Meet The Dread Pirate Roberts, The Man Behind Booming Black Market Drug Website Silk Road
A profile of a virtual kingpin.
A profile of a virtual kingpin.
Andy Greenberg Forbes Aug 2013 Permalink
This guide is sponsored by Warby Parker, which sells $95 glasses with prescription lenses included. Directed by Philip Andelman, their newest television commercial is a Kinks-scored ode to New York literary life.
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In which the lead singer of The Kinks reveals, among other things, his true height.
Candy Darling, Tinkerbell, Glenn O’Brian Interview Jan 1973 15min
In praise of the library as the rare “indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay.”
Zadie Smith New York Review of Books Jun 2012 15min
An aura of exclusion and elitism at Columbia University: “The question is not whether you are a New Yorker, but which New York you live in.”
Kaitlin Phillips The Eye Feb 2013 15min
[Subscription Required] Rebellious teens and their longhaired antics on Sunset Boulevard.
Renata Adler New Yorker Feb 1967
An obituary for the greatest boxing writer of all time.
Chuck Klosterman Esquire Jan 2008
[Google Books] On a bout of hubris and brawn.
Norman Mailer LIFE Mar 1971
Hungry young men and savage strikes: the most mythopoeic sport of all.
Joyce Carol Oates New York Review of Books Feb 1992 15min
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Feb 1967 – Aug 2013 Permalink
How a serial killer and his teenage accomplice used listings for “the job of a lifetime” to lure their victims, all down-and-out single men, to the backwoods of Ohio.
Hanna Rosin The Atlantic Aug 2013 40min Permalink
How a struggling comedian became a pimp who eventually started sending teenage hookers on bank robbery missions that earned them notoriety as the “Starlet Bandits.”
Gene Maddaus LA Weekly Jul 2013 20min Permalink
Amy Harmon, a Pulitzer Prize winner, covers the intersection of science and society for the New York Times.
"I'm not looking to expose science as problematic and I'm not looking to celebrate it. But it can be double edged. Genetic knowledge can certainly be double edged. Often the science outpaces where our culture is in terms of grappling with it, with the implications of it. Part of the reason for this widespread fear about GMOs is people don't understand what it is. I'm looking for an emotional way or a vehicle through which to get people to read about it. It's an excuse to talk about the science, not just explain it. … My contribution, what I can do, is try to tell a story that will engage people in the story and then they'll realize at the end that they learned a little bit about the science."
Thanks to TinyLetter and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
Aug 2013 Permalink
A profile of Russell Baze, the winningest jockey in American history.
Barry Bearak New York Times Aug 2013 10min Permalink
The turf wars at New York City’s hip hop station, Hot 97.
Ben McGrath The New Yorker Jul 2006 30min Permalink
Georgia and Patterson Inman, 15-year-old twins, are the only living heirs to the $1 billion Duke tobacco fortune. They are also emotional wrecks, tortured by a hellacious childhood in which they were raised by drug addicts and left to fend for themselves in mansions across the country.
Sabrina Rubin Erdely Rolling Stone Aug 2013 40min Permalink
A profile of documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, who last January received “a curious e-mail from an anonymous stranger requesting her public encryption key.”
Peter Maass New York Times Magazine Aug 2013 30min Permalink
An interview on nature vs. nurture with the author of The Sports Gene: Inside the Science Of Extraordinary Athletic Performance.
Jeremy Repanich, David Epstein Outside Aug 2013 20min Permalink
The benefits of getting sick in New York.
Maral Noshad Sharifi Out Aug 2013 15min Permalink
How the heir to a horse racing empire became an informant on the Zetas cartel as they pushed their money laundering operations into the lucrative quarter horse trade.
Melissa Del Bosque, Jazmine Ulloa Texas Observer Aug 2013 20min Permalink
Departing Marrakech by car with a plan to record music for the Library of Congress.
Paul Bowles Holiday Feb 1963 35min Permalink
The drunken genius of Harry Nilsson, the American Beatle.
Sean Fennessey Grantland Aug 2013 20min Permalink
An interview with Murphy at the apex of his power, just before the release of Harlem Nights.
Bill Zehme Rolling Stone Aug 1989 30min Permalink
“You know a storm is going to be bad, people in Oklahoma will tell you, when Gary England removes his jacket.” A profile of a meteorologist who has worked Tornado Alley for more than 40 years.
Sam Anderson New York Times Magazine Aug 2013 20min Permalink
The life, work, and early death of writer Shirley Jackson.
Victoria Best Open Letters Monthly Jul 2013 Permalink
“Let me say that again: Hedy Lamarr, arguably the most glamorous star of the pre-war period, also helped invent your cell phone and WiFi connection.”
Anne Helen Petersen The Hairpin Aug 2013 25min Permalink
On the lesbian separatists of the 1970s, who “created a shadow society devoted to living in an alternate, penisless reality.”
Ariel Levy New Yorker Mar 2009 25min Permalink
Meet Mark Millar, the brains behind our era’s most violent, ingenious comics.
Abraham Riesman The New Republic Aug 2013 10min Permalink
A startup’s rocky search for profitability.
Austin Carr Fast Company Sep 2013 20min Permalink
Billy Dillon was about to sign a contract with the Detroit Tigers. Instead he was convicted–wrongly–of first-degree murder and spent the next 27 years in prison.
Brandon Sneed SB Nation Aug 2013 35min Permalink
On the attempt to rehabilitate Afghanistan’s child jihadis.
Andrew O'Hagan London Review of Books Aug 2013 15min Permalink
How a Peace Corps volunteer turned a high school basketball squad into Afghanistan’s national team.
Chris Ballard Sports Illustrated Jul 2013 30min Permalink
Sean Flynn is a GQ correspondent and National Magazine Award winner.
"I find it satisfying to be able to give a voice to people that sort of get lost…You know, when these big horrible things happen, and the spotlight is very briefly on them, and then it moves away, and it's not that I'm dragging them out and forcing them to 'Relive your horrible moments!' It's more a thing of, 'If you'd like to relive your horrible moment, if you want people to know what actually happened, talk to me. I will tell your story.'"
Thanks to TinyLetter and the The Literary Reportage concentration at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute for sponsoring this week's episode.
Aug 2013 Permalink