Getting clean with a three-day trip.

Previously: The Longform Guide to Addiction.

An inteview with the Saturday Night Live producer.

Previously: The Longform Guide to SNL.

On the FBI's failed negotiations with David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco.

Previously: Malcolm Gladwell on the Longform Podcast.

On the mysterious relationship between a major New York State power broker and a Brooklyn family. “The Turanos are variously described by friends, neighbors and colleagues as the senator’s social acquaintances, lovers or surrogate relatives.”

Las Vegas casinos operating in Macau rely on “junkets” to bring in the gambling elite, but the money and murder for hire trails lead straight to the Triads.

The Columbia shuttle was to be a revolution for NASA. But a year before its first launch, the shuttle was several years behind schedule, had cost $1 billion, and wasn’t guaranteed to ever get off the ground.

How HBO went from sitcoms starring Delta Burke and O.J. Simpson to The Wire. The view from a former HBO employee who witnessed the channel’s rise to prominence firsthand.

How Warren Beatty seduced the studios into making the comedy Ishtar, which set the modern bar for cinematic debacles. (An excerpt from Peter Biskind’s Star.)

The author enrolls in three cults - ADIDAM, the Moonies, and Aleph (formerly Aum, who carried out the Tokyo metro Sarin attacks) - via their New York branches.

“In a landscape in which black people dominate the culture but have few recognized channels to respond to it, the show, which stars two American black men, provides a venue for black authority in the mainstream.”

In his 90th year, L.A.’s finest living writer discusses his heroes and inspirations, the anti-gay and anti-Mexican prejudices he’s weathered and the wisdom accrued over a miraculous life.

How do you sell a $3000 vacuum?

How the famed war photographer covered D-Day.

Coming out in a country where that can get you killed.

The alt-country wunderkind turned walking disaster finds peace at 39.

On living in Saudi Arabia.

The rock critic’s lasting impact.

On New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik.

A tragic car crash, its lone survivor, and his reeling town.

Richard Simmons at 64, sweatin’ to the oldies (and country and disco) thrice weekly.

A dispatch from The National Review’s post-election cruise.

A season with the best 12-year-old football team in Texas.

On the renaissance in psychedelic research.

On the media’s failure to cover climate change.