Longform

Brin-Jonathan Butler has written for SB Nation, ESPN, and The New York Times. His new book is A Cuban Boxer’s Journey.

"He smiled at me and just to make small talk, I said, 'You know, you’ve got this gold grill on your teeth. Where did you get that from?' And he said, 'Oh, I just melted my gold medals into my mouth.' And I thought, 'I think I’ve got a story here.'"

Thanks to TinyLetter, WW Norton & Company and Open Road Integrated Media for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@brincio

[4:45] Pitching Around Fidel (S.L. Price • 1998)

[7:45] Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway • 1952)

[12:00] "Mike Tyson Jail Interview" (YouTube)

[19:30] Granma

[29:30] "Héroes for Sale" (SB Nation • June 2014)

[35:45] Split Decision: The Story of Guillermo Rigondeaux (Documentary directed by Butler)

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Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah has written for The Believer, The LA Review of Books, Transition and The Paris Review. "If He Hollers Let Him Go," her essay on Dave Chappelle, was a 2014 National Magazine Award finalist.

"So the stakes are high. I’m not just writing this to write. I’m writing because I think there’s something I need to say. And there’s something that needs to be said. ... What I hope is that a young kid or an older person will see that you have choices, that you don't have to accept what people hand to you. That you have control."

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

the-rachelkaadzighansah.tumblr.com

[:30] "If He Hollers Let Him Go" (The Believer • Oct 2013)

[15:15] Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix (Charles R. Cross • Hyperion • 2005)

[17:10] "What Lured Hemingway to Ketchum?" (Hunter S. Thompson • The National Observer • May 1964) [Google Books]

[19:45] "Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You: The Roots Are One of the Most Respected Hip-Hop Acts in the World; Why Can’t They Leave the Sad Stuff Alone?" (Capital New York • Dec 2011)

[24:40] "He Shall Overcome: Jay-Z Is $450 M Beyond the Marcy Projects. Where Does He Go From Here?" (New York Observer • Dec 2010)

[27:16] "The B-Boy’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Review of the RZA’s Tao of Wu" (Transitions • Sep 2012)

[27:52] "When the Lights Shut Off: Kendrick Lamar and the Decline of the Black Blues Narrative" (Los Angeles Review of Books • Jan 2013)

[29:37] "We a Baddd People" (VQR • Jun 2014)

[35:15] "Stakes Is High—and Black Lives Are Worthy of Elaboration" (Kameelah Janan Rasheed • Gawker • Jun 2014)

[44:25] Miles: The Autobiography (Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe • Simon and Schuster • 1989)

[48:20] "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You: The BeyHive" (NPR • Mar 2014)

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A look back at some of our favorite moments from the first 99.

Thanks to our sponsors, TinyLetter and Squarespace.

Show Notes:

[4:45] #3: David Grann

[7:00] #4: Jon Mooallem

[10:10] #7: Ta-Nehisi Coates

[14:15] #9: Jeanne Marie Laskas

[12:32] #10: Chris Jones

[18:00] #22: Charles Duhigg

[20:00] #29: Matthew Power

[23:45] #37: Ann Friedman

[26:30] #39: Natasha Vargas-Cooper

[28:00] #43: Margalit Fox

[31:20] #57: Eli Saslow

[34:50] #62: Malcolm Gladwell

[39:00] #64: Gay Talese

[43:35] #65: Elizabeth Wurtzel

[46:10] #67: Evan Wright

[49:30] #75: George Saunders

[52:10] #77: Dan P. Lee

[57:00] #78: Ariel Levy

[102:30] #84: Sabrina Rubin Erdely

[104:20] #88: Sam Biddle

[106:30] #91: Michael Lewis

[110:30] #95: Wesley Morris

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John Heilemann is the managing editor of Bloomberg Politics and the co-author of Game Change and Double Down.

"If you're a writer, and you're not an asshole, you want the maximum number of people to read your stuff. There's nothing wrong with that. There's no great glory in cultivating some niche audience. I do this work because I believe in what I'm doing. I'm not trying to compromise my principles or my standards to get a larger audience. But once I've written the thing of which I feel confident and proud, which I feel is ethically and journalistically sound, I then want the maximum number of people to read it."

