Ricky Gervais Would Like to Non-Apologize
A profile of comedian Ricky Gervais.
A profile of comedian Ricky Gervais.
Dave Itzkoff New York Times Magazine Jan 2012 15min Permalink
Lessons learned about white-collar crime from an economist turned bagel salesman whose business relied entirely on the honor system.
Stephen J. Dubner New York Times Magazine Jun 2004 15min Permalink
How a family man dentist got involved in an underage prostitution ring.
Bryan Smith Chicago Magazine Oct 2006 Permalink
On Clifton “Pop” Herring, the then-26-year-old high school basketball coach who famously left Jordan off the varsity squad as a sophomore.
Thomas Lake Sports Illustrated Jan 2012 30min Permalink
Inside carpenter brothers Ryan and Dylan, and their stripper sister Lee-Grace Dougherty’s eight-day, fifteen-state, AK-47-wielding crime spree.
Kathy Dobie GQ Jan 2011 30min Permalink
Didion’s genius is that she understands what it is to be a girl on the cusp of womanhood, in that fragile, fleeting, emotional time that she explored in a way no one else ever has. Didion is, depending on the reader’s point of view, either an extraordinarily introspective or an extraordinarily narcissistic writer. As such, she is very much like her readers themselves.
Caitlin Flanagan The Atlantic Jan 2012 25min Permalink
The man 27-year-old Victoria Donda believed to be her father shot himself after being revealed as a former member of an Argentinean death squad. Immediately after, a human rights group came to her with information on her birth parents: murdered political prisoners.
Mei-Ling Hopgood Marie Claire Jun 2011 Permalink
Looking for holes in the world’s nuclear security.
William Langewiesche The Atlantic Dec 2006 40min Permalink
A profile of Rebekah Brooks, who started as a secretary at News of the World and became CEO of News International by 41, developing an incredibly close relationship with Rupert Murdoch along the way.
Suzanna Andrews Vanity Fair Jan 2012 30min Permalink
On YouTube’s shift towards professionally created content.
John Seabrook New Yorker Jan 2012 25min Permalink
A conversation with the comedian.
JW: You’ve talked about how you’ve had to explain moral lessons to your daughters, but do it in an inarticulate, catchy way. It’s almost as though you’re writing material for them. What’s the place of morality and ethics in your comedy? I think those are questions people live with all the time, and I think there’s a lazy not answering of them now, everyone sheepishly goes, “Oh, I’m just not doing it, I’m not doing the right thing.” There are people that really live by doing the right thing, but I don’t know what that is, I’m really curious about that. I’m really curious about what people think they’re doing when they’re doing something evil, casually.
Jonah Weiner, Louis C.K. The Writearound Jan 2012 Permalink
Con man turned pastor turned con man; a profile of a serial scammer and the movie he tried to make about himself.
Roger Parloff Fortune Jan 2011 35min Permalink
War photographers tell the stories behind their most harrowing images.
The Guardian Jun 2011 15min Permalink
A glimpse into the life and death of a soldier who committed suicide while on duty in Afghanistan:
The Army recently announced that it was charging eight soldiers — an officer and seven enlisted men — in connection with Danny Chen’s death. Five of the eight have been charged with involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide, and the coming court-martial promises a fuller picture of the harrowing abuse Chen endured. But even the basic details are enough to terrify: What could be worse than being stuck at a remote outpost, in the middle of a combat zone, tormented by your superiors, the very same people who are supposed to be looking out for you? And why did a nice, smart kid from Chinatown, who’d always shied from conflict and confrontation, seek out an environment ruled by the laws of aggression?
Jennifer Gonnerman New York Jan 2012 15min Permalink
Inside the Shel Silverstein archive.
One of the things you learn is that “polymath” doesn’t even begin to describe Silverstein. His creativity extended in so many directions that his archivists must be versed not just in turn-of-the-century world children’s literature, but Waylon Jennings’s deep cuts; not just in reel-to-reel tape preservation, but how to keep an old restaurant napkin scribbled with lyrics from falling apart.
Delaney Hall Poetry Dec 2011 10min Permalink
On switching to the gold standard and a trip to the Yukon to witness the modern gold rush.
Wells Tower GQ Jan 2012 15min Permalink
How the town of Moberly, population 14,000, got conned.
Susan Berfield Businessweek Jan 2011 15min Permalink
The author tracks down a former Peace Corps volunteer who murdered a fellow worker in 1976.
Philip Weiss New York May 2005 15min Permalink
Steven Donziger, an American lawyer, headed up a successful lawsuit against Chevron on behalf of Ecuadorans. Then the legal tables turned on him.
Patrick Radden Keefe New Yorker Jan 2012 35min Permalink
A little after 9 a.m. on Sept. 15, 1990, the owner of a steel-products company pulled up to her office in Vinegar Hill, near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and spotted a black garbage bag sitting on the sidewalk out front. She parked her car and went to move the bag when she noticed it leaking blood. The woman called 911. Within the hour, Ken Whelan, a homicide detective from the 84th Precinct, peered into the bag. It was full of human body parts.
Nicholas Schmidle New York Times Magazine Jan 2012 20min Permalink
A travelogue of a three-month tour of Muay Thai boxing camps in Thailand. The author, 28, died in a hit-and-run shortly after returning to the U.S.
Neil Chamberlain The Classical Dec 2011 1h5min Permalink
A profile of the Russian spy-turned-Maxim covergirl.
Brett Forrest Capital New York Jan 2012 25min Permalink
A profile of Rick Santorum published early in his final campaign for the U.S. Senate, a race widely considered a stepping stone to the White House before he lost.
Mike Newall Philadelphia City Paper Sep 2005 25min Permalink
The main thing that attracts me to Buddhism is probably what attracts every artist to being an artist—that it’s a godlike thing. You are the ultimate authority. There is no other ultimate authority. Now, for some artists that’s difficult, because they want to have the art police. They want to have the critic who hands out tickets and says, “That’s too loose.”
Amanda Stern, Laurie Anderson The Believer Jan 2011 20min Permalink
A suburban dad. A fictional television blowhard. And now a political money launderer. How one funny guy became three.
Charles McGrath New York Times Magazine Jan 2012 25min Permalink