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Latest Episodes:

Episode 507: Rachel Aviv Oct 12, 2022

Show notes

Rachel Aviv is a staff writer for The New Yorker. Her new book is Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us.

“I used to feel that if I knew everything, that was a good sign. And I've become more aware that if you know everything you want to argue, that's not such a good sign…. Do I have a genuine question? Is there something I’m trying to figure out? Then the story is worth telling. But if I don’t really have a question or if my question is already answered, then maybe that should give you pause.”

Show notes:

@rachelaviv
Aviv on Longform
Aviv on Longform Podcast
Aviv's New Yorker archive
05:00 Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us (Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 2022)
03:00 "How An Ivy League School Turned Against A Student" (New Yorker • Mar 2022)
11:00 "Anorexia, The Impossible Subject" (Alice Gregory • New Yorker • Dec 2013)
12:00 "The Trauma of Facing Deportation" (New Yorker • Mar 2017)
28:00 The Warmth of Other Suns (Isabel Wilkerson • Vintage • 2011)

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Episode 506: Sam Anderson Oct 05, 2022

Show notes

Sam Anderson is a writer for New York Times Magazine and the author of Boom Town.

“I love being in that place where everything is just coming in, and everything is potentially important, and I’m underlining every great sentence that John McPhee has ever written and then I’m typing it up into this embarrassingly long set of reading notes, documents, organized by books. And then when you sit down with it as a writer who has a job, and his job is to fill a little window of a magazine or website, all of that ecstatic inhaling has to stop. You realize that you’ve collected approximately 900,000% of what you need or could ever use.”

Show notes:

@shamblanderson
shamblanderson.com
Anderson on Longform
Anderson’s New York TImes Magazine archive
03:00 "Kevin Durant and (Possibly) the Greatest Basketball Team of All Time" (New York Times Magazine • June 2021)
05:00 "The Mind of John McPhee" (New York Times Magazine • Sept. 2017)
05:00 Draft No. 4 (John McPhee • Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 2017)
07:00 "The Fierce Imagination of Haruki Murakami" (New York Times Magazine • Oct, 2011)
10:00 Boom Town (Crown • 2019)
19:00 "The Inscrutable Brilliance of Anne Carson" (New York Times Magazine • March 2013)
20:00 "David’s Ankles: How Imperfections Could Bring Down the World’s Most Perfect Statue" (New York Times Magazine • Aug. 2016)
35:00 "The Weirdly Enduring Appeal of Weird Al Yankovic" (New York Times Magazine • April 2022)
35:00 "The Mad Liberationist" (New York • May 2010)
35:00 "Laurie Anderson Has a Message for Us Humans" (New York Times Magazine • Nov. 2021)
35:00 "The Uses of ‘Mythologies’" (Richard Brody • New Yorker • April 2012)

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Episode 505: Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa Sep 28, 2022

Show notes

Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa are reporters for The Washington Post and co-authors of the new book His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice.

“Looking at George Floyd's family history, looking at the poverty that he grew up in, looking at the schools that he attended, which were segregated, looking at the opportunities that were denied to him and the struggles he had in the criminal justice system—it's an extraordinary American experience, in part because it's so outside of the norm of what we think of when we think of the American dream…. And so we wanted to be able to showcase that that kind of extraordinary American experience is ordinary for so many people.”

Show notes:

@newsbysamuels
@ToluseO
Samuels’s Washington Post archive
Olorunnipa’s Washington Post archive
00:00 His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice (Viking • 2022)
03:00 "Covid-19 Is Ravaging Black Communities. A Milwaukee Neighborhood Is Figuring Out How to Fight Back." (Robert Samuels • Washington Post • Apr 2020)
04:00 "Stumbling Toward Wokeness" (Robert Samuels • Washington Post • Jul 2020)
05:00 "George Floyd’s America" (Washington Post Staff • Washington Post • Oct 2020)

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Episode 504: Pablo Torre Sep 21, 2022

Show notes

Pablo Torre is a sports journalist and the host of the ESPN Daily podcast.

“I have an open borders policy as a podcast. All are welcome, but I’m specifically appealing to people who want a little bit more of that magazine curation. What if I gave you one thing today, and that thing was the thing you needed, and what if that thing is deliberately different from every other way you consume sports? That’s the premise.”

