“I want to tell you something: it is nearly impossible for a young black man to stay out of trouble in a country where skin color is the marker for suspicion and violence and grief.”
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Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Interview: ‘Poor Teeth’ Writer Sarah Smarsh on Class and Journalism
“There often is a ‘tone’ in writing about the poor. There is a presumption that people of a certain class are mired in misery.”
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
The Believer Interview: Ice Cube
Linda Saetre | The Believer | 2004 | 26 minutes (6,574 words) The below interview is excerpted from The Believer’s new book, Confidence, or the Appearance of Confidence: The Best of the Believer Music Interviews. Thanks to The Believer for sharing this with the Longreads community. * * * ‘Music Is a Mirror of What […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Easy Money
The writer on his experience being on the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”: “Did I mention on my questionnaire that I could perform a serviceable impression of Chewbacca? Did I offer that up to them as proof of my willingness to give them whatever they wanted in exchange for a chance at […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Longreads Member Exclusive: Forever Young, by Jason Johnson & Kill Screen Magazine
This week’s Longreads Member Exclusive is “Forever Young,” a story by Jason Johnson for the literary video game magazine Kill Screen. Johnson tells us how he first discovered a group of Hungarian developers who have spent more than 20 years developing a game for the Commodore 64: “This wasn’t supposed to happen. As originally conceived, […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Game Savers: How A Tiny Company Gives Neglected Japanese Games New Life In America
How a nine-person video game company is bringing little known Japanese games to the U.S.: “If you play video games, you’ve probably played something that came out of Japan. Many of gaming’s biggest and brightest series—Mario, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil—were developed by Eastern companies, then translated and programmed for North American or European machines. “But […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Sex, Drugs and Video Games
[Site not safe for work] A profile of Nolan Bushnell, the entrepreneur behind Atari and Chuck E. Cheese: “With Atari on the brink, Bushnell had to dig himself out of his hole fast. He hatched a business philosophy that became his guiding principle: the meta-game. Knowing Atari’s hardware was being copied by competitors, Bushnell began […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Whoa, Dude, Are We Inside a Computer Right Now?
Meet a NASA scientist who suggests the possibility that we’re all living inside a video game: “Two years ago, Rich Terrile appeared on Through the Wormhole, the Science Channel’s show about the mysteries of life and the universe. He was invited onto the program to discuss the theory that the human experience can be boiled […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
I Sing the Body Electric
Japanese-pop star Hatsune Miku has millions of YouTube hits, sells tickets to her concerts at $76 a pop and has adoring fans from all around the world. She’s also not human: “Created by Crypton Future Media, Miku is the most popular avatar created to sell Vocaloid 2, the singing synthesizer application originally developed by Yamaha. […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Machine Politics
How George Hotz, a teenager from New Jersey, kicked off a hacker war that pitted Sony against Anonymous and the group LulzSec: “That year, someone mailed Hotz a PlayStation 3 video-game system, challenging him to be the first in the world to crack it. Hotz posted his announcement online and once again set about finding […]
