Here are our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also save them as a Readlist. Read more…

Longreads Best of 2013: The Best Story About Storytelling

Longreads Pick

Nicholas Jackson is the digital director at Pacific Standard, and a former digital editor at Outside and The Atlantic.

Source: Longreads
Published: Dec 13, 2013

Longreads Best of 2013: The Best Story About Storytelling

In Conversation: Robert Silvers

Mark Danner | New York magazine | April 2013 | 28 minutes (7,063 words)

 

Nicholas Jackson is the digital director at Pacific Standard, and a former digital editor at Outside and The Atlantic.

These year-end lists tend to be like the Academy Awards in that only work released during the last couple of months of the year are remembered well enough to make the cut. That’s a good thing. Sure, I’d like to recall every great quotation I read in 2013, every delightful turn of phrase. But it’s better that I can’t. It means, like movies, that there’s more work I would consider worthy of my time being produced than I could possibly make time for, and plenty that I did make the time for that’s already been displaced in my mind by just the latest of the hundreds of stories I read this year. So, I cheated. I went back through some archives to jog my memory and pulled up this comprehensive interview with Bob Silvers to mark the 50th anniversary of The New York Review of Books. Silvers has had his hands on several big pieces this past year (must-read stories by Zadie Smith and Nathaniel Rich; something about the favelas of Brazil; I vaguely recall an Oliver Sacks essay on, of course, memory), but ask any editor and I bet most would tell you that he’s influenced every piece on these round-ups … and any others you’ve read over the past five decades. This is a story about stories: How we make them, and why.

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Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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