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@jheil

[9:15] "Congress's Watch Dog: The General Accounting Office" (Washington Monthly • Nov 1989)

[23:15] "Can the BBC Be Saved?" (Wired • Mar 1994)

[24:00] Heilemann's New Yorker archive

[33:00] "The Networker" (New Yorker • July 1997) (sub req'd)

[34:30] The Valley

[35:00] The Reckoning (David Halberstam • 1986)

[37:00] "The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth" (Wired • Nov 2000)

[41:30] The Pride Before the Fall (2001)

[44:00] "The Power Grid" archive

[44:45] "The Choir Boy" (New York • May 2005)

[48:00] What It Takes (Richard Ben Cramer • 1992)

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George Saunders has written for The New Yorker and GQ. His latest collection of short stories is Tenth of December.

"Maybe you would understand your artistry to be: put me anywhere. I'll find human beings, I'll find human interest, I'll find literature. And I guess you could argue the weirder, or maybe the less explored the place, the better."

Thanks to TinyLetter and Audible for sponsoring this episode. 

Show notes:

georgesaundersbooks.com

Saunders on Longform

[5:00] Tenth of December (Random House • 2013)

[8:45] "George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You'll Read This Year" (Joel Lovell • New York Times Magazine • Jan 2013)

[22:45] CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (Random House • 1996)

[29:30] "The Great Divider" (GQ • Dec 2006)

[30:45] "The New Mecca" (GQ • Nov 2005)

[33:00] "The Incredible Buddha Boy" (GQ • Jun 2006)

[38:45] George Saunders's Advice to Graduates (May 2013)

[47:00] "Tent City, U.S.A." (GQ • Sep 2009)

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Sarah Nicole Prickett is the founding editor of Adult.

"I'll admit to being resistant to the 'by women for women' label that Adult had before because I saw it as being just 'by women,' period. That’s way more feminist than making something for women, which is very prescriptive and often comes in various shades of pink."

Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

Pre-order: Adult #2

Prickett's TinyLetter

@snpsnpsnp

snpsnpsnp.com

[8:40] Fashion

[2:30] "How to Make Love in America" (Hazlitt • Jul 2013)

[11:20] "The Ultimate Humiliation" (n+1 • May 2014)

[17:15] The Cut

[17:15] Bon

[22:30] "Like Every Time My Pelvis Touches A Sink Brim" (Fiona Duncan • Adule • June 2014)

[24:30] "Florida” (Joe Coscarelli • Adult • March 2014)

[34:12] "House On Fire” (Larissa Pham • Adult • May 2014)

[35:10] "Ass Man” (Brad Phillips • Adult • March 2014)

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Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor at The Atlantic. His latest cover story is "The Case for Reparations."

"The writer hopes for change, but writers can't assume that their work is going to cause change."

Thanks to TinyLetter andI Am Zlatan, the international bestseller published by Random House, for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show Notes:

@tanehisicoates

Coates's blog for The Atlantic

Coates on Longform

"The Case for Reparations" (The Atlantic • May 2014)

[4:20] "Longform Podcast #7: Ta-Nehisi Coates"

[4:35] "Fear of a Black President" (The Atlantic • Aug 2012)

[7:05] "The Case for Reparations: An Intellectual Autopsy" (The Atlantic • May 2014)

[8:05] "For Asians, School Tests Are Vital Steppingstones" (Kyle Spencer • New York Times • Oct 2012)

[10:08] Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (Kenneth Jacks • Oxford University Press • 1985)

[16:10] "The Story of the Contract Buyers League" (James Alan McPherson • The Atlantic • Apr 1972) [pdf]

[18:53] "Zlatan’s Revenge!" An excerpt from I Am Zlatan (Zlatan Ibrahimovic • Grantland • May 2014)

[19:18] Zlatan Ibrahimovic scores "maybe the best goal ever scored" [YouTube]

[40:40] "Ta-Nehisi Coates Disagrees With ‘Jonathan Chait,’ and So Do I" (Jonathan Chait • New York • Mar 2014)

[43:15] Elizabeth Kolbert on Longform

[51:07] "Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek " (John Branch • New York Times • Dec 2012)

[58:23] Nobody Knows My Name (James Baldwin • Dial Press • 1961)

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Nathaniel Rich writes for Rolling Stone, Harper's and the New York Times Magazine. His latest novel is Odds Against Tomorrow.

