hillary feature in nymag

READ IT.

long read

gawker writer waits outside for chick-fil-a's raffle for free meals for a year/one free meal per week. then finally gets inside and has to endure a chick-fil-a pump up party. 

long read

In 1979, a gay rights activist, communist and Angeleno named Harry Hay — a founder of a neo-­pagan countercultural movement called the Radical Faeries — urged gay men to ‘‘throw off the ugly green frog skin of hetero-­imitation.’’ Instead of fighting for the rights that straights had, like marriage and adoption, the faeries believed that to be gay was to possess a unique nature and a special destiny apart from straight people, and that this destiny would reach its full flowering in the wilds of rural America. So it was perhaps fitting that the faeries began to refer to their secluded outposts as sanctuaries. There are more than a dozen loosely affiliated sanctuaries across three continents today, but in the same year that Hay made his pronouncement, the mother ship of the faeries landed on Short Mountain, one of the tallest points in Middle Tennessee. It remains home to what is almost certainly the largest, oldest, best known and most visited planned community for lesbian, gay and transgender people in the country, a place that one local described to me as a veritable Gayberry, U.S.A. (via)

long read(s)

y'all should check out this NYT series that is underway, called the outlaw ocean. so far there are 4 pieces, all presented in their interactive format. so far, my favorite is the latest one, in which the sea shepherd vessel, the bob barker, of whale wars fame, chases one of the world's most wanted illegal trawlers called tHe ThUnDeR!!!111

READ IT.

long read

you have maybe heard about how california will break off into the ocean at any moment, but did you know there is a 10-33% chance that the entire pacific northwest will break off into the ocean within the next 50 years?

READ IT.

omg you have got to read all of this.

this scientist thinks he knows what happened to that malaysian airliner. READ IT!!

broad city long read

this article's real long and real good.

“Should I fist the tree first, you think, Ab?” Glazer asked. “Or should I give it a rim job? What’s funnier?”

“Definitely fisting!” Jacobson hollered back. “The tree may say no but its heart says yes!”

Glazer went to work. She is a brilliant physical comedian — both women are — and gyrated her compact frame around the tree, oozing over its limbs, French-kissing its bark, straddling it, slapping it, twerking on it, poking it in various orifices. (Jacobson chimed in from the sidelines, “We are always coming up with new holes!”) A crew of about 25 people looked on, but Glazer showed no signs of embarrassment — she only requested inspiration in the form of slow jams — “Give me some dirty music, baby, lemme get my griiiind on!” — and suggested to the director, John Lee, that perhaps she should “try some shots with reverse cowgirl, like my ass right up to the camera. It should feel grotesque, right? We need dat bounce!” She tried different rhythms and angles, holding back laughter while slapping the trunk of the tree with loud thwacks.

Meanwhile, Jacobson was giggling so hard she had to crouch on the ground. “This is so fucking funny,” she said. “This is so fucking funny.” Then, turning to me, she put on a serious face: “She’s not doing this to fall in love with the tree,” she said. “She is doing it to find … answers.” Then, after a pause: “I just hope the tree is over 18.” (via)

long read on the east nashville scene

from NPR's ann powers:

"East Nashville — it was already a worn out phrase when I came here," said the producer and recording studio owner Andrija Tokic, who moved to the area a decade ago, when he was 21. "To me it would be impossible to say what East Nashville is now. It used to be that I could go to any bar, and I would know everyone there, and everybody knew what everybody else was doing. Now, claims the name "East Nashville" for whatever their niche project is."

To an outsider, Tokic may seem to overexaggerate. East Nashville isn't Brooklyn yet; it's not even Seattle. And Nashville remains known for country music, which has never been hotter, commercially. But East Nashville now is at the peak of the classic creative-class arc: A new generation of music- and other makers has built a lifestyle vibrant enough to be irresistible to outsiders, including wealthy locals and newcomers from other cities, whose presence makes it both more profitable to some, and unsustainable for others. (via)

2Pz national treasure

joel's recent installment reminded me that i've been meaning to share this comprehensive look at the acting career of claire danes, who obviously qualifies for national treasure status. it's really old (from before the homeland season 3 premiere), but richard lawson had told me that he just read it, so you can stuff your comments in a christmas stocking.

2Pz long-ish reads

i recommend these articles to you personally.

this one is written by david sedaris about his sister's suicide, but don't worry. it's full of laughs.

Unlike the cottages of our youth, this one did not have a maid’s room. It was too new and fancy for that, as were the homes that surrounded it. Traditionally, all the island houses were on stilts, but more and more often now the ground floors are filled in. They all have beachy names and are painted beachy colors, but most of those built after Hurricane Fran hit the coast, in 1996, are three stories tall and look almost suburban. This place was vast and airy. The kitchen table sat twelve, and there was not one but two dishwashers. All the pictures were ocean-related: seascapes and lighthouses, all with the airborne “V”s that are shorthand for seagull. A sampler on the living-room wall read, “Old Shellers Never Die, They Simply Conch Out.” On the round clock beside it, the numbers lay in an indecipherable heap, as if they’d come unglued. Just above them were printed the words “Who cares?” (via)

this one is the new yorker's take on college football fandom in alabama, or as they call it, "mayhem". it's real snooty, and i loved reading it.

Then there is the fact that, like any one person or institution, the state is rightly proud of the thing in which it is most successful. After the game, Auburn’s athletic director declared that, if his team wins next week’s S.E.C. championship, against Missouri, it would be “a disservice to the nation” were Auburn to be left out of the national championship. (Barring losses, Florida State and Ohio State seem likely to face off in that game.) It’s a ridiculous sentiment, but one I sympathize with: there is no other moment, save for regularly scheduled football games and unscheduled tragedies, like the tornados that struck Tuscaloosa in 2011, when the state of Alabama has the attention of their three hundred and nine million fellow Americans. Who are we, in parts of the country with professional sports to cheer and (relatively) thriving economies to enjoy, to deny Alabamans a bit of crowing? (via)

i clicked on this for the photo alone, but was rewarded with a pretty good article about the man behind the infamous levittown development.

i recommend it to you personally. if you're into old timey new york glamour, the beginnings of suburban development strategies, or falls from grace type stories. CLICK.

a long read for you.

nymag published an excerpt from john heilemann's new barack obama book. it is absolutely riveting and i recommend it to you personally.