The Chef Making Japan's Most Elaborate Cuisine Her Own
How Niki Nakayama’s kaiseki restaurant became a highly coveted reservation in L.A.
Rosecrans Baldwin is a writer and regular contributor to GQ. His latest novel is The Last Kid Left.
“It requires a lot of preparation in order to just have lunch with Roger Federer. Being a person who tends toward anxiety and also a former Boy Scout—put those two things together and I will exhaustively prepare so that I can come across like a complete idiot. The idea of sitting down with someone like that is that you should know everything about their life and their career so that you can go in with 12 questions in the back of your mind.”
Thanks to MailChimp, Breach, CoinTalk, and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode.
Guilty
“In 1998, I helped convict two men of murder. I’ve regretted it ever since.”
'Men Are Scum'
Inside Facebooks war on hate speech.
How David Pecker Built His Tabloid Empire on Fear
‘He likes people walking around in fear,’ says one worker. ‘He gets off on it.’
The Exile of Rick Pitino
In 2017, the Hall of Fame Louisville coach’s career collapsed under a string of scandals, leading to his firing from the school he had coached for 16 years. Now, Pitino is finding himself in Greece, coaching Panathinaikos, working for a self-styled Bond villain, and enjoying a new chapter of his life.
The Messenger
Mike Pompeo’s mission: clean up Trump’s messes.
WWF's Secret War
The World Wide Fund for Nature funds vicious paramilitary forces to fight poaching.
The Making of the Fox News White House
Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda?
The Tinder Swindler
He has seduced and swindled young women for millions and is a fugitive from justice in several countries.
The Coldest War
High in the Karakoram, where the stubborn armies of India and Pakistan face off.
Playboy Interview: Steven Jobs
Steve Jobs, age 29.
"It’s often the same with any new, revolutionary thing. People get stuck as they get older. Our minds are sort of electrochemical computers. Your thoughts construct patterns like scaffolding in your mind. You are really etching chemical patterns. In most cases, people get stuck in those patterns, just like grooves in a record, and they never get out of them. It’s a rare person who etches grooves that are other than a specific way of looking at things, a specific way of questioning things. It’s rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing. Of course, there are some people who are innately curious, forever little kids in their awe of life, but they’re rare."
Inside the Secret Sting Operations to Expose Celebrity Psychics
Are some celebrity mediums fooling their audience members by reading social media pages in advance? A group of online vigilantes is out to prove it.
What's Next For New Yorker Reporter Jane Mayer?
A profile.
The Minnesota Murderess
A new wife, a dead husband, and the arsenic panic that shook the Victorian world.
The Greeter
They call me the Greeter. I sell shoes at the Boca Raton Town Center mall — bedazzled stilettos and platforms, neon-strapped pumps saved for special occasions. I stand by the entrance of the store, heels dug into the carpet, tummy tucked in, and I greet people. Hi, how are you, sunshine? Have you seen our shoes today?
The Secrets of the World's Greatest Art Thief
Stéphane Breitwieser robbed nearly 200 museums, amassed a collection of treasures worth more than $1.4 billion, and became perhaps the most prolific art thief in history.
“Mom, When They Look at Me, They See Dollar Signs”
How rehab recruiters are luring recovering opioid addicts into a deadly cycle.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Chuey and Me"
The life of a troubled childhood friend.
Does a Bear Think in the Woods?
Turns out animal intelligence is not so different from our own.
The Master of Spin
A profile of the PR agent who blurs truth for clients like Harvey Weinstein and R. Kelly. “If it were a relationship, we’d call it gaslighting, but it’s a profession, so we call it PR.”
Christie Aschwanden is a freelance science writer. Her latest book is Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery.
“I think every writer has this sort of obsession in a story that they write over and over in different forms. For me, it’s about belief and how do we decide what to believe. How do we choose what evidence is credible? How do we make those decisions?”
Thanks to MailChimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode.
Slippery When Wet
Angelika Graswald, also known as the Kayak Killer, went to jail for letting her fiancé drown in the Hudson River. Now she’s out on parole and looking to clear her name.
The Robot Caravan
How can you know if you’re about to get replaced by an invading algorithm or an augmented immigrant? “If your job can be easily explained, it can be automated,” Anders Sandberg, of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, tells Oppenheimer. “If it can’t, it won’t.” (Rotten luck for people whose job description is “Predict the future.”)
Late Abortion: A Love Story
Everything seemed routine. The technician finished up and left the room. The soundtrack of our baby’s heartbeat played an upbeat tempo in the background. A few minutes went by and the technician came back, letting us know she would take a few more pictures of his head for a clearer look. That sounded reasonable. She left again, this time for longer, and when she returned a doctor wearing a white lab coat walked in behind her looking very serious and shut the door.