"I'm drawn to obsession. I think I'm an obsessive in a way, probably most writers are. It's an obsessive act to sit at a desk by yourself."

Thanks to TinyLetter and EA SPORTS FIFA WORLD CUP for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show notes:

@NathanielRich

nathanielrich.com

Rich on Longform

[15:45] "Diving Deep Into Danger" (New York Review of Books • Feb 2013)

[21:45] Odds Against Tomorrow (Farrar, Straus & Giroux • Feb 2013)

[23:30] Longform Podcast #64: Gay Talese

[23:45] The Bridge (Gay Talese • Harper & Row • 1964)

[26:15] "The Neverending Nightmare of Amanda Knox" (Rolling Stone • Jun 2011)

[26:30] "Tyler Hadley's Killer Party" (Rolling Stone • Dec 2013)

[35:30] "How to Spend 47 Hours on a Train and Not Go Crazy" (New York Times Magazine • Feb 2013)

[40:00] "For Whom the Cell Tolls" (Harper's • May 2010)

[43:45] "The Man Who Saves You From Yourself" (Harper's • Nov 2013)

[44:30] San Francisco Noir (Little Bookroom • Mar 2005)

[45:15] David Sullivan speaks at the Commonwealth Club (Jul 2010)

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Wesley Morris, a Pulitzer Prize winner, covers film at Grantland.

"That's what writing about race and popular culture is for me: it's crime reporting. It's not me looking for an agenda when I go to the movies ... but I feel a moral responsibility to report a crime being committed. That's what I'm forced to do over and over again."

Thanks to this week's sponsors, Warby Parker and TinyLetter.

Show notes:

@wesley_morris

Morris's Grantland archive

[1:15] Reba modeling Warby Parker

[37:15] "The Cultural Crater of 12 Years a Slave" (Grantland • Oct 2013)

[39:15] "Strange Fruitvale" (Grantland • Jul 2013)

[39:15] Longform Podcast #89: Alice Gregory

[40:00] Longform Podcast #7: Ta-Nehisi Coates

[40:00] "The Case for Reparations" (Ta-Nehisi Coates • The Atlantic • May 2014)

[55:30] "The Unstoppable Scarlett Johansson" (Anthony Lane • New Yorker • Mar 2014)

[47:30] Molly Lambert's Grantland archive

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Gary Smith retired last month after more than 30 years of writing for Sports Illustrated.

"We were on the Santa Monica Freeway, Ali's driving 70 miles an hour and his eyes are drifting asleep—the medication for Parkinson's would do that to him. I'm thinking, 'Oh, crap.' We're weaving between lanes, cars are honking, and I'm wondering in the passenger seat, 'Should I grab the wheel from the greatest champ of all-time?' The writer in me wants to let it go, let the crash happen just so I get a scene for the story. But the human in me was just getting scared as hell."

Thanks to TinyLetter and EA SPORTS FIFA WORLD CUP for sponsoring this week's episode.

Show notes:

Smith on Longform

[18:30] "Crime and Punishment" (Sports Illustrated • Jun 1996)

[39:00] "The Secret Life of Mia Hamm" (Sports Illustrated • Sep 2003)

[40:00] "Someone to Lean On" (Sports Illustrated • Dec 1996)

[41:00] "As Time Runs Out" (Sports Illustrated • Jan 1993)

[42:15] "Tyson the Timid, Tyson the Terrible" (Sports Illustrated • Mar 1988)

[47:45] "Damned Yankee" (Sports Illustrated • Oct 1997)

[48:30] "Ali and His Entourage" (Sports Illustrated • Apr 1988)

[52:00] "Coming Into Focus" (Sports Illustrated • Jul 2006)

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