Longform

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

Carol Loomis retired last summer after 60 years at Fortune. She continues to edit Warren Buffett's annual report. “Writing itself makes you realize where there are holes in things. I’m never sure what I think until I see what I write. And so I believe that, even though you’re an optimist, the analysis part of you kicks in when you sit down to construct a story or a paragraph or a sentence. You think, ‘Oh, that can’t be right.’ And you have to go back, and you have to rethink it all.”  Thanks to TinyLetter and SquareSpace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: Show Notes: [1:00] "Carol Loomis, Editor for Warren Buffet, Leaves Job After 60 Years" (Christine Haughney • The New York Times • July 2014) [14:00] "My 51 Years (and Counting) at Fortune" (Fortune • Sep 2005) [22:00] "You May Be Missing a Bet in Bonds" (Fortune • Sep 1962) [not available online] [22:00] "Should a Company Promote Its Own Stock?" (Fortune • Dec 1965) [not available online] [26:00] "The Jones Nobody Keeps Up With" (Fortune • A

Noreen Malone wrote "Cosby: The Women — An Unwanted Sisterhood," this week's cover story in New York. “We interviewed them all separately, and that was what was so striking: they all kept saying the same thing, down to the details of what they say Cosby did and how they processed it. Those echoes were what helped us know how to shape the story.” Thanks to our sponsor, TinyLetter. Show Notes: @noreenmalone Malone on Lognform [2:00] "Hannibal Buress Called Bill Cosby a Rapist During a Stand Up" (YouTube) [2:00] "Bill Cosby Raped me. Why Did It Take 30 years for People to Believe My Story?" (Barbara Bowman • Washington Post • Nov 2014) [12:00] "Bill Cosby, in Deposition, Said Drugs and Fame Helped Him Seduce Women" (Graham Bowley and Sydney Ember • The New York Times • July 2015) [15:00] "Read Her Story: Helen Gumpel" (New York • July 2015) [17:00] "NY Mag Lost Over 500,000 Page Views on Cosby Cover Story During DDoS Attack" (Sage Lazzaro • Observer • July 2014) [19:00] Audiogram: Victoria Valentino (@nymag I

Ian Urbina, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, just published "The Outlaw Ocean," a four-part series on crime in international waters. “It is a tribe. It has its norms, its language, and its jealousies. I approached it almost as a foreign country that happened to be disparate, almost a nomadic or exiled population. And one that has extremely strict hierarchies—you know when you’re on a ship that the captain is God.” Thanks to TinyLetter and Casper for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @ian_urbina Urbina's New York Times archive [5:00] Review Longform Podcast in iTunes [17:00] "Stowaways and Crimes Aboard a Scofflaw Ship" (The New York Times • July 2015) [18:00] "'Sea Slaves': The Human Misery that Feeds Pets and Livestock" (The New York Times • July 2015) [19:00] "A Renegade Trawler, Hunted for 10,000 Miles by Vigilantes" (The New York Times • July 2012) [24:00] Lloyd's List [27:00] "Murder at Sea: Captured on Video, but Killers Go Free" (The New York Times • July 2014) Learn more

Margaret Sullivan is the public editor of The New York Times. “Jill Abramson said to me early on, ‘What will happen here is you’ll stick around and eventually you’ll alienate everybody, and then no one will be talking to you, and you’ll have to leave.’ I’m about three-quarters of the way there.” Thanks to TinyLetter and Netflix for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @Sulliview [5:00] "One Year Later, 11 Questions for Dean Baquet"(The New York Times • May 2015) [6:00] The Public Editor's Journal [7:00] "AnonyWatch" (The New York Times) [9:00] "The Disconnect on Anonymous Sources" (The New York Times • Oct 2013) [10:00] "Trend-spotting, With Wink at Mr. Peanut" (The New York Times • March 2014) [11:00] "...Introducing The Monocle Meter" (The New York Times • Nov 2014) [11:00] "Women Who Dye Their Armpit Hair" (Andrew Adam Newman • The New York Times • July 2015) [14:00] "Tennis's Top Women Balance Body Image With Ambition" (Ben Rothenberg • The New York Times • July 2015) [16:00] "Double Fault on Ar

Tavi Gevinson is the founder and editor-in-chief of Rookie. "I just want our readers to know that they are already smart enough and cool enough." Thanks to our sponsor, TinyLetter. Show notes: @tavitulle Rookie thestylerookie.com [4:00] "Tavi Says" (Lizze Widdicombe • New Yorker • Sep 2010) [30:00] "A Teen Just Trying to Figure It Out" (TED • Mar 2012) [33:00] Rookie Yearbook Two (Drawn and Quarterly • Oct 2013) [40:00] Longform Podcast #75: George Saunders [43:00] "Super Heroine: An Interview with Lorde" (Rookie • Jan 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ross Andersen is the deputy editor of Aeon Magazine. “One of the things that’s been really refreshing in dealing with scientists—as opposed to say politicians or most business people—is that scientists are wonderfully candid, they’ll talk shit on their colleagues. They’re just firing on all cylinders all the time because they traffic in ideas, and that’s what’s important to them.” Thanks to TinyLetter and AlarmGrid for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @andersen Andersen on Longform [2:00] Aeon on Longorm [5:00] "Zapped" (Mary H.K. Choi • Aeon • Sept 2013) [5:00] "Awaiting Renewal" (Heather Havrilesky • Aeon• July 2013) [5:00] "Brigid Hains on the Launch of Aeon" (Interview by Catherine Balavage • Frost Magazine • Oct 2012) [11:00] "Are We Alone?" (Caleb Scharf • Aeon • June 2013) [14:00] "In The Beginning" (Aeon • May 2015) [15:00] Andersen’s Atlantic archive [20:00] "Gravitational-Wave Detectors Get Ready to Hunt for the Big Bang" (Ross Andersen • Scientific American • Oct 2013) [21:00] "Golden

Anna Holmes, the founding editor of Jezebel, writes for The New York Times and is the editorial director of Fusion. “I think that Jezebel contributed to what I now call ‘outrage culture,’ but outrage culture has no sense of humor. We had a hell of a sense of humor, that's where it splits off. ... The fact that people who are incredibly intelligent and have interesting things to say aren't given the room to work out their arguments or thoughts because someone will take offense is depressing to me.” Thanks to TinyLetter and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: annaholmes.com @annaholmes [2:00] "Is Self-Loathing a Requirement for Writers?" (New York Times Book Review • June 2015) [8:00] Irin Carmon's Jezebel archive [12:00] "The Five Great Lies of Women's Magazines" (Anna Holmes and Moe Tkacik • Jezebel • Nov 2007) [19:00] "Linda Hirshman: I Didn't Call Anyone at Jezebel a Slut" (Emily Bazelon • Double X • May 2009) [24:00] "How to Be a Good Bad American Girl" (New Yorker • Mar 2014) [3

James Verini, a freelance writer based out of Nairobi, won the 2015 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing. “That is probably the most alien, jarring thing about working in Africa: life is much cheaper. More to the point, death is very close to you. We're very removed from death here. Someone can die at 89 in their sleep here and it's called a tragedy. In Africa, I find that I'm often exposed to it. That's part of why I wanted to live there.” Thanks to TinyLetter and Trunk Club for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: jamesverini.com Verini on Longform [1:00] "Love and Ruin" (The Atavist Magazine • Feb 2014 [2:00] "Escape or Die: Capture by Somali Pirates" (New Yorker • Apr 2015) [5:00] "Hostage Support Programme" [9:00] @andrewmarantz [10:00] "Close Your Heart" (Slate • Sep 2014) [27:00] Homebody/Kabul (Tony Kushner) [31:00] Verini's New York Observer archive [32:00] "Will Success Spoil MySpace.com? " (Vanity Fair • Mar 2006) [33:00] Verini's Portfolio archive [34:00] "The Pirate Pose" (Tom W

Rembert Browne is a staff writer at Grantland. “I'm ok with not being at my most refined online. It's happening in real time and some of that is therapeutic. I could write a lot this stuff privately, but I'd rather just hit publish and see what happens. It's a weird world. But I'm super deep in.” Thanks to this week's sponsors: TinyLetter, Trunk Club, and QuickBooks Self-Employed. Show Notes: @rembert REMBLR Browne on Longform [6:00] 500 Days Asunder [7:00] The Dartmouth, America's Oldest College Newspaper [10:00] "Stankoff 2011" [10:00] "Outkast Superfan Puts A Great Amount Of Time And Energy Into Thinking About Outkast Songs" (Dave Bry • The Awl • April 2011) [10:00] Hovafest 2011 [23:00] Browne's complete Grantland archive [23:00] "Rembert Explains the '80s: Double Dare" (Grantland • Jan 2012) [25:00] "Going Way Too Deep Down the Rabbit Hole With Nicki Minaj’s Recent Bar Mitzvah Appearance" (Grantland • Apr 2015) [28:00] "The Front Lines of Ferguson" (Grantland • Aug 2014) [36:00] "Barack and Me" (Grant

Ashlee Vance covers technology for Bloomberg Businessweek and is the author of of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. “To be totally clear, I don’t cover them (apps). I like people who try to solve big problems. Wherever I go, I try to run away from the consumer stuff. I love writing about giant manufacturing plants that make stuff and employ tens of thousands of people.” Thanks to this week's sponsors: TinyLetter, Trunk Club, QuickBooks, and The School of Continuing Education at Columbia University. Show Notes: The Atavist Magazine Podcast: Episode 1 @valleyhack ashleevance.com Vance on Longform [15:00] Vance's Register archive [15:00] Vance's New York Times archive [16:00] "Data Analysts Captivated by R’s Power" (New York Times • Jan 2009) [19:00] The "Semi-Coherent Computing" Podcast [22:00] Longform Podcast #123: Nicholas Carlson [27:00] "This Tech Bubble Is Different" (Bloomberg Businessweek • Apr 2011) [31:00] "Larry Ellison Is Spending a Fortune to Save American Tennis" (

Cheryl Strayed is the author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. “There's a long history, of women especially, saying 'Well, I just got lucky.' I didn't just get lucky. I worked my fucking ass off. And then I got lucky. And if I hadn't worked my ass off, I wouldn't have gotten lucky. You have to do the work. You always have to do the work.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Trunk Club, and HP Matter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @CherylStrayed cherylstrayed.com The Complete Dear Sugar Archive Strayed on Longform [1:00] Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (Knopf • 2012) [1:00] Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar (Vintage • 2012) [4:00] "Dear Sugar #44: How You Get Unstuck" (The Rumpus • July 2010) [9:00] "What Wild Has Wrought" (Nicholas Kristof • May 2015 ) [13:00] Torch (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt • 2006) [28:00] "Dear Sugar #48: Write Like a Motherfucker" (The Rumpus • Aug 2010) [28:00] "Write Like a Motherfucker" coffee mug [1:11:00] Into the Wild (Jon Krak

Masha Gessen has written for The New York Times, The London Review of Books, Vanity Fair, and others. Her book about Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy, came out in April. “The moment she said it, it was obvious that I'd been created to write this story. I'd covered both wars in Chechnya. I'd covered a lot of terrorism. I'd studied terrorism. And I'd been a Russian-speaking immigrant in Boston, which actually is the most important qualification for writing this book. It didn't give me special knowledge, but it gave me a lot of questions that I knew to ask that other people wouldn't.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Trunk Club, and Casper, for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @mashagessen Gessen on Longform [1:00] The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy (Riverhead Books • 2015) [34:00] Longform Podcast #30: Keith Gessen [48:00] Blood Matters (Harcourt • 2008) [50:00] Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot (Riverhead Books • 2014) [50:00] The Man

Sarah Maslin Nir, a reporter for The New York Times, recently published an exposé of labor practices in the nail salons of New York. “The idea of a discount luxury is an oxymoron. And it’s an oxymoron for a reason: because someone is bearing the cost of that discount. In nail salons it’s always the person doing your nails, my investigation found. That has put a new lens on the world for me.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Trunk Club, and Aspiration for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @SarahMaslinNir sarahmaslinnir.flavors.me [1:00] "The Price of Nice Nails" (New York Times • May 2015) [1:00] "Perfect Nails, Poisoned Workers" (New York Times • May 2015) [12:00] "Saying Court Win Helps, Nail Salon Workers Rally" (New York Times • Apr 2012) [30:00] "Fighting a McDonald’s in Queens for the Right to Sit. And Sit. And Sit." (New York Times • Jan 2014) [37:00] Nocturnalist archive [38:00] "Alec Baldwin: Actor, Charmer, Fish Deboner" (New York Times • Jun 2011) [44:00] "City Agencies to Investigate Nail Salons,

Stephen J. Dubner is the co-author, with Steven D. Levitt, of Freakonomics. Their latest book, When to Rob a Bank, came out last week. “I’ve abandoned more books than I’ve written, which I’m happy about. I’m very pro-quitting. We get preached this idea that if you quit something, if you don’t see something through to completion then you’re a loser, you’re a failure. I just think that’s a crazy way to look at things. But it’s also easy to overlook opportunity costs. Like, what could I be doing instead?” Thanks to this week's sponsors: TinyLetter, HP Matter, The Great Courses, and Aspiration. Show Notes: stephenjdubner.com Dubner on Longform [2:00] "The Desert Blues" (Joshua Hammer • The Atavist Magazine • May 2015) [3:00] When to Rob a Bank (with Steven D. Levitt • William Morrow • May 2015) [11:00] "When Numbers Solve a Mystery" (Steven Landsburg • The Wall Street Journal • Apr 2005) [13:00] "Do Parents Matter?" (with Steven D. Levitt • USA Today • May 2005) [13:00] "The Probability That a Real-Estate Agen

