Club Meds
A trip to The Villages, a booming retiremement community outside Orlando, where the golf is free, casual sex is everywhere, and there is no cemetery.
A trip to The Villages, a booming retiremement community outside Orlando, where the golf is free, casual sex is everywhere, and there is no cemetery.
Alex French Buzzfeed Aug 2014 35min Permalink
To save William Buttars’s life, his parents had to risk it.
Michael Rubino Indianapolis Monthly Aug 2014 20min Permalink
A Profile Auditor goes sniffing after anomalies in the consumption habits and personal data of an unsuspecting hotel clerk.
For a daily short story recommendation from our editors, try Longform Fiction or follow @longformfiction on Twitter.
Neal Stephenson Wired Oct 1994 25min Permalink
On Lucinda Williams and her “love affair with loss.”
Bill Buford New Yorker Jun 2000 45min Permalink
A personal history of Soldier of Fortune magazine and the mercenary-wannabes who read and wrote it.
On learning a new language, a new culture, and why “it must never be concluded that an urge toward the cosmopolitan, toward true education, will make people stop hitting you.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates The Atlantic Aug 2014 15min Permalink
Established media companies used to sue YouTube. Now they’re betting on it.
Felix Gillette Businesweek Aug 2014 15min Permalink
The author examines his terrible football career.
Josh Keefe Slate Aug 2014 15min Permalink
Almost 40 percent of the world’s population lives in countries with limits on abortion. Activists like Rebecca Gompert imagine a future where those limits are meaningless because most abortions happen at home.
Emily Bazelon New York Times Magazine Aug 2014 30min Permalink
On being black in an all-white Swiss village.
James Baldwin Harper's Oct 1953 20min Permalink
The rise and fall of travel writing.
Frank Bures Nowhere Aug 2014 45min Permalink
The anatomy of a collapse.
Ted C. Fishman Chicago Magazine Aug 2014 25min Permalink
Zach Baron is a staff writer for GQ.
“People love to put celebrity stuff or culture stuff lower on the hierarchy than, say, a serial killer story. I think they're all the same story. If you crack the human, you crack the human.”
Thanks to TinyLetter and Squarespace for sponsoring this week’s episode.
Aug 2014 Permalink
Retracing Hunter S. Thompson’s steps 40 years later.
Zach Baron The Daily Oct 2011 55min Permalink
How a Chinese national, with the help of a suspected spy, disappeared with laptops and hard drives that may have contained sensitive information from the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center.
Ryan Gabrielson, Andrew Becker ProPublica Aug 2014 15min Permalink
On the narrative of sexual coercion.
Mary Beard London Review of Books Aug 2000 10min Permalink
After Devaughn Darling died during a workout with the Florida State football team, his family was awarded a payout of $2 million. That was 13 years ago. Only $200,000 has come.
Michael Kruse SB Nation Aug 2014 25min Permalink
After one of the most decisive wins in Kentucky Derby history, Barbaro broke his leg at the Preakness, ending a promising career and beginning a herculean effort to save his life.
Buzz Bissinger Vanity Fair Aug 2007 50min Permalink
Spun-off from Time Warner and saddled with $1.3 billion in debt as a parting gift, the once-mighty Time Inc needs to reinvent itself. Fast.
Gabriel Sherman New York Aug 2014 20min Permalink
How seven Italian scientists came to be convicted of manslaughter following a catastrophic quake.
David Wolman Matter Aug 2014 20min Permalink
The future (and past) of non-lethal weaponry deployed against civilian populations.
Ando Arike Harper's Mar 2010 30min Permalink
How Cassandro, who wrestles in drag, became a star Mexican luchadore.
William Finnegan New Yorker Aug 2014 35min Permalink
The bumpy rise of Saturday Night Live’s first star.
Douglas Hill, Jeff Weingrad Grantland Aug 2014 25min Permalink
A professional quarterback who lost a battle with his weight, a hermit who lived off the grid for nearly 30 years and a spy who went far too far — the week's top stories on Longform.
In 1984, Jacqui met Bob Lambert at an animal-rights protest. They fell in love, had a son. Then Bob disappeared. It would take 25 years for Jacqui to learn that he had been working undercover.
Lauren Collins New Yorker Aug 2014 35min
Meeting Christopher Thomas Knight, a.k.a. the North Pond Hermit, who lived alone in the Maine woods for nearly 30 years.
Michael Finkel GQ Aug 2014 30min
Jared Lorenzen was a star quarterback in college. He won a Super Bowl. And just like the author, he has spent his entire life fighting, and losing, a battle with his weight.
Tommy Tomlinson ESPN the Magazine Aug 2014 15min
In exchange for his surrender, the top Colombian drug lord was allowed to build his own jail, complete with a disco, jacuzzi, and waterfall. Now 23 years later, it’s a home for the elderly.
Jeff Campagna Daily Beast Jun 2014 15min
While war raged across Afghanistan, expats lived in a bubble of good times and easy money. But as the U.S. withdraws, life has taken a deadly turn.
Matthieu Aikins Rolling Stone Aug 2014 20min
Jun–Aug 2014 Permalink
One man’s battle with mental illness.
“He was an ebullient boy, quick to laugh and easy to love. And then, at 17, the shadow fell. A devastating diagnosis of mental illness. Trouble, hospital, home, into the depths again. Now, sustained by his mother’s unimaginably patient love, he aims to make his way back.”
“There may be a more exhausting journey than that of the mentally ill, their families, and their caregivers. But for those locked in the cycle of hopes raised and dashed, it’s hard to imagine what it could be.”
“No matter how he hates them, Michael Bourne has finally decided to stick with his meds. They may save his life, but at the price of not feeling fully alive. It is a cruel calculus, for him and for many.”