'I take out $50,000 in student loans every single year, and it sucks. I have to work 20 hours a week to pay off the interest. I hate sitting here knowing I’m working my ass off only so my money can go to supporting genocide.'

Columbia Daily Spectator New York Magazine nymag.com/intelligencer/…

'[A]n elevator door opened and there was Bing, magisterial in every respect: a lean, muscular hundred and forty-five pounds...' Nick Paumgarten for The New Yorker #longreads newyorker.com/magazine/2024/…

'What has unfolded this year around Snows Court is an old-fashioned neighborhood melodrama — 'Kittygate,' if you must — complete with wounded feelings, rampant gossip, sidewalk spies, lawsuit threats and tricky questions . . .' The Washington Post #longreads

washingtonpost.com/style/of-inter…

And this week's Audience Award 🏆 goes to...

'Streaming Behind Bars'
Philip Vance Smith II, Film Comment Magazine

filmcomment.com/blog/streaming…

5. How ‘Go,’ the Wildest, Druggiest, Horniest Cult Movie of 1999 Got Made (And Almost Didn’t), Paul Schrodt

'But crucially, the piece communicates how much *fun* it can be to make a movie outside of the tentpole factory.'

gq.com/story/how-the-…

4. Sicily Sold Homes for One Euro. This Is What Happened Next. Lisa Abend

'One thing seems clear from Abend’s fun fact-finding mission: both buyers and locals seem to be getting more than what they bargained for.'

afar.com/magazine/sicil…

3. Why You Can’t Get a Restaurant Reservation, Adam Iscoe

'Adam Iscoe writes 5,000 words on NYC’s restaurant reservation ecosystem that I didn’t know I needed.'

newyorker.com/news/our-local…

2. Discovering the First Other Earths, Lisa Kaltenegger

'The topic of new worlds that could support life is a fascinating one, of course, but it’s Kaltenegger’s humanity that brings her writing to life.'

nautil.us/discovering-th…

1. Full Metal Sponcon, Jasper Craven

'This incisive feature offers a window into the commodification of right-wing aggression, anti-wokeness, and Trumpism.'

thebaffler.com/salvos/full-me…

Our Top 5:

∙Warrior-culture capitalism The Baffler
∙The joy of scientific discovery Nautilus Magazine
∙Booking a table—for a price The New Yorker
∙Houses in Sicily for one euro AFAR Media
∙An oral history of Go, 25 years later GQ Magazine

Read why we picked these stories ⬇️…

'The officers accused of abusing teenagers spanned the ranks, from patrolmen to police chiefs. Some were department veterans cited in news articles for their community work.'

Lakeidra Chavis Daphne Duret Joseph Neff The Marshall Project #longreads themarshallproject.org/2024/05/01/pol…

'Their digital camera showed that 90 photos were taken a week after they went missing, between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., mostly of nothing but dark woods.' #longreads

longreads.com/2024/05/07/dea…

From my essay today Longreads:
'Her hair had always been a stubborn mass of curls. A stylist once bothered to count fourteen cowlicks on her head, a bob that normally points every which way: up, left, front, back, under, through...'

'Through our phones, we are under perpetual surveillance by companies that buy and sell data about what kind of person we are, whom we might vote for, what we might purchase, and what we might be nudged into doing.'

Jia Tolentino @newyorker #longreads

newyorker.com/culture/the-we…

I have a personal essay up today at @longreads. It's personal in every sense.

It covers the most difficult year of my life, as memories from my childhood pressed to the fore and, as my parents' were vanishing, I became the keeper of our history.

'Sometimes she would threaten to leave, but he countered that he would track us down and set fire to wherever we went, with us inside. I was small, skittish, but fear motivated escape in me, while it rooted her in place.' Sarah Stankorb

longreads.com/2024/05/09/dem…

'A passionate few think that Bigfoot did it, which is the only scientifically sound argument. Radioactive Bigfoot.' Leyton Cassidy's new #longreads essay is packed with mysteries.

longreads.com/2024/05/07/dea…

'I felt like the world stood still for a beautiful moment, and then a new worldview snapped into place, containing real worlds that just might be like ours.'

Nautilus Magazine #longreads
nautil.us/discovering-th…

'Today, whether mashed or cut into tiny fist-length spears, avocados are increasingly recommended as not just one of the first but THE first solid food for babies ... ' Cathy Erway 陳凱琳 TASTE tastecooking.com/the-united-sta…

'The tattooed, cutoff-clad 29-year-old has become the Joshua Tree area’s premier rattlesnake wrangler.'

Alex Wigglesworth @LATimes #longreads

latimes.com/environment/st…