George Quraishi is the co-founder and editor of Howler. “We raised $69,001. And that paid for the first issue. I call it subsistence magazine making, because every issue pays for the next one.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Squarespace, The Great Courses, and Aspiration for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @quraishi georgequraishi.com [23:00] "Dispatches From the World Cup" (Luke O'Brien • Slate • Jun 2006) [23:00] "The Beast Of Brazil: A Savage Trip To The Dark Heart Of The World Cup" (Luke O'Brien • Howler • Nov 2014) [23:00] "The Miami Connection" (Robert Andrew Powell • Howler • Mar 2015) [24:00] This Love Is Not For Cowards (Robert Andrew Powell • Bloomsbury • 2012) [42:00] "I’m George Quraishi. Ask Me Anything." (Reddit • Nov 2014) [50:00] Quraishi on Fusion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Andy Greenwald covers television for Grantland. “People are enthusiastic about TV. People want to read about it. They want to talk about it. They want to know more. They want to extend its presence in their lives. People used to talk about the water cooler show, but the internet is that water cooler now and people want to be part of the conversation.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Two5six Festival, The Great Courses, and Aspiration for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @andygreenwald Greenwald's Grantland archive [26:00] "The Bottom of the Glass: Legacy and the Last Season of ‘Mad Men’" (Grantland • Apr 2015) [28:00] "‘Hollywood Prospectus Podcast’: ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Game of Thrones,’ and ‘Batman v Superman’" (Grantland • Apr 2015) [30:00] "‘Empire’ Records: Fox’s New Music-Mogul Drama Embraces Its Soapy Heart" (Grantland • Jan 2015) [33:00] "Marco … YOLO! Why Netflix Spent $90 Million on Its (Terrible) New Series" (Grantland • Dec 2014) [40:00] Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and EMO (St. Martin's G

Alexis Okeowo, a foreign correspondent, has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and Businessweek. “Nigeria is a deeply sexist country. It can be difficult for people to take you seriously. But that also has its benefits, because it’s very easy to disarm your subjects. If I’m interviewing people who underestimate me, I can get them to open up because they somehow think that I’m naïve or I don’t know what I’m doing. So I don’t mind if some sexist general or banker thinks I’m this young little student who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. As long as you tell me what I want to know, it’s great.” Thanks to TinyLetter and MarketingProfs for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @alexis_ok alexisokeowo.com Okeowo on Longform [7:00] "Nigeria’s Stolen Girls" (New Yorker • Apr 2014) [19:00] "Inside the Vigilante Fight Against Boko Haram" (New York Times Magazine • Nov 2014) [31:00] "Freedom Fighter" (New Yorker • Sep 2014) [33:00] "Lagos Must Prosper" (Granta • Apr 2015) [51:00] "How t

Rachel Syme has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Grantland, and more. “You have this sense that you’re bonding, but at the same time you're also going to betray them. Because if you hear this quote that they say or you see it in a mannerism, you write it in your notebook and you think ‘I got it.’” Thanks to TinyLetter, The Great Courses, MarketingProfs, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @rachsyme rachelsyme.com [4:00] "The Broad Strokes" (Grantland • Jan 2014) [4:00] "Azealia Banks on Why No One Really Wants to See Her Naked, Her Impure Thoughts About Barack Obama and Why She's 'Not Here to Be Your Idol'" (Billboard • Apr 2015) [5:00] "Id Girls" (Nick Paumgarten • New Yorker • Jun 2014) [7:00] TLC's Kickstarter [29:00] "Laura Marling Bids Goodbye to All That" (T Magazine • Mar 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anna Sale is the host of Death, Sex & Money. “It's the result of listening, of feeling listened to, that people open up. I look like a crazy person when I do interviews, because sometimes someone will be describing something and I will close my eyes and try to picture what they’re telling me. And if I can’t picture the moment they’re describing I’ll just try to dig in a little bit more.” Thanks to TinyLetter, The Great Courses, MarketingProfs, and WealthFront for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @annasale annasale.com [3:00] The Atavist Magazine [3:00] "Operation Red Falcon" (Ronen Bergman • The Atavist Magazine • Apr 2015) [4:00] Another Round with Heben & Tracy [7:00] "This Senator Saved My Love Life" [10:00] "Brooklyn Left Me Broke and Tired" [15:00] "How to Be a Man With Bill Withers" [32:00] "Living Alone and Liking It. Sometimes." [32:00] "Cheating Happens." [38:00] "Ellen Burstyn's Lessons on Survival" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices