Match-Fixing in Soccer
How Singaporean mobster Tan Seet Eng, aka Dan Tan, and a global network of fixers influenced as many 680 soccer matches at the highest levels.
Down in the Sago Mine
The story of twelve men trapped in a West Virginia mine, as remembered by the lone survivor.
Amazon Unpacked
Thousands of new warehouse jobs were supposed to help lift a struggling British economy. Instead, employees started equating the work with “being in a slave camp.”
Up From Downey
A profile of Richard and Karen Carpenter.
Kidnapping Grandma Braun
An 88-year-old woman is taken from her Wisconsin farmhouse. Inside the investigation to find her.
Frank Ocean Can Fly
A profile of Lonny Breaux, post-fame.
What Makes Larry Run?
Larry Brown’s mystifying, unpredictable career.
Sponsored
Sponsor: Aeon Magazine
Our sponsor again this week is Aeon, a great new digital magazine covering ideas and culture. Aeon publishes an original essay every weekday, several of which have been picked for Longform. Here are three recent favorites:
No Drama, King Obama, by Edward L. Fox
In Javanese culture, a ruler must stand chivalrously above strife: cool, intelligent and self-contained. Sound familiar?
Mortal Remains, by Thomas Lynch
The dead are no longer welcome at their own funerals. So how can the living send them on their way?
Animal Spirits, by Stephen T. Asma
The more we learn about the emotions shared by all mammals, the more we must rethink our own human intelligence.
Read those stories and more at aeonmagazine.com.
The Old Man at Burning Man
A father-son trip to the Playa.
We Never Have to Be Alone
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show’s thrilling, scary, inept performance on German television.
Joshua Topolsky is editor-in-chief of The Verge.
"Sometimes you tell stories that people don't know they need to read yet. You have to keep telling those kinds of stories, and eventually people will wake up to them. Of course we look at traffic. But the main thing is, are we doing good work? At the end of the week or the end of the day, do I think, that was awesome, I'm really glad we wrote that?"
Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode!
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The Perfect Forecast
On meterologic obsession, making weather, and very powerful storms.
My Brother's Keeper
Throughout their troubled lives, identical twins William and Chris Cormier shared a preternatural bond. Then the body of a Florida journalist ended up in their backyard.
Sick
Visiting a lost friend.
The Panasonic Toughpad Press Conference
“I am not a tech journalist. I have never done this before. I don’t know what’s going on. Like most journalists everywhere, I am hungover.”
Power of Suggestion
Why psychologists love “priming.”
Why Americans Hate the Media
An explanation of enduring distaste.
Reincarnation in Exile
The challenges of growing up in the modern world as the reincarnation of a famous Tibetan lama.
New Old Libya
In the wake of revolution, Libyans envision their future.
Eternal Hypochondria of the Expanding Mind
On nineteenth century invalidism and how societies have drugged themselves through tough transitions across history.
The Order of the Solar Temple
The bodies in the chalet were found in a secret chamber, arranged radiating out from a point like spokes in a wheel. Some had suffocated, some had been shot. They all were followers of a mysterious prophet, Luc Jouret.
30 Rock Landed on Us
An essay on television and race.
The Transformation of Johnny Spain
The early life of “the onetime Black Panther, protégé of George Jackson, and sole member of the San Quentin Six convicted of murder.”
And the Award for the Next HBO Goes to...
On CEO Reed Hastings and the future of Netflix.
Edward Koch, Former Mayor of New York, Dies
An obituary.