Show notes:

@pablotorre
pablotorre.squarespace.com
Torre on Longform
Torre on Longform Podcast
Torre’s ESPN Daily archive
11:00 "Sue Bird on the WNBA Finals, Retirement, and a Career Like No Other" (Torre • ESPN • Sept 2022)
15:00 "The Survivor: From the Holocaust to the Munich Massacre, One Athlete’s Incredible Story" (Torre • ESPN • Sept 2022)
18:00 "The No. 16 Seed University of Maryland Baltimore County Topples Virginia in a Historic Sports Upset" (Ian Crouch • New Yorker • March 2018)
21:00 "Inside Jeremy Lin’s Life After Linsanity and the New York Knicks" (ESPN The Magazine • March 2015)
21:00 "The 76ers Plan to Win (Yes, Really)" (ESPN The Magazine • Jan 2015)
23:00 "WATCH: Sixers Fans Get Married at NBA Draft Lottery Party" (Nihal Kolur • Sports Illustrated • May 2018)
27:00 "How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke" (Sports Illustrated • March 2009)

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Episode 503: Evan Osnos Sep 14, 2022

Show notes

Evan Osnos is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His new book is Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury.

“I'm always trying to get inside a subculture. That's the thing that I think has been the most enduring, attractive element for me. Is there a world that has its own manners and vocabulary and internal rhythms and status structure? And who looks down on whom? And why? And who venerates whom? Who's a big deal in these worlds? And if I can get into that, it doesn't even really matter to me that much what the subculture is. I'm fascinated by trying to map that thing out.”

Show notes:

@eosnos
evanosnos.com
Osnos on Longform
Osnos’s New Yorker archive
00:00 The Making of America’s Fury (Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 2021)
02:00 "Life After White Collar Crime" (New Yorker • Aug 2021)
03:00 "Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich" (New Yorker • Jan 2017)
05:00 Osnos’s Chicago Tribune archive
19:00 "The Boxing Rebellion" (New Yorker • Jan 2008)
24:00 "Born Red" (New Yorker • Apr 2015)
34:00 "Wastepaper Queen" (New Yorker • Mar 2009)
38:00 "The Grand Tour" (New Yorker • Apr 2011)
46:00 "Welcome to the United States: The Shutdown Edition" (New Yorker • Oct 2013)
49:00 "The Haves and Have-Yachts" (New Yorker • Jul 2022)

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Episode 502: Graciela Mochkofsky Sep 07, 2022

Show notes

Graciela Mochkofsky is a writer for The New Yorker and dean of CUNY's Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. She has written six nonfiction books in Spanish. Her new book, her first in English, is The Prophet of the Andes.

“It connects with me as a journalist, actually — it’s this idea of just seeking truth and how elusive that is. So this is a person who thinks he can get to the true meaning of God and of how he needs to live. And he thinks that by asking the right questions, and by reading, and reading, and reading, and by discussing collectively, he can get to the truth. And he can’t.”

Show notes:

@gmochkofsky
Mochkofsky on Longform
Mochkofsky’s New Yorker archive
03:00 Timerman: El periodista que quiso ser parte del poder (Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial Argentina • 2012)
14:00 The Sirens of Mars (Sarah Stewart Johnson • Crown • 2021)
21:00 "The Missing Borges" (The Paris Review • April 2014)
21:00 "Henry Kissinger Will Not Apologize" (The Atlantic • Nov 2016)
21:00 "Obama’s Bittersweet Visit to Argentina" (New Yorker • March 2016)
21:00 "Mexico’s Literary Prankster Goes to War With His Publisher" (New Yorker • Dec 2015)
25:00 "CUNY’s New Spanish-Language Journalism Program, With Big Ambitions, Opens for Applications" (Shan Wang • Nieman Lab • March 2016)

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Episode 501: Nona Willis Aronowitz Aug 31, 2022

Show notes

Nona Willis Aronowitz, an editor and author, writes a sex and love advice column for Teen Vogue. Her new book is Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution.

“I'm getting a lot of emails from people saying basically ‘You've inspired me to break up with my man tomorrow.’ Or ‘I may not ever break up with my man, but I'm starting to tell the truth, at least to myself, about my relationship.’ And I think a lot of people — even though I think being open about your feelings and acceptance of all kinds of lifestyles are two tenants of modern society — I still think there's a lot of silence around dissatisfaction around sex and love.”

