Michael is the associate publisher at The Awl network. “Earlier this week, Vladislav Surkov—also known by his nickname, the ‘gray cardinal’—resigned (i.e. was fired) from his position as a leading cabinet official in Medvedev’s government. As a character, Surkov is endlessly fascinating. On one hand he’s a ruthless political operator whose genius maneuvers have drawn […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
A Brief History of ‘It’ Girls
“It isn’t beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just ‘It’.” —Rudyard Kipling 1. “Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Clara Bow, ‘It’ Girl,” (Anne Helen Petersen, The Hairpin, May 2011) Clara Bow was the original It girl, so much so that her 1927 film, titled—what else?—“It,” more or less defined the phenomenon. This piece, from Petersen’s […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, First Chapters, Story
First Chapters: ‘You Are One of Them,’ by Elliott Holt
Elliott Holt | The Penguin Press | 2013 | 12 minutes (2,854 words) Our latest First Chapter is from Elliott Holt’s novel, You Are One of Them. Thanks to Holt and The Penguin Press for sharing it with the Longreads community. * * * Prologue In Moscow I was always cold. I suppose that’s what Russia […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Danse Macabre
A history of politics and betrayal at Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet—and an investigation into the acid attack on Bolshoi artistic director Sergei Filin: “The liquid was sulfuric acid—the “oil of vitriol,” as medieval alchemists called it. Depending on the concentration, it can lay waste to human skin as quickly as in a horror movie. Scientists working […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Deluge
Technology is rapidly improving our ability to find oil and gas. It means “peak oil” may not be as close as we thought, and the United States is becoming less dependent on foreign oil: “Right now, the map of who sells and who buys oil and natural gas is being radically redrawn. Just a few […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Watchmen
[Not single-page] Inside the Milwaukee Police Department Intelligence Fusion Center, a high-tech, crime-fighting unit that houses a team of local law enforcement and federal agents and analysts: “In 2011 – with help from other Fusion personnel – the team of Blaszak and Harms busted a segment of a sophisticated international smuggling operation. The racket, run […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Utopian for Beginners
A former DMV employee from Sacramento invents a new language—and a mysterious group of Ukrainians take an interest in what he’s created: “Soon after the publication of the Russian article, Quijada began to receive a steady stream of letters from e-mail addresses ending in .ru, peppering him with arcane questions and requesting changes to the […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Pussy Riot: Will Vladimir Putin Regret Taking on Russia’s Cool Punks?
How a collective of women in ski masks captured the attention of the world—and now face possible prison time for their stand against Putin: “At 9 p.m. on Thursday night, I’m at a rally of a couple of thousand anti-government protesters, hearing Pussy Riot’s name being chanted in the crowd, and I think I have […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Vietnam Solution
Once an enemy of the U.S., Vietnam is growing as a country and has become a key ally “as a counter to China’s rising power”: “Nothing better illustrates the Vietnamese desire to be a major player in the region than the country’s recent purchase of six state-of-the-art Kilo-class submarines from Russia. A Western defense expert […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
With My Little Eye
Has political satire in Russia turned Vladimir Putin into a national joke? “Putin, who says that he does not use the internet, seemed unaware that much of the fear that he generated in his first decade in power has evaporated in the past year. Provoked by allegedly falsified results in the December Duma elections, tens […]
