The Plagiarist's Tale
A profile of Quentin Rowan, a.k.a. Q. R. Markham, ‘author’ of last fall’s short-lived spy novel hit Assassins of Secrets, which was pieced together using more than a dozen sources.
A profile of Quentin Rowan, a.k.a. Q. R. Markham, ‘author’ of last fall’s short-lived spy novel hit Assassins of Secrets, which was pieced together using more than a dozen sources.
Lizzie Widdicombe New Yorker Feb 2012 25min Permalink
The dissolution of Brooklyn softcore skin-mag Jacques and the marriage of the couple that created it.
Jonathan Tayler Brooklyn Ink Jan 2012 10min Permalink
On the murder of a young Hasidic boy in Brooklyn.
Matthew Shaer New York Dec 2011 25min Permalink
An abridged history of violence in "America's first suburb."
Note: Elon Green is a contributing editor to Longform.
Elon Green The Awl Aug 2011 10min Permalink
Dreaming of the perfect apartment.
Should anyone ever choose to remake and bastardize Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I propose an opening sequence re-imagined to reflect more contemporary preoccupations. The revised opening scene should be filmed against the backdrop of an early evening in Brooklyn. The throngs of suits coming home from their nine to five grinds in Manhattan would be emerging from the subway stairwells like ants from an anthill, rushing off down various streets towards their various homes and families and dinners. All except for the would-be protagonist who, as the crowd rushes past her, makes her way to the closed-for-the-night real-estate storefront opposite the subway station. Somewhere, “Moon River” might still be playing, as if it had never stopped. Disheveled, lugging her purse and gym bag, she pauses for a number of minutes to read listings she has already read, and which she committed to memory weeks ago: a studio on Pineapple Street; a loft on Gold Street; a townhouse on Argyle Street; a two-bedroom coop on First Place; a one-bedroom condo on Carlton Avenue; a brownstone on Henry Street. It’s fall and the leaves blow in eddies on the sidewalk. She gets cold and turns away from the window to walk off down the street just as dusk begins to arrive in earnest. The occasional “For Sale” sign swings on its hinges, and the story of the day ends only to begin again in the morning.
Nell Boeschenstein The Morning News Oct 2009 15min Permalink
An essay on a pregnancy attempted:
When I tell people what we are doing, they want to hear about the room where you produce. I tell them that there is a lot of paperwork. That they take your picture and look at your license. Then they walk you back to the room. You are handed a list of instructions and some stickers and a plastic cup. The cup has a forest-green lid. In the room is a VCR. I like to write down the names of the videos so I can share them with my wife and friends: Ass Angels #4, Original Black Queens of Porn (Afro-Centrix #113), and Chock Full of Asians. The latter features a woman with enlarged breasts so swollen they look luminous, like the sense apparatus of a recently discovered deep-sea fish.
Paul Ford The Morning News Jul 2011 10min Permalink
The addictive lure of Brooklyn’s last bingo parlors.
N.R. Kleinfeld New York Times Nov 2010 Permalink
A rare co-mingling between Hasidic Jews and their Crown Heights neighbors within Brooklyn’s ‘Basil Pizza & Wine Bar.’
Frank Bruni New York Times Magazine Oct 2010 Permalink
Best Article Arts History Music
Vignettes of the residents of South Elliot Place.
Stacy Abramson New York Times Jul 2010 Permalink
A day in the life of a Brooklyn laundromat.
N. R. Kleinfield New York Times Jan 2010 10min Permalink
In 2008, a Brooklyn cop grew gravely concerned about how the public was being served. So he began carrying a digital sound recorder, secretly recording his colleagues and superiors.
Graham Rayman Village Voice May 2010 25min Permalink
Hipsters vs. Hasids in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A skirmish over a bike lane becomes a battle for a neighborhood.
Michael Idov New York Apr 2010 15min Permalink