Search Results for: The New Yorker

Reading List: Amazing People for Desperate Times

Emily Perper is a word-writing human working at a small publishing company. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker.

I have a group of comedian friends; we go bowling every Wednesday and contribute to a magazine called The Annual. In the wake of recent personal misfortune, they’ve been a refuge for me. After spending time with them, I feel inspired. I listen to comedy podcasts, commit myself to books I haven’t quite finished, and make furtive jots in my journal.

Here are four pieces about people I don’t know who do the same thing.

“Tig Notaro And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Yet Somehow Completely Amazing Year.” (Sandra Allen, Buzzfeed, August 2013)

What an utter badass. I’m all about women, and women in comedy, and women in comedy getting the recognition they deserve. Tig had cancer and a breakup and a death in the family and wow, wow, wow, she leads this life of grace and humor. She has a dozen projects going. What a human.

“Now We Are Five.” (David Sedaris, The New Yorker, October 2013)

Weirdly, gay memoirists are my go-to after breakups (by which I mean Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris). My favorite Sedaris essays are about his family. Here, Sedaris forgoes his typical absurdism in favor of a more reflective piece on the recent suicide of his sister, Tiffany. He is funny and tender.

“The Rumpus Interview With John Jeremiah Sullivan.” (Greg Gerke, The Rumpus, April 2012)

I am equal parts inspired and intimidated (actually, far far far more intimidated) by JJS. He’s the “southern editor” for the Paris Review. Is that even a real position? I think the Paris Review invented it just for him, because he was too important to not have on staff. Think about it.

“Tavi Gevinson, Rookie.” (Duane Fernandez, Left Field Project, September 2013)

Is this a “longread?” No, and I don’t care. Tavi is incredibly inspiring, not just because of her youth, but because she Makes Things Happen for herself. She is artistic and energetic and makes me want to Make Things.

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Photo: CleftClips

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Reading List: Amazing People for Desperate Times

Longreads Pick

This week’s list from Emily includes stories from BuzzFeed, The New Yorker, The Rumpus, and Left Field Project.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 10, 2013

On Harvard, Class and What Happens After You Graduate

“If you go to Harvard and then you live in New York, no matter what you do, the fact remains that you will have old college friends who are in the top positions in whatever field of endeavor you’re concerned with. If you’re twenty-five, you’ll know people who are getting their first pieces published in The New Yorker. If you’re forty, you’ll know people who are editors of The New Yorker. You will know people who are affiliated with every level of government. And across the board, just everywhere, you will know some people at the top of everything.

“But in Canada, if you went to Harvard, it’s just a weird novelty, a strange fact about you, like that you’re a member of Mensa or you have an extra thumb. There’s no Harvard community here. There are equivalent upper-class communities to some degree, like maybe people who went to Upper Canada College prep school, but it’s not even remotely the same thing. I mean, partly there just aren’t the same heights to aspire to. There’s no equivalent to being the editor of The New Yorker in Canada, or being an American movie producer or anything like that. Partly, the advantages of class aren’t as unevenly distributed in general.”

Misha Glouberman, in the Paris Review. Read more on Harvard in the Longreads Archive.

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Photo: Boston Public Library

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Reading List: Examining Technology

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Emily Perper is a word-writing human for hire. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker.

The following four pieces resist cliches about social media and its impact. These authors do not shame nor condone; they do not preach. They take a deeper look at the tendency and luxury to share our lives with each other.

1. “O.K., Glass.” (Gary Shteyngart, The New Yorker, August 2013)

Shteyngart presents a colorful report on his experience wearing Google’s latest brainchild and his predictions for the near future of technology. (Shteyngart’s 2010 novel, Super Sad True Love Story, included technology eerily reminiscent of Glass.)

2. “A Tweetable Feast.” (Jared Keller, Aeon Magazine, May 2013)

The author posits that social media expands the dinner table and delves into the relationship among food, internet, and community.

3. “Tweeting Death.” (Meghan O’Rourke, The New Yorker, July 2013)

When his mother entered an ICU, NPR host Scott Simon live-tweeted the experience. What could’ve been garish was instead tender. O’Rourke posits that social media may be a safe, public space to mourn.

4. “Pics and It Didn’t Happen.” (Nathan Jurgenson, The New Inquiry, February 2013)

The New Inquiry turns its blend of astute observation, philosophical investigation and literary criticism to Snapchat.

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Reading List: Examining Technology

Longreads Pick

New reading list from Emily Perper featuring picks from The New Yorker, Aeon Magazine, and the New Inquiry.

Source: Longreads
Published: Aug 25, 2013

The Producers: A Reading List on Musical Masterminds

From Matt Graves: Here are six of his story picks on the topic of music producers, the often-overlooked architects of the music we hear and love.

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1. “The Song Machine: the Hitmakers Behind Rihanna,” by John Seabrook (The New Yorker, March 2012)

In her ascent to the pop throne, Rihanna had some unlikely help: a singer from Muskogee, Oklahoma and a two-man team of Norwegian producers. Meet Ester Dean and Stargate, pop’s unknown puppeteers.

2. “Disco Architect: 12 x 12 with Brass Construction’s Randy Muller,” by Andrew Mason (Wax Poetics, Fall 2004)

The true story of how one 18-year-old, born in Guyana and raised in Brooklyn, became the unsung godfather of 1970s disco.

3. “How Copyright Law Changed Hip Hop: An interview with Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Hank Shocklee,” by Kembrew McLeod (Stay Free! Magazine, 2002)

Public Enemy burst onto the 1980s hip-hop scene with a sound unlike anything the world had ever heard. Their groundbreaking beats were supplied by The Bomb Squad, a two-man team who turned sampling into a complex, noisy and compelling new art form that changed hip-hop forever.

4. “Philippe Zdar: The French Touch,” by Amber Bravo (The Fader, June 2012)

Is Philippe Zdar the best producer you’ve never heard of? From Parisian disco and Phoenix’s “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” to records from Cat Power, Beastie Boys and Cassius, you’ve probably felt his influence, even if you didn’t know his name.

5. “Arthur Baker: From Planet Rock To Star Maker,” by Richard Buskin (Sound on Sound, June 1997)

How Arthur Baker, a failed disco DJ from Boston, made his musical mark on the 1980s—from hip-hop (Afrika Bambaata’s “Planet Rock”) and dance (New Order’s “Confusion”), to pop (New Edition’s “Candy Girl”) and rock.

6. “Rick Rubin: The Intuitionist,” by Will Welch (The Fader, 2004)

From Kanye’s “Yeezus” and Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” to Johnny Cash’s cover of NIN’s “Hurt”, Rick Rubin has been the music world’s (mad)man behind the curtain.

Reading List: 4 for Laughing

Emily Perper is word-writing human for hire. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker.

During rough weeks, I tend to refer back to a good #longread over and over. Here are four of the funniest around. Bookmark them, read them to your best friend on the phone, or save them for a particularly bad day. And when you read them, laugh.

1. “The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time: Elizabethtown” (Gabe Delahaye, Videogum, July 2013)

Elizabethtown gave us the Manic Pixie Dream Girl moniker, a wealth of plot inconsistencies and a weirdly ambitious road trip mixtape map.

2. “My Mother Explains The Ballet To Me” (Jesse Eisenberg, The New Yorker, July 2013)

“Why can’t you stand like that guy on stage? Look at his posture. Forget he’s black for a second, and just look at his body.” Eisenberg goes to the ballet with his mother so you don’t have to.

3. “The Dark Side of the Paddock” (Drew Millard, Kill Screen, February 2012)

Capturing the existential hilarity of the video game My Horse, this essay is bookmarked in Safari so I can read it when I’m feeling down.

4. “Flick Chicks: A Guide to Women in the Movies” (Mindy Kaling, The New Yorker, October 2011)

No one understands the intricacies of romantic comedy and genuinely loves the genre quite like Kaling does. Here, her descriptions of the supporting characters in rom-coms are spot-on.


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Reading List: 4 for Laughing

Longreads Pick

New story picks from Emily Perper, featuring Kill Screen, Videogum and The New Yorker.

Source: Longreads
Published: Aug 11, 2013

Anatomy of a Publisher

Longreads Pick

The work and sex lives of book publishers. Gottlieb, the former editor of The New Yorker, writes about Boris Kachka’s history of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Hothouse:

“Gossip about Roger Straus’s sexual life (and everyone else’s) is a dominant feature of ‘Hothouse’—yes, FSG was hot in this way, too. Not only was Roger the Emperor of Frankfurt, but in New York, in the office, he was the Sun King—complete with deer park. The chief doe, Peggy Miller, arrived in his life around the same time Sontag did. She was an experienced executive secretary who went to work for Roger in that capacity and stayed on until the end, a major force at FSG. (‘I’m . . . grateful to Peggy Miller,’ Kachka writes, ‘the living soul of independent FSG, for giving me so much of her time.’)”

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Aug 7, 2013
Length: 20 minutes (5,024 words)

A Brief History of ‘It’ Girls

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“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 Scandals of Classic Hollywood series, offers a perfectly juicy take on Ms. Bow.

2. “Almost Famous” (Katherine Stewart, Santa Barbara Magazine, Oct./Nov. 2006)

Stewart goes beyond the usual Edie clichés and delves into Sedgwick family lore, as well as Edie’s post-Factory return to Santa Barbara.

3. “Chloe’s Scene,” (Jay McInerney, The New Yorker, Nov. 1994)

McInerney’s piece—a semi-seminal take on uber-It girl Chloe Sevigny in the early days of her downtown reign—captures a weird freeze-frame in time: Sevigny pre-Kids fame, and downtown New York in its last gasps of grittiness.

4. “Welcome to the Dollhouse: New York’s Power-Girl Publicists,” (Vanessa Grigoriadis, New York, December 1998)

“Perky, pretty, and remarkably plugged-in, a pack of young publicists have become the darlings of New York’s demimonde. But be careful—they bite.” Detail-packed, with deliciously good dialogue and a healthy dollop of fun, this is classic Grigoriadis.

5. “Ksenia Sobchak: The Jane Fonda of Russia’s Dissident Movement,” ( Sarah A. Topol, Vice, July 2012)

Ksenia Sobchak is the Russian Paris Hilton, if Paris Hilton all of a sudden took an interest in revolutionary politics.

6. “The Secret Life of Cory Kennedy,” (Shawn Hubler, West, Feb. 25, 2007)

Cory Kennedy was just a regular high school hipster until party photographer Mark “The Cobrasnake” Hunter snapped her picture at an LA club. And then—practically overnight and before her parents had a chance to figure out what was going on—she was everywhere, a club kid, model, and message board fashion icon, with her very own column in Nylon. This is the making of an internet It Girl.

7. “The Trouble With ‘It Girls'” (Anne Helen Petersen, Buzzfeed, January 2015)

Update: A new piece from Anne Helen Petersen on what the label tells us about women and their work.