Longform

A profile of A.J. Daulerio, editor of Deadspin and procurer of, among other things, cell phone pics of Brett Favre’s penis.

Obama’s presidency may well be defined by whether or not he can curb unemployment. Step One: find a decent idea.

When (temporary) cities swell; a short history of the Burning Man festival.

Here’s what I really want to do at 32: fuck a girl and then, as she’s sleeping in bed, make breakfast for her. So she’s like, “What? You gave me five vaginal orgasms last night, and you’re making me a spinach omelet? You are the shit!” So she says, “I love this guy.” I say, “I love this girl loving me.” And then we have a problem.

A profile of Roger Ailes, CEO of Fox News.

A 2000 speech on the impossibility of all forms of exile, particularly literary.

A quasi-oral history of the party that was JFK’s 1961 inauguration.

On his 80th birthday; how Archie Leach, “the Bristol-born son of a part-Jewish suit presser,” became the greatest leading man of his generation.

A 134-pound magazine writer takes his chances at the U.S. Open sumo championships.

A profile of Jobs. The themes: immortality, relinquishing control, and how being adopted affected his choices for Apple. The lede: “One day, Steve Jobs is going to die.”

A profile of the Time Man of the Year for 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Fifteen years ago, Sherry Turkle developed a little crush on a robot named Cog. Since then, the MIT professor has been studying our ever-increasing emotional reliance on technology. She’s not optimistic about where we’re headed.

A famed attorney begins a transformation away from being a man; and dies after a companion shoves her under an oncoming train.

On the late comedian Bill Hicks, just as a performance on Letterman is deemed unfit for network TV.

The transfiguration of Jared Loughner.

Searching for Jimmy Robinson, a boxer who fought Muhammad Ali in 1961, then disappeared.

George Lois never actually worked at Esquire, he simply designed the most iconic magazine covers of the 60s as a moonlighting gig while revolutionizing (and, generally pissing off) the advertising industry by day.

The decline of the American autopsy and what it says about modern medicine.

How a young state rep from Missouri, seemingly guaranteed political greatness, ended up behind bars.

How the social networks that popped up in Facebook’s absence—the site is not available behind the Great Firewall—are changing Chinese culture.

The enigmatic life and death of Bruno Zehnder, who obsessively photographed penguins in the ice fields outside of a Russian base in Antarctica.

On a Duke student’s now infamous Powerpoint presentation of her sexual history; binge-drinking, post-feminism, and Mario Kart.

A profile of the director, written from the set of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

On Huck Finn, the book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, and the evolution of language and race in America.

On the expanding community of American parents who believe, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that there is a link between routine vaccinations and autism.