Search Results for: Recession

The Tune of the Future

Longreads Pick

A trip around Italy, from Venice to Lampedusa, and how immigration is changing Europe:

“A mere five or six years ago, foreigners in Italy, and indeed in Europe, did not pose the problem they do today. Anti-immigration, and in particular anti-Muslim hysteria, intensified after the publication of controversial caricatures of the prophet Mohammed in 2005, assuming serious proportions with the onset of the recession in 2008. The people of Bari were supportive and helpful, because at the end of the nineteenth century millions of Italy’s poor emigrated from the city and from the province of Puglia to America, the promised land, where in a matter of two or three generations they became completely assimilated. Some hundred years later, Italy had become the promised land to some other immigrants.”

Source: Eurozine
Published: Mar 15, 2012
Length: 25 minutes (6,420 words)

Molly Lambert: My Top 13 Longreads of 2011

Molly Lambert is a writer covering pop culture at Grantland. (She’s also featured in our Top 10 Longreads of 2011)

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These are some Longreads I enjoyed this year:

“The Bell Jar At 40”: Emily Gould on Sylvia Plath (Poetry Foundation)

• “The J in J. Crew”: Molly Young on Jenna Lyons (New York magazine)

“The Recessionary Charms Of American Horror Story”: Tess Lynch (Grantland)

• “The Movie Star”: Bill Simmons on Ryan Reynolds and Will Smith (Grantland)

“Occasional Dispatches from the Republic of Anhedonia”: Colson Whitehead at The World Series Of Poker (Grantland)

“Crass Warfare”: Emily Nussbaum on Whitney and 2 Broke Girls (The New Yorker)

“Frantically Impure”: Alex Carnevale on Susan Sontag (This Recording)

“Beauty”: Durga Chew-Bose on Barbara Loden (This Recording)

“God Knows Where I Am”: Rachel Aviv (The New Yorker, sub. required)

• “What Women Want: Porn and the Frontier Of Female Sexuality”: Amanda Hess on James Deen (GOOD)

“‘Make Me Proud’: Does Drake Actually Care About Women?”: Emma Carmichael (The Awl)

“Free The Network”: Allison Bland (The Awl)

“The Celebrity Rehab Of Dr. Drew”: by Natasha Vargas-Cooper (GQ)


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See more lists from our Top 5 Longreads of 2011 >

Share your own Top 5 Longreads of 2011, all through December. Just tag it #longreads on Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook. 

1991 Jeffrey Katzenberg memo to Disney execs.

As we begin the new year, I strongly believe we are entering a period of great danger and even greater uncertainty. Events are unfolding within and without the movie industry that are extremely threatening to our studio.

Some of you might be surprised to read these words. After all, wasn’t Disney number one in 1990? Yes, but our number one status was far from a sign of robust health. Instead, it merely underscored the fact that our studio did the least badly in a year of steady decline for all of Hollywood… a year that was capped off by a disastrous Christmas for nearly everyone. Although we led at the box office in 1990, our bottom line profits in the movie business were the lowest in three years.

Now, added to that, the nation’s economy is acknowledged to be in a recession… a recession that I am convinced will be quite devastating to our industry.

“Some Thoughts on Our Business.” — Jeffrey Katzenberg, Letters of Note, Jan. 11, 1991

See also: “The Internet Tidal Wave.” Bill Gates, May 26, 1995

Some Thoughts on Our Business (1991 Memo to Disney Execs)

Longreads Pick

As we begin the new year, I strongly believe we are entering a period of great danger and even greater uncertainty. Events are unfolding within and without the movie industry that are extremely threatening to our studio.

Some of you might be surprised to read these words. After all, wasn’t Disney number one in 1990? Yes, but our number one status was far from a sign of robust health. Instead, it merely underscored the fact that our studio did the least badly in a year of steady decline for all of Hollywood… a year that was capped off by a disastrous Christmas for nearly everyone. Although we led at the box office in 1990, our bottom line profits in the movie business were the lowest in three years.

Now, added to that, the nation’s economy is acknowledged to be in a recession… a recession that I am convinced will be quite devastating to our industry.

Source: Letters of Note
Published: Jan 11, 1991
Length: 44 minutes (11,026 words)

The Non-Scenic Route to the Place We’re Going Anyway

Longreads Pick

Instead of the surge of rebounding growth which historically accompanies successful exit from a recession, we have the UK’s disappointing 0.2 per cent growth, the US’s anaemic 0.3 per cent and the glum eurozone average figure of 0.2 per cent. That number includes the surprising and alarming German 0.1 per cent, the desperately poor French 0 per cent and then, wait for it, the agreeably frisky Belgian 0.7 per cent. Why is that, if you’ve been following the story, laugh-aloud funny? Because Belgium doesn’t have a government. Thanks to political stalemate in Brussels, it hasn’t had one for 15 months. No government means none of the stuff all the other governments are doing: no cuts and no ‘austerity’ packages. In the absence of anyone with a mandate to slash and burn, Belgian public sector spending is puttering along much as it always was; hence the continuing growth of their economy. It turns out that from the economic point of view, in the current crisis, no government is better than any government – any existing government.

Published: Sep 1, 2011
Length: 12 minutes (3,055 words)

The Atlantic: The Rise Of The New Global Elite

The Atlantic: The Rise Of The New Global Elite

Jared Keller: Top 5 Longreads of 2010

Jared Keller, in addition to being in charge of the whole internet, is also social media editor for The Atlantic.

michellelegro:

Trust in what Jared says. He’s in charge of, like, the whole internet. Or at least the portion of it housed in the Watergate building. 

jbkeller:

Dan Baum, “Happiness Is A Worn Gun” (Harpers, August 2010)
 
Many knee-jerk opponents of gun rights have never handled a gun before, so what happens when one liberal wears a concealed weapon? The Harpers articles is subscription only, but it’s worth subscribing just to read about Baum’s psychological transformation as a concealed gun owner.
 
Rebecca Mead, “Rage Machine” (The New Yorker, May 24, 2010)

I despise most everything about Andrew Breitbart – his personality, his politics, his smear tactics – but I loved this profile. Mead made him almost loveable.

Graeme Wood, “Prison Without Walls” (The Atlantic, September 2010)

This story has been done before, but I have an odd fascination with surveillance and surveillance states.

Robin Marantz Henig, “What Is It About 20-Somethings?” (New York Times Magazine, August 18th, 2010)

Caught between economic recession and a poisonous political environment, why do young people take so long to grow up? For maximum impact, read “The Recessions Long Shadow” which appeared in the March 2010 issue of The Atlantic, immediately beforehand.

Wayne Curtis, “Gunpowder On The Rocks” (The Atlantic, November 2010)

A New Zealand bartender learns what pirates and sailors knew long ago: explosives and liquor mix just fine.

How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

Longreads Pick

The Great Recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably just beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults.

Author: Don Peck
Source: The Atlantic
Published: Mar 1, 2010
Length: 10 minutes (2,738 words)

Baltimore Sun: Stop the Presses

Longreads Pick

With layoffs, the encroaching Internet, and the recession, is Baltimore’s paper of record on the verge of collapse?

Published: Sep 1, 2009
Length: 42 minutes (10,520 words)

Cattle rustling on the rise again in Texas

Longreads Pick

An Old West crime becomes new again, partly in response to the recession. One disgusted Texas Ranger says rustlers ‘disgrace the cowboy name.’

Published: Aug 11, 2009
Length: 6 minutes (1,538 words)