Longform

Kliph Nesteroff writes for WFMU's Beware of the Blog. His book, The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy, was released in November. “Well, comedy always becomes stale. Whether it’s offensive or not offensive, it has an expiry date, unfortunately. A lot of people don’t want to hear this because that means a lot of their favorite comedians suddenly become irrelevant. But that’s the history of comedy: the hippest, coolest guy today—whoever that is to you in comedy—50 years from now, the new generation is going to say, ‘That guy’s not funny, and he’s square.’ And they’re going to say, ‘This new young guy is funny.’ But in another 50 years that guy becomes the square who isn’t funny. And it’s not that they weren’t funny and everybody was wrong; it was that that person was relating to their time.” Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, Squarespace , and CreativeLive for sponsoring this week's episode. If you would like to pitch in, please become a Longform Supporter. Show Notes: @Clas

Adrian Chen is a freelance journalist who has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Wired. His latest article is "Unfollow," about a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church. “Twitter and social media get such a bad rep for being full of hate and trolls. And, you know, a lot of the stories I’ve written have probably bolstered that stereotype. I think a lot of people have a lot of anxiety and ambivalence about social media even though they love it—they’re on it all the time—and they’re kind of thinking of it as a vice, as something they should be ashamed of, as bad. But this is a very clear win. It's not some abstract thing you could never measure. No, it’s like, [social media] really did cause her to leave the church.” Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, Squarespace, Mack Weldon, and Howl.fm for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @AdrianChen Longform Podcast #13: Adrian Chen Chen on Longform [5:00] "Unfollow" (The New Yorker • Nov 2015) [24:00] "The Agency" (The New York Times

Aleksandar Hemon is a writer from Bosnia whose fiction and non-fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Granta. His books include The Lazarus Project, The Question of Bruno, and The Book of My Lives. “For me and for everyone I know, that's the central fact of our lives. It's the trauma that we carry, that we cannot be cured of. The way things are in Bosnia, it's far from over. It's not peace, it's the absence of war. It's always there as a possibility. There's no way to imagine anything beyond a society defined by war.” Thanks to The Standard Hotels, MailChimp, and Howl.FM for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: aleksandarhemon.com Hemon on Longform [1:00] "The Aquarium" (The New Yorker • Oct 2014) [1:00] The Book of My Lives (Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 2013) [5:00] The Question of Bruno (Vintage • 2001) [23:00] Submission (Michel Houellebecq • Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chip Kidd is a book designer and author. His most recent book is Only What's Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts. “The curious thing about doing a book cover is that you're creating a piece of art, but it is in service to a greater piece of art that is dictating what you're going to do. I may think I've come up with the greatest design in the world, but if the author doesn't like it, they win. And I have to start over.” Thanks to The Standard Hotels, MailChimp, Mack Weldon, Prudential, The Great Courses Plus, and "The Message" for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @chipkidd chipkidd.com [4:00] Kidd's Amazon page [5:00] Only What's Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts (Harry N. Abrams • 2015) [5:00] "Judge This" (TED Books • 2015) [11:00] The Cheese Monkeys (Scribner • 2001) [11:00] The Learners (Workman Publishing Company • 2008) [11:00] Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design (Scribner • 2008) [15:00] Lawrence Wright on the Longform Podcast [16:00] The Looming Tower (

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. His latest book, Between the World and Me, just won the National Book Award. “When I first came to New York, I couldn't see any of this. I felt like a complete washout. I was in my little apartment, eating donuts and playing video games. The only thing I was doing good with my life was being a father and a husband. That was it. David [Carr] was a big shot. And he would call me in, just out of the blue, to have lunch. I was so low at that point. ... He said, ​I think you're a great bet. ... He was remembering people who had invested in him when he was low. That more than anything is why I'm sad he's not here for all of this. Because it's for him. It's to say to him, ​you were right​.” Please become a Longform Supporter. Make your contribution here. Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, Squarespace, MasterClass, and "The Message" for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @tanehisicoates Longform Podcast #7: Ta-Nehisi Coates Longform Podcast #97: Ta

Kurt Andersen is the co-founder of Spy Magazine, the author of several books, and the host of Studio 360. “As a young person, I never thought of myself as a risk-taker. Then I did this risky thing that shouldn't have succeeded, I started this magazine. And it did encourage me to think, ‘Eh, how bad can it be if it fails? Sometimes these long shots work. So fuck it, try it.’” Thanks to MailChimp, MasterClass, The Message, RealtyShares, and Prudential for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @KBAndersen kurtandersen.com Andersen on Longform [2:00] The Spy Magazine archive on Google Books [12:00] Private Eye [19:00] "Felkerism" (New York • Jul 2008) [25:00] "When a Magazine Is Too Brash for the Bottom Line" (Robin Pogrebin • New York Times • Sep 1996) [28:00] Turn of the Century (Random House • 1999) [28:00] Heyday (Random House • 2007) [31:00] "The Digital Bubble " (New Yorker • Jan 1998) [33:00] "Inside Out" (Ken Auletta • New Yorker • May 2006) [40:00] Studio 360 [42:00] "Lily Tomlin's Audacious Lif

Ed Caesar is a freelance writer based in England whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, British GQ, and The Sunday Times Magazine. He is the author of Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon. “That was a really horrific situation. People were being killed in the street in front of us. People were firing weapons in all directions. It was really chaotic and quite scary. It freaked me out. And I thought, 'Actually, there's not a huge amount more of this I want to do in my life.'” Thanks to MailChimp, MasterClass, The Message, RealtyShares, and Prudential for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @edcaesar edcaesar.co.uk Caesar on Longform [2:00] "House of Secrets" (New Yorker • Jun 2015) [sub req'd] [3:00] "Congo: The Horror" (GQ (UK) • Jan 2010) [3:00] "Tehran Nights" (GQ (UK) • Jun 2009) [4:00] We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (Philip Gourevitch • Picador 1999) [5:00] "Blood Oil" (Sebastian Junger • Vanity Fair • Jun 2009) [7:

Jazmine Hughes is an associate editor at The New York Times Magazine. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Elle, Cosmopolitan, and The New Republic. “You hope that one day when you’re the editor-in-chief of Blah, Blah, Blah, that you’ll wake up and be like, ‘Okay, I deserve my job.’ But so far I haven’t met anyone who has told me that they feel that way. But, I will say, I don’t talk to white men a lot.” Thanks to MailChimp, MasterClass, and The Great Courses Plus for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @jazzedloon [3:00] "I Bled Through My Pants My First Day Working for the The New York Times" (Lenny • Oct 2015) [7:00] "Do You Have Impostor Syndrome?" (The Hairpin• Nov 2014) [15:00] "I Dressed Like Cookie from Empire for a Week to Get Over My Imposter Syndrome" (Cosmopolitan• Oct 2015) [23:00] "How Many White People Does It Take to Ruin a Good Joke? (The New Republic • Sept 2015) [24:00] The Secret Fantasies of Adults (New Yorker • Nov 2014) [26:00] I'm Black, He's White. Who Cares? I Do, A

Lena Dunham, the creator and star of HBO's Girls, is the co-founder of Lenny and the author of Not That Kind of Girl. A special episode hosted by Longform Podcast editor Jenna Weiss-Berman. “Writing across mediums can be a really healthy way to utilize your energy and stay productive while not feeling entrapped. But at the end of the day, the time when I feel like life is most just, like, flying by and I don't even know what's happening to me is when I'm writing prose. It's such an intimate relationship that you're having. When you're writing a script, you're making a blueprint for something that doesn't exist yet. But when you're writing prose, the thing exists immediately. And that's really satisfying. It's the best place to go for my deepest and most in-the-now concerns.” Thanks to MailChimp, Prudential, Casper, and The Great Courses for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @lenadunham Dunham on Longform [2:00] "Women of the Hour," Dunham's new podcast (iTunes) [10:00] "Seeing Nora Everywhere" (N

Matthew Shaer is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New York, GQ, and The Atavist Magazine. “I could not turn off the freelance switch in my head. I could not not be thinking about these different types of stories. My Google Alert list looks like a serial killer's.” Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, Howl, and MasterClass for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @matthewshaer matthewshaer.com Shaer on Longform [12:00] "A Shtetl Divided" (Harper's • Jan 2011) [sub req'd] [15:00] Among Righteous Men: A Tale of Vigilantes and Vindication in Hasidic Crown Heights (Wiley & Sons • 2011) [18:00] "A Monster Among the 'From'" (New York • Dec 2011) [24:00] "The Orthodox Hit Squad" (GQ • Sept 2014) [27:00] "Whatsoever Things Are True" (Atavist • Sept 2015) [46:00] "How Thailand's Most Notorious Prison Became a Fight Club" (Men's Journal• Apr 2014) [47:00] "Freedom Fighters" (Hemispheres• Nov 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

John Seabrook is a New Yorker staff writer and the author of The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory. “Whether or not the piece succeeds or fails is not going to depend on whether I’m up to the minute on the latest social media spot to hang out or the latest slang words that are thrown around. It’s going to be the old eternal verities of structural integrity. So much of it is narrative and figuring out the tricks—and they are tricks, really—that make it go as a narrative. And that’s really the most interesting thing. Because you never ultimately have a formula that goes from piece to piece; it’s always going to have to be rediscovered every time you work on a long piece. And that’s kind of fun.” Thanks to MailChimp and MasterClass for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @jmseabrook Seabrook on Longform Seabrook's New Yorker archive [3:00] The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory (W. W. Norton • 2015) [11:00] "The Doctor Is In" (New Yorker • Oct 2013) [20:00] "Blank Space: What Kind of Genius is Ma

Karina Longworth is a film writer and the creator/host of You Must Remember This, a podcast exploring the secret stories of Hollywood. “For me the thing that’s exciting about it is that it’s research, and it’s reportage, and it’s criticism. But it’s also art. It’s creatively done. It’s drama. It consciously tries to engage people on that emotional level.” Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, and MasterClass for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @KarinaLongworth Longworth on Longform Longworth's LA Weekly archive vidiocy.com [8:00] Meryl Streep: Anatomy of an Actor (Phaidon Press • 2014) [8:00] Hollywood Frame by Frame: The Unseen Silver Screen in Contact Sheets, 1951-1997 (Princeton Architectural Press • 2014) [15:00] Holy Motors (Leos Carax • Arte Cinema • 2012) [18:00] "1: The Hard Hollywood Life of Kim Novak" (You Must Remember This • Mar 2014) [26:00] "7: The Many Loves of Howard Hughes, Chapter 1" (You Must Remember This • June 2014) [32:00] "33: Star Wars Episode VII: Lena Horne" (You Must Rem

Jessica Hopper is editor-in-chief of the Pitchfork Review and the author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic. “I have an agenda. You can’t read my writing and not know that I have a staunch fucking agenda at all times.” Thanks to MailChimp, Blue Apron, and Fracture for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @jesshopp Hopper on Longform Hopper's Pitchfork archive [28:00] "Review of Superchunk's I Hate Music" (Brandon Stosuy • Pitchfork • Aug 2013) [35:00] "The Passion of David Bazan" (Chicago Reader • July 2009) [39:00] "How Selling Out Saved Indie Rock" (BuzzFeed • Nov 2013) [39:00] "Read the 'Stomach-Churning' Sexual Assault Accusations Against R.Kelly In Full" (The Village Voice • Dec 2013) [41:00] "Deconstructing Lana Del Rey" (Spin • Jan 2012) [48:00] The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic (Featherproof Books • 2015) [50:00] "Gals/other marginalized folks: what was your 1st brush (in music industry, journalism, scene) w/ idea that you didn'

Ira Glass is the host and executive producer of This American Life. “You can only have so many questions about feelings, I think. At some point people are just like alright, enough with the feelings.” Thanks to MailChimp, EA SPORTS FIFA 16, Fracture, and FRONTLINE's "My Brother's Bomber for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @iraglass Out on the Wire (Jessica Abel • Broadway Books • 2015) [10:00] "1: New Beginnings" (This American Life • Nov 1995) [14:00] Serial [21:00] "75: Kindness of Strangers" (This American Life • Nov 1995) [27:00] Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host [28:00] "480: Human Sacrifice" (This American Life • Nov 2012) [30:00] "562: The Problem We All Live With" (Nikole Hannah-Jones • This American Life • July 2015) [31:00] "564: Too Soon" (This American Life • Aug 2015) [31:00] "565: Lower 9+10" (This American Life • Aug 2015) [35:00] "513: 129 Cars" (This American Life • Dec 2013) [53:00] Longform Podcast #124: Alex Blumberg [54:00] Conan's Farewell Speech Learn more about you

Peter Hessler is a staff writer for The New Yorker. “It may have helped that I didn’t have a lot of ideas about China. You know, it was sort of a blank slate in my mind. …I wasn’t a reporter when I went to Fuling, but I was thinking like a reporter or even like a sociologist: try to respond to what you see and what you hear, and not be too oriented by things you’ve heard from others or things you may have read. Be open to new perceptions of the place or of the people.” Thanks to MailChimp and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: Hessler on Longform Hessler's New Yorker archive [14:00] "Boomtown Girl" (New Yorker • May 2001) [21:00] Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China (HarperCollins • 2006) [21:00] "Travels With My Censor" (New Yorker • Mar 2015) [24:00] "Dr. Don" (New Yorker • Sept 2011) [25:00] "Tales of the Trash" (New Yorker • Oct 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Margo Jefferson, a Pulitzer Prize winner, has written for The New York Times, Newsweek, and Harper's. Her latest book is Negroland: A Memoir. “One of the problems with—burdens of—‘race conversations’ in this country is certain ideological, political, sociological narratives keep getting imposed. This is where the conversation should go, these are the roles we need. In a way, this is the comfort level of my discomfort. ... Maybe we’re all somewhat addicted—I think we are—to certain racial conversations, with their limitations and their conventions.” Thanks to MailChimp and Casper for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @jeffersonmargo Jefferson on Longform Jefferson's New York Times archive Brownscast: The Official Podcast of the Cleveland Browns [19:00] On Michael Jackson (Pantheon • 2006) [20:00] "Critic Jefferson Stays in Off-Broadway Negroland through November" (David Lefkowitz • Playbill • Nov 2001) [29:00] "Thomas Bradshaw by Margo Jefferson: An interview" (BOMB • 2009) [31:00] The Hunger of M

Renata Adler is a journalist, critic, and novelist. Her latest collection of nonfiction is After the Tall Timber. “Unless you're going to be fairly definite, what's the point of writing?” Thanks to MailChimp, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: Adler on Longform Adler's New Yorker archive [7:00] I, Libertine (Theodore Sturgeon • Ballantine Books • 1956) [8:00] After Tall Timber: Collected Nonfiction (Ballantine Books • 2015) [9:00] "Letter from Selma" (New Yorker • Apr 1965) [9:00] "Fly Trans-love Airways" (New Yorker • Feb 1967) [15:00] "Letter from Israel" (New Yorker • Jun 1967) [sub req'd] [17:00] "Letter from Biafra" (New Yorker • Oct 1969) [sub req'd] [34:00] Adler's New York Times film reviews archive [47:00] "An American Original: Excerpts from Pat Moynihan's letters" (Steven Weisman • Vanity Fair • Oct 2010) [50:00] "The Perils of Pauline" (The New York Review of Books • Aug 1980) [1:08:00] "Two Trials" (New Yorker • June 1986) [sub req'd] [1:09:00] Reckless Disregard:

S.L. Price is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. “The fact is, if you write about sports and people think they're just reading about sports, they'll read about drug use. They'll read about sex. They'll read about sex change. They'll read about communism. They'll read about issues they couldn't possibly care about, issues that if they saw them in any other part of the paper they would just gloss over. But because it's about sports—because there's a boxing ring or a baseball field or a football field—they'll be more patient and you can get some issues under the transom.” Thanks to Pitt Writers and TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @bySLPrice Price on Longform Price's Sports Illustrated archive [8:00] "Too Slick, Too Loud, Too Successful: Why John Calipari Can't Catch a Break" (Sports Illustrated • Mar 2011) [9:00] "A Death in the Baseball Family" (Sports Illustrated • Sept 2007) [9:00] Heart of the Game: Life, Death, and Mercy in Minor League America (Ecco • 2009) [14:00] "Max Le

William Finnegan is a New Yorker staff writer and the author of Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life. “I suppose in retrospect I was just trying to find out what the world held that nobody could tell me about until I got there. I was a big reader and had a couple of degrees by that point, but there was something not well over the horizon that I wanted to get near and record and understand, and I even felt like it would transform me.” Thanks to TinyLetter, SquareSpace, and The Great Courses for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: Finnegan on Longform Finnegan's New Yorker archive [6:00] "Playing Doc's Games" (New Yorker • Aug 1992) [8:00] Crossing the Line: A Year in the Land of Apartheid (Persea • 1986) [37:00] "The Emergency" (New Yorker • May 1989) [sub req'd] [38:00] "Getting The Story" (New Yorker • June 1987) [sub req'd] [40:00] "A Theft in The Library" (New Yorker • Oct 2005) [sub req'd] [41:00] "Tears of the Sun: A Fortune at the Top of the World" (New Yorker • Apr 2015) [49:00] Of a Fire on the M

Tim Ferriss is the author of The Four Hour Workweek and The Four Hour Body. “If you have a fitness magazine, you can’t just write one issue, ‘Here are the rules!’ ... My job, conversely, is to make myself obsolete. The last thing I want to be is a guru, someone people come to for answers. I want to be the person people come to for better questions.” Thanks to TinyLetter and The Great Courses for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @tferriss Ferriss's blog Ferriss's podcast [8:00] "Brigade De Cuisine" (John McPhee • New Yorker • Feb 1979) [sub req'd] [10:00] "How to Live Like a Rock Star (or Tango Star) in Buenos Aires…" (Four-Hour Workweek • Mar 2007) [13:00] George Plimpton’s Longform Archive [20:00] Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character (Richard Feynman • W.W. Norton • 1985) [22:00] José Aldo MMA Highlights (YouTube) [24:00] "How Choose Your Adventure Was Born" (Marketplace • Apr 2014) [30:00] Episode #304: Heretics (This American Life • Dec 2005) [40:00] "Some Pra