Longform

Brooke Gladstone is the co-host of On the Media and the author of The Influencing Machine. “I'm not going to get any richer or more famous than I am right now. This is it, this is fine — it's better than I ever expected. I don't have anything to risk anymore. As far as I’m concerned, I want to just spend this last decade, decade and a half, twenty years, doing what I think is valuable. I don’t have any career path anymore. I’m totally off the career path. The beautiful thing is that I just don’t have any more fucks to give.” Thanks to Audible, Open Source, MailChimp, Igloo, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @OTMBrooke On the Media [10:00] "The Case Against the MX" (Inquiry • Aug 1979) [pdf] [12:00] Fred Kaplan's Slate archive [22:00] "Vanity Plates" (Bob Garfield • On the Media • Feb 2003) [24:00] "Reporting Around DHS Opacity" (On the Media • Oct 2013) [33:00] "The Anatomy of Six Shootings" (On The Media • Aug 2014) [35:00] The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media (W. W. Norton & Company • 2011) [56:00] "Margaret Atwood Writes for the Future" (On the Media • Jun 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Venkatesh Rao is the founder of Ribbonfarm and the author of Breaking Smart. “I would say I was blind and deaf and did not know anything about how the world worked until I was about 25. It took until almost 35 before I actually cut loose from the script. The script is a very, very powerful thing. The script wasn’t working for me.” Thanks to MailChimp and CreativeLive for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @vgr Ribbonfarm Rao on Longform [3:00] "Seeking Density in the Gonzo Theater" (Ribbonfarm • Jan 2012) [5:00] "You Are Not an Artisan" (Ribbonfarm • July 2013) [6:00] Breaking Smart: Season 1 [11:00] "Why Software Is Eating the World" (Marc Andreessen • Wall Street Journal • Aug 2011) [19:00] Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction (Philip E. Tetlock • Crown • 2015) [31:00] "The End of History?" (Francis Fukuyama • The National Interest • 1989) [pdf] [39:00] Quora [48:00] "Deep Play" (Aeon • Nov 2013) [48:00] "The American Cloud" (Aeon • July 2013) [48:00] "Why Solving Climate Change Will Be Like Mobilizing for War" (The Atlantic • Oct 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Doug McGray is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of California Sunday and Pop-Up. “Your life ends up being made up of the things you remember. You forget most of it, but the things that you remember become your life. And if you can make something that someone remembers, then you’re participating in their life. There’s something really meaningful about that. It feels like something worth trying to do.” Thanks to MailChimp, Smart People Podcast, Howl, and CreativeLive for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @dougmcgray douglasmcgray.com Pop-Up Magazine McGray on Longform California Sunday on Longform [11:00] "The Invisibles" (West • Apr 2006) [14:00] "Episode 329: Nice Work If You Can Get It" (This American Life • Apr 2007) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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: @ClassicShowbiz Nesteroff on Longform [1:00] The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy (Grove Press • 2015) [14:00] Monty Python: Live at Drury Lane (Charisma • 1974) [14:00] Stan Freberg with the Original Cast (Capitol • 1959) [14:00] Wayne and Shuster: In Person Comedy Performance (Columbia • 1960) [15:00] Vaughn Meader: The First Family (Cadence • 1962) [21:00] "Episode 314: Kliph Nesteroff" (WTF • Sept 2012) [28:00] "A History of Christian Archie Comics" (2005) [28:00] "American Idol" (Jim Windolf • Vanity Fair • Nov 2006) [30:00] WFMU [31:00] "The Christian Action Films of Erik Estrada" (WFMU's Beware of the Blog • Nov 2006) [32:00] "The Forgotten Murray Roman" (WFMU's Beware of the Blog • Nov 2007) [48:00] "Destination Subconscious: Cary Grant and LSD" (WFMU's Beware of the Blog • Mar 2010) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Magazine • June 2015) [37:00] "Don't Be a Stranger" (The New Inquiry • Feb 2013) [37:00] "The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics And Beheadings Out Of Your Facebook Feed" (Wired • Oct 2014) [42:00] "The Troll Hunters" (MIT Technology Review• Dec 2014) [48:00] Vote for your favorite articles of the year in Longform's Best of 2015 Readers' Poll Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 (Lawrence Wright • Knopf • 2008) [22:00] Charles Burns's Black Hole cover [31:00] Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (Little Brown and Company • 2004) [35:00] What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Knopf • 2004) [35:00] Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack & the Japanese Psyche (The Harvill Press • 2000) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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-Nehisi Coates Coates on Longform Coates' The Atlantic archive [5:00] "A Letter To My Son" (The Atlantic • Jul 2015) [12:00] "To Raise, Love, and Lose a Black Child" (The Atlantic • Oct 2014) [12:00] "The Case for Reparations" (The Atlantic • June 2014) [31:00] Ragtime (E.L. Doctorow • Random House • 1975) [33:00] The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin • Dial Press • 1963) [38:00] "The Really Big One" (Kathryn Schulz • New Yorker • July 2015) [40:00] "The Black Experience Isn't Just About Men" (Shani O. Hilton • Buzzfeed • July 2015) [42:00] "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration" (The Atlantic • Oct 2015) [47:00] "Ta-Nehisi Coates to Write Black Panther Comic for Marvel" (George Gene Gustines • New York Times • Sept 2015) [53:00] "'This Is How We Lost to the White Man': The Audacity of Bill Cosby's Black Conservatism" (The Atlantic • May 2008) [54:00] "American Girl" (The Atlantic • Jan/Feb 2009) [59:00] "How ESPN's Fear Of The Truth Defeated 'Black Grantland'" (Greg Howard • Deadspin • Oct 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Life" (Studio 360 • Aug 2015) [54:00] "Here Is New York" (E.B. White • 1949) [pdf] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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) [7:00] "The Visit: Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Life Inside" (The Independent • Sep 2011) [7:00] "Jon Bon Jovi" (The Independent • May 2006) [10:00] The Guardian Long Read [17:00] "Hell Is Other People" (GQ (UK) • May 2014) [22:00] Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon (Simon & Schuster • 2015) [23:00] "Sammy Wanjiru: The Runner They Left Behind" (Sunday Times Magazine • Nov 2011) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices