Search Results for: profile

The Mysterious Metamorphosis of Chuck Close

Longreads Pick

Not just a fascinating profile of the legendary artist—undergoing major life changes at 76—but also a lovely tribute to late-stage creativity and a glimpse of how Hilton navigated what he should and shouldn’t disclose about Close’s illnesses and relationships.

Published: Jul 14, 2016
Length: 30 minutes (7,512 words)

The ‘Shaman’: A Committed Solo Traveler Struggles to Reconcile Being Raped While Abroad

Illustration by Katie Kosma

Laura Yan | Longreads | July 2016 | 13 minutes (3035 words)

 

Three years ago, I quit my job in New York to go backpacking in South America. It was a blessed time, full of postcard travel highs: swimming in mirror-glazed lakes dipped in sunset, burning coca leaves for mystic rituals, falling in love with a hippie as we hitchhiked beneath the stars. I was 23, and learning to be wild and light and free. I spoke about my travels with an editor at The Hairpin, and wrote about it elsewhere. Sometimes readers emailed me asking for travel advice. They asked mostly innocuous questions: What should I pack? How do I save up to travel? Where should I visit? I tried to answer when I could. One girl asked if I’d ever been in serious danger.

I didn’t know how to reply. Read more…

Marie Kondo and the Ruthless War on Stuff

Longreads Pick

Brodesser-Akner profiles Marie Kondo, the best-selling Japanese author has started a formal training program for her organizing methods. Kondo has devoted followers, but also many detractors from the National Association of Professional Organizers, who find her methods too draconian.

Published: Jul 6, 2016
Length: 23 minutes (5,753 words)

Why I Hate My Dog

Photo (and all photos below) courtesy of Richard Gilbert

Richard Gilbert | Longreads | July 2016 | 18 minutes (4,584 words)

Belle Krendl, “our” dog but really mine, is a furtive, ragtag creature. She suffers in comparison to our prior dogs—and to most we’ve known. In fact, she suffers in comparison to any pet we’ve ever owned, including jumpy, escape-prone gerbils; a pert exotic lizard that refused to eat; cannibalistic chickens that stared with malice in their soulless green eyes; and a sweet, dumb, tailless black cat named Tao who spent his life staring into space with huge yellow eyes—but once, in a blur, grabbed and gulped down a gerbil our daughter dangled before him by way of introduction.

A Jack Russell terrier, or maybe a Jack cross, Belle Krendl is covered in whorls of stiff white hair. Bristly brows and white lashes accent her black eyes, as do her lower eyelids, a disconcerting garish pink. In the house, her movements are wary; outside, she streaks like a Greyhound after any creature unwise enough to enter our yard. Her long skinny legs with knobby joints—King crab legs, I call them—make her too gangly, at 16 inches tall, for a proper go-to-ground Jack. At 22 pounds, she’s too heavy for a lapdog. She’s ambivalent about cuddling anyway. We’re seldom inclined to offer much physical affection, given her peculiar odor, an intermittent acidic stink, especially pungent when she’s hot from running. A mouthful of missing, broken, and bad teeth partly explains her vile breath.

Richard's rescue dog, Belle Krendl.

Richard’s rescue dog, Belle Krendl.

“She’s a rescue—6 years old when we got her!” we crow, cashing in where we can, harvesting meager props for having saved her from euthanasia. In reality, she’d been lodged at a no-kill shelter. It had placed her twice in good homes before we showed up.

Baiting my family, I say, “I’d return her, but now she’s 12. Belle may have to take a dirt nap.”

“You can’t have her killed!” everyone cries.

“I’m thinking about it.”

“But you can take her back! They have to take her back! And they can’t kill her!”

I’m certain it would be more humane to have her euthanized than to take her almost anywhere. Read more…

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Photo courtesy Elle Magazine

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

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1. 11,431 Rape Kits Were Collected and Forgotten in Detroit. This Is The Story of One of Them.

Anna Clark | Elle | June 27, 2016 | 29 minutes (7,297 words)

Clark weaves the story of Ardelia Ali’s 1995 rape—one of 11,431 Detroit cases in which the rape kit had been left untested—into a profile of Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy, who took on the testing of those kits and the prosecution of perpetrators as a personal mission. Worthy, both the first woman and first African American to hold her position, is a rape survivor herself. Her commitment to women brave enough to report what happened to them is rooted, in part, in her own regret for not going to the police after her own experience, leaving her rapist possibly free to attack other women.

2. Refugees Encounter a Foreign Word: Welcome

Jodi Kantor, Catrin Einhorn | New York Times | June 30, 2016 | 22 minutes (5,511 words)

In Canada, ordinary citizens are clamoring to sponsor Syrian refugees and welcome them into their homes. The Times spent five months interviewing families and refugees about their experiences, which have been largely positive.

See also: "The Shadow Doctors" (Ben Taub, The New Yorker)

3. All the Greedy Young Abigail Fishers and Me

Jia Tolentino | Jezebel | June 28, 2016 | 12 minutes (3,203 words)

Tolentino explores the recent "Becky With the Bad Grades v. UT Austin" Supreme Court ruling through the lens of her own experience writing college essays for privileged white high school students.

4. The Fugitive, His Dead Wife, and the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory That Explains Everything

Evan Hughes | GQ | June 28, 2016 | 29 minutes (7,403 words)

Kurt Sonnenfeld became a suspect in the death of his wife and moved to Argentina to start a new life. When the U.S. government pursued extradition, Sonnenfeld began insisting to Argentinian media that the U.S. wanted him for ulterior motives related to 9/11.

5. Angels in America: The Complete Oral History

Dan Kois, Isaac Butler | Slate | June 28, 2016 | 68 minutes (17,161 words)

Twenty-five years after its premiere, the behind-the-scenes story of Tony Kushner's landmark play.

11,431 Rape Kits Were Collected and Forgotten in Detroit. This Is The Story of One of Them.

Longreads Pick

Clark weaves the story of Ardelia Ali’s 1995 rape—one of 11,431 Detroit cases in which the rape kit had been left untested—into a profile of Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy, who took on the testing of those kits and the prosecution of perpetrators as a personal mission. Worthy, both the first woman and first African American to hold her position, is a rape survivor herself. Her commitment to women brave enough to report what happened to them is rooted, in part, in her own regret for not going to the police after her own experience, leaving her rapist free possibly to attack other women.

Author: Anna Clark
Source: Elle
Published: Jun 27, 2016
Length: 29 minutes (7,297 words)

Home Is Where the Fraud Is

Banksy. Crayon House Foreclosure, East Los Angeles. Via Occupy.com

David Dayen | Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud | The New Press | May 2016 | 26 minutes (7,150 words)

Below is an excerpt from Chain of Title, by David Dayen, the true story of how a group of ordinary Americans took on the nation’s banks at the height of the housing crisis, calling into question fraudulent foreclosure practices. This story is recommended by Longreads contributing editor Dana Snitzky

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How could you not know who I am if you’re suing me?

Lisa Epstein drove down Highway A1A, along the Intracoastal Waterway, back to her old apartment in Palm Beach. At her side was her daughter Jenna, in a car seat; atop the dashboard was an envelope containing the monthly payment on her unsold co-op. Though her house was in foreclosure, Lisa always paid the mortgage on the apartment, her fallback in case of eviction.

Lisa gazed at the water out the window. She never wanted to miss mortgage payments; Chase told her to do it and promised assistance afterward, but then put her into foreclosure. The delinquency triggered late fees, penalties, and notifications to national credit bureaus. A damaged credit score affected a mortgage company’s decision to grant loan relief, which hinged on the ability to pay. Even if Lisa managed to finally sell the apartment, even if she could satisfy the debt on the house, the injury from this “advice” would stick with her for years. Chase Home Finance never mentioned the additional consequences, emphasizing only the possibility of aid. The advice was at best faulty, at worst a deliberate effort to seize the home. Lisa spent a lifetime living within her means, guarding against financial catastrophe. Now Chase Home Finance obliterated this carefully constructed reputation. She felt tricked.

America has a name for people who miss their mortgage payments: deadbeats. Responsible taxpayers who repay their debts shouldn’t have to “subsidize the losers’ mortgages,” CNBC host Rick Santelli shouted from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade on February 19, 2009, two days after Lisa got her foreclosure papers. “This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage, that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills, raise your hand!” The floor traders in Chicago, between buying and selling commodity futures, hooted. This rant would later be credited as the founding moment of the Tea Party. And it signified a certain posture toward delinquent homeowners, a cultural bias that equated missing the mortgage payment with failing the duties of citizenship. The indignation didn’t account for mortgage companies driving customers into default. However, lenders welcomed anything that humiliated deadbeats into blaming themselves. In most cases it worked: in the twenty-three states that required judicial sign-off for foreclosures, around 95 percent of the cases went uncontested.

But Lisa had an inquisitive mind. Before she would acquiesce, she wanted to understand the circumstances that led to this lawsuit from U.S. Bank, an entity she had never encountered before seeing it listed as the plaintiff. She had three questions: who was this bank, why did it have a relationship with her, and why was it trying to take her house? Read more…

Shocking As It Is to Believe, the Theater May Be in a New Golden Age

Longreads Pick

Audra McDonald, Broadway’s greatest voice, is back. A fascinating profile of a gifted, ground-breaking, Broadway perfectionist.

Source: www.vulture.com
Published: Mar 7, 2016
Length: 18 minutes (4,667 words)

Confessional

Longreads Pick

A profile of the savagely smart former “Bachelor” producer behind Lifetime’s “Unreal.”

Author: D.T. Max
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jun 20, 2016
Length: 23 minutes (5,803 words)

The Invisible Forces Behind All of Our Decision-Making

Photo: Deborah Feingold

Jessica Gross | Longreads | June 2016 | 16 minutes (4,137 words)

 

Jonah Berger, a professor of marketing at Wharton, has spent more than 15 years investigating social influence. In his 2013 book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, he explains how and why certain products and ideas become massively popular. In his new book, Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior, Berger focuses on the immense sway others have over the choices we make—whether we’re imitating or differentiating from them—often in ways we aren’t aware of. Berger and I spoke by phone about the often surprising findings he draws on in the book, the tension between fitting in and standing out, and how social influence can best be wielded.

How did you first become interested in studying social influence?

I’m from the D.C. area originally, and have a friend who’s a lawyer there. I was talking to him, and he was complaining that all D.C. lawyers drive BMWs—when they make it, they go out and buy a BMW. He said, “Look at how D.C. lawyers are all conformists.” I pointed out that he had actually himself just bought a BMW. And he said, “No, no, but I bought a blue one. Everyone else buys gray ones.”

What I thought was really interesting about that story was a few things. One, he saw everyone else as influenced, but not himself. Sometimes we recognize that social influence is out there, but we think only other people do it. We don’t see it in our own lives. And yet, here was a great, amazing, powerful example of someone’s own life being shaped by what others are doing.

But also, influence isn’t a simple thing. It’s not just doing the same thing as others. Often, when we think about influence, we think, “If someone else jumped off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge?” But influence is actually much more complicated than that. Influence is actually like a magnet: sometimes it attracts and leads us to do the same thing as others; other times it repels and leads us to do the opposite thing. And sometimes, like with this example of the BMW, it actually leads us to be similar and different at the same time, so that we’re optimally distinct. We end up being similar on one dimension and different on another.

And so what I wonder is, when do these different things happen? When does influence lead us to be the same? When does influence lead us to be different? When does it lead us to go along with the group? When does it lead us to be more independent? How do others motivate us? How do others de-motivate us? And how can we use all this science to live happier and healthier lives? Read more…