Search Results for: profile

The Wisdom of Mr. Rogers

The below YouTube video recently resurfaced on Twitter to remind me about everything I loved, and still love, about Mr. Rogers. It’s a clip from the 1997 Daytime Emmys, where Fred McFeely Rogers accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award:

In just three minutes, he reduced Linda Dano to tears and reminded us how conscientious we can strive to be when it comes to recognizing the important people in our lives and telling them how much they mean to us.

The clip brought me back to one of my all-time favorite stories: Tom Junod’s 1998 Esquire profile or Mr. Rogers:

Can You Say… Hero?

“Once upon a time, a man named Fred Rogers decided that he wanted to live in heaven. Heaven is the place where good people go when they die, but this man, Fred Rogers, didn’t want to go to heaven; he wanted to live in heaven, here, now, in this world, and so one day, when he was talking about all the people he had loved in this life, he looked at me and said, ‘The connections we make in the course of a life—maybe that’s what heaven is, Tom. We make so many connections here on earth. Look at us—I’ve just met you, but I’m investing in who you are and who you will be, and I can’t help it.’”

Read Junod’s 2003 eulogy for Mr. Rogers

…and it then sent me on a Mr. Rogers YouTube-watching binge. Here he is defending PBS before Congress in 1969:

Mr. Rogers Defending PBS before the U.S. Senate (1969, 7 minutes)

‘My Body Stopped Speaking to Me’: The First-Person Account of a Near-Death Experience

Illustration by Kjell Reigstad

Our recent Longreads Member Pick by National Magazine Award winner Andrew Corsello from GQ is now free for everyone. Special thanks to our Longreads Members for helping bring these stories to you—if you’re not a member, join us here.

“My Body Stopped Speaking to Me,” is a personal story about Corsello’s near-death experience, first published in GQ in 1995. Read more…

College Longreads Pick of the Week: 'Light from Darkness,' by Mary Kenney, Indiana University

image

Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher is helping Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick:

Recent Indiana University journalism student Mary Kenney used her study-abroad experience in India to test her abilities as a foreign correspondent. In “Light From Darkness,” Kenney profiles a sex worker named Akshaya. Akshaya was a rural girl who sought a new life in a big city. But like so many other impoverished women around the world, Akshaya’s life turned violent. Kenney relies on Akshaya’s own voice to provide the story’s tone and cadence, but without the soft-focus indulgence that can turn such narratives into overwrought Lifetime movies. Her willingness to spend time with a subject, and earn her trust, is evident in this piece.

Kenney is spending her first post-graduate summer on the sports desk at The New York Times, where she is a James Reston Reporting Fellow.

“Light from Darkness”

Mary Kenney | Inside Magazine | March 2013 | 2,932 words

***

Professors and students: Share your favorite stories by tagging them with #college #longreads on Twitter, or email links to aileen@longreads.com.

Freeway Rick is Dreaming

Longreads Pick

The writer, who has written about the notorious crack kingpin Freeway Rick for nearly two decades, profiles Ricky Ross once more as Ross attempts to legitimately hustle his way back to success:

“On the streets he once flooded with drugs, Freeway Rick is hawking weaves. A staple of the African American cosmetology industry, the weave—or ‘hair integration’ piece—inspires cultlike reverence: a beauty secret that transforms an age-old preoccupation into a declaration of fabulousness. Rick has no training in hair care, no affinity for it either, but he knows that weaves cost a fortune, more than the average customer can sanely afford. A 3.5-ounce bundle, depending on length, retails for $150 to $175, and most women need several bundles to achieve a full, versatile coif, which means $1,000 or more to have the whole thing anchored and styled. In Freeway Rick’s brain, that adds up to opportunity. ‘It could be milk, tires, fertilizer—I don’t care,’ he says. ‘They’re just products.'”

Author: Jesse Katz
Published: May 22, 2013
Length: 33 minutes (8,295 words)

Saint of the Hood

Longreads Pick

A profile of Father Gregory Boyle, who launched Homeboy Industries 25 years ago to help formerly gang-involved men and women by providing them with job training, therapy and a strong, positive community:

“‘The beauty of Father Greg’s approach is eternal, unrelenting hopefulness for those young people,’ says Robert Ross, president and CEO of the California Endowment. ‘The curse is that it’s terrible for the balance sheet of a nonprofit, and it really can wreak havoc. Most nonprofits function with a very clear sense that resources and dollars are a constraint. They turn people away, put them on waiting lists, and send them to other programs. The money dries up and so do the services—end of story.'”

Published: May 21, 2013
Length: 29 minutes (7,426 words)

Anatomy of a Cosplayer

Longreads Pick

A profile of a woman who participates in and builds props for cosplayers—fans who dress up as their favorite fictional characters:

“The first time Tysk worked with wood was to ramp up the unique-factor of one of her own costumes. Cid Highwind from the Square Enix classic Final Fantasy 7 is not an uncommon character to find in the cosplay wild; his outfit is simple, the character is iconic among JRPG fans and the game itself is one of the most popular of all time. Tysk wanted to dress up as Cid, and was determined to make herself stand out from other Cid cosplayers. So she suited up, grabbed some wood and paint and clay, and made herself the character’s trademark spear.

“Once she knew she could successfully make props, she decided to share her new skills by making weapons for her friends. Over the span of a few months, she shaped hunks of wood and plastic into daggers, swords, claws and even a realistic chainsaw.”

Source: Polygon
Published: May 7, 2013
Length: 14 minutes (3,616 words)

Longreads Guest Pick: Michael Macher on 'Putin's Rasputin'

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 comparisons to Machiavelli. On the other he’s a master ironist who has turned Russia in to his own ‘postmodern theatre’.  This October 2011 profile by Peter Pomerantsev in The London Review of Books is easily one of the best things written about him and the strange state of Russian politics in general. Pomerantsev beautifully weaves together fragments of Surkov’s personal biography with broader cultural observations to make deep points about power politics in Russia. I really, really enjoyed this piece and I hope you do too.”

•••

What are you reading (and loving)? Tell us.

The Double Life of a Gay Dodger

Longreads Pick

A 1982 Inside Sports profile of Glenn Burke, one of the first professional athletes to come out. Burke died in 1995:

“Burke walks out to the sunshine of the patio, where there is enough quiet to reflect. ‘People say I should still be playing,’ he says. ‘But I didn’t want to make other people uncomfortable, so I faded away. My teammates’ wives might have been threatened by a gay man in the locker room. I could have been a superstar but I was too worried about protecting everybody else from knowing. If I thought I could be accepted, I’d be there now. It is the first thing in my life I ever backed down from. No, I’m not disappointed in myself, I’m disappointed in the system. Your sex should be private, and I always kept it that way. Deep inside, I know the Dodgers traded me because I was gay.'”

Source: Deadspin
Published: Oct 1, 1982
Length: 26 minutes (6,540 words)

articles read & loved no. 51

dietcoker:

Now on Newsstands: Modern Farmer

image


One of our favorite parts about running Longreads is getting to know all the excellent magazine, book and online publishers out there producing great storytelling. We thought it would be fun to profile them—starting today with Modern Farmer. We spoke with deputy editor Reyhan Harmanci about their inaugural issue, out now.

Publication: Modern Farmer (inaugural issue)

Founded: April 2013

HQ: Hudson, New York

Editors: Ann Marie Gardner (Editor-in-Chief), Reyhan Harmanci (Deputy Editor), Andy Wright (Senior Editor), Jake Swearingen (Web Editor)

How did the magazine come together?

“The whole operation began when, a few years ago, Ann Marie was working for the New York Times and Monocle, and traveling a lot for stories. Living in upstate New York, she was surrounded by farmers, gardeners, people really connected to the food and the land; the fact that people everywhere were having the same conversations about food security, sustainability, localism, etc., surprised and inspired her. She began working on this in earnest about a year ago, and found an investor this fall. The editorial team (or part of it) began working in November.

“The basic idea behind MF is that knowing where your food comes from is extremely important — and, thanks in large part to climate change, so is self-reliance. We want to cover agriculture on a global scale, tell fascinating stories and also have fun. It doesn’t hurt that farms often have baby farm animals, key to any digital media operation.”

Tell us about the #longreads in the latest issue:

“Probably my favorite story in the magazine is by Jesse Hirsch (who has since come on as our staff writer) about the global wild pig explosion. It really needs to be read to be believed: boars are taking over the world and we can’t do anything to stop it. Less fun but extremely important is Mac McClelland’s story about humane slaughter—what does it even mean? How much should we care?”


Subscriptions: 
Print and digital