Show notes:

@nona
theothernwa.com
Willis Aronowitz on Longform
Willis Aronowitz’s Teen Vogue archive
02:00Willis Aronowitz’s Good archive
02:00Willis Aronowitz’s Splinter archive
04:00 "Ellen Willis, 64, Journalist and Feminist, Dies" (Margalit Fox • New York Times • Nov 2006)
10:00 "Consciousness-Raising Groups and the Women’s Movement" (Erin Blakemore • JSTOR Daily • March 2021)
29:00 "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About ‘Bad Sex’ But Were Afraid to Ask" (Jessica Bennett • New York Times • Aug 2022)
43:00 Out of the Vinyl Deeps (Ellen Willis • University of Minnesota Press • 2011)
43:00 The Essential Ellen Willis (Ellen Willis • University of Minnesota Press • 2014)
43:00Ellen Willis’ New Yorker archive

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Episode 500: Caitlin Dickerson Aug 24, 2022

Show notes

Caitlin Dickerson is a staff writer for The Atlantic covering immigration. Her latest article, on the secret history of U.S. government’s family-separation policy, is ”An American Catastrophe.”

“Interviewing separated families, I’ve found, is just on a whole other scale of pain and trauma. I’ve watched people have really intense PTSD flashbacks in front of me. I never wanted to risk asking a family to open up in that way if I didn’t know that I’d be able to use that material. The worst thing you can do is waste someone’s time in a way that causes them pain.”

Show notes:

@itscaitlinhd
Dickerson on Longform
Dickerson’s Atlantic archive
09:00 Dickerson’s New York Times archive
09:00 Dickerson’s NPR archive
15:00 The Fifth Risk (Michael Lewis • W.W. Norton • 2019)

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Episode 499: Yudhijit Bhattacharjee Aug 17, 2022

Show notes

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee is a contributing writer for National Geographic and the New York Times Magazine. His new podcast is Chameleon: Scam Likely.

“I want a crumpled piece of paper where there are enough ridges and valleys and lines for me to be able to navigate, and they have to be authentic. And then of course the best stories among them will have surprise and intrigue, and things that are completely unexpected happen somewhere along the way. But it's hard to anticipate all of that. You still have to have a little bit of faith.”

Show notes:

@Yudhijit
yudhijit.com
Bhattacharjee on Longform
Bhattacharjee’s National Geographic archive
Bhattacharjee’s New York Times archive
03:00 "Who’s Making All Those Scam Calls?" (New York Times Magazine • Jan 2021)
06:00 "The Downfall of India’s Kidney Kingpin" (Discover Magazine • Aug 2010)
09:00 Natalie Angier’s New York Times archive
09:00 George Johnson’s New York Times archive
09:00 Gina Kolata’s New York Times archive
18:00 Bhattacharjee’s Science archive
26:00 "The Man Who Captures Criminals for the D.E.A. by Playing Them" (New Yorker • July 2018)
29:00 "My Father and Me: A Spy Story" (GQ • June 2012)
29:00 The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell (Penguin Random House • 2016)

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Episode 498: Hannah Goldfield Aug 10, 2022

Show notes

Hannah Goldfield is the food critic at The New Yorker.

“There are just only so many ways to say ‘crunchy.’ There's ‘crunchy,’ there's ‘crisp,’ there's ‘crispy,’ you can say something ‘crackles,’ and that's kind of it. It's really, really hard. And a lot of things are crunchy. It's a really specific sensation that needs to be described. But I've had moments where I'm like, I can't say crunchy again in a sentence. What am I going to do? How do I get this across?”

Show notes:

@hannahgoldfield
Goldfield’s New Yorker archive
02:00 My Best Friend’s Wedding (P.J. Hogan • Sony • 1997)
03:00Ruth Reichl's New York Times archive
09:00 Ratatouille (Brad Bird • Disney • 2007)
10:00 Garlic and Sapphires (Ruth Reichl • Penguin Random House • 2005)
15:00 "The Pandemic-Proof Atmosphere of the Odeon Outside" (New Yorker • Oct 2020)
15:00 "The Odeon Responds to the New Yorker" (Lynn Wagenknecht • Tribeca Citizen • Nov 2020)
22:00 "The Glorious Fish and Chips at Dame" (New Yorker • Jan 2021)
27:00 "Burmese Food and a Hopeful Vision at Yun Café & Asian Mart" (New Yorker • Sept 2020)
35:00 "How Kim Kardashian Is Bringing Buzz (and Business) to Staten Island" (Alyson Krueger • New York Times • May 2022)

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