Ah, procrastination! I knew I got into a deadline-driven business for a reason. Deadline pressure is the only antidote to procrastination, so here I am on December 31 organizing my Longreads thoughts.

I had trouble limiting myself to five stories so I did a bunch of sublists just for fun. Probably why this took me so long…. 

Top 4 Tech Features I Wish I’d Done

Scott Forstall, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice at Apple (BloombergBusinessWeek): The folks at BusinessWeek realized what few others have: Forstall is the Apple executive most like the late Steve Jobs. While everyone else was still fixated on Jobs retrospectives or wondering about CEO Tim Cook’s next move, BBW delivered a surprising profile of the guy responsible for iOS, the Apple software driving its future. 

Does Quora Really Have All the Answers? (Wired): Gary Rivlin cooly looks in depth at what was the hottest startup of winter 2011 and delivers an engrossing look at its potential without any of the hyperbole. 

Inside Groupon: The Truth About The World’s Most Controversial Company (Business Insider): Hard to believe a company that at its core peddles coupons could be so controversial, and yet, as this gets to in great depth, it most certainly is.

This Is Why Your Tumblr’s Down (Betabeat): A rich exploration into the growing pains of the increasingly popular blog platform in the heat of its server meltdown earlier this year. 

Top 3 Oral Histories of 2011

This felt like the year of the oral history. Where once you could only expect one or two l in a given year, seemingly every week brought some bit of cultural detritus being remembered and misremembered by its principals.  

The Complete Oral History of Party Down (Details): Watch the series on Netflix Instant (before it’s gone!), then get some nice backstory on the creation and casting of the show. 

Blow-Up: An Oral History of Michael Bay, the Most Explosive Director of All Time (GQ): Actually made me appreciate the signature spectacle of Mr. Bay.

The Greatest Paper That Ever Died (Grantland): You knew it was coming given Grantland editor-in-chief’s Bill Simmons’ limited set of obsessions, but extremely well done and didn’t disappoint.  

Top 3 Food Longreads of 2011

A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib As Arbitrage (The Awl): Provocative deconstruction of the McRib’s cult sandwich status that successfully ropes in a critique of our industrialized food supply.

Danny Meyer Is On a Roll (New York Times Magazine): Features the most bravura set piece opening I read this year, and then steadily evolves into a deft takedown, depicting Meyer’s abandonment of the stay-small philosophy that guided him for 25 years so he can chase the grease-stained lucre that comes with a global high-end burger chain. 

Diner for Schmucks (GQ): Longtime food critic Alan Richman lays out a bizarre story of his reviewing experience of the culinary shooting star M. Wells, a haute diner in New York’s Long Island City that was the “it” restaurant for a hot minute and seemingly wilted a bit under the pressure.  

Top 3 Guilty Pleasure Longreads of 2011

Meet the Mollys! Social Network Sweeties Tumbl Upward (New York Observer): Sharply observed bit of faux-trend fluff about the rise of a Tumblr-powered cadre of young women writers, three of whom just happen to be named Molly. I’ll take this over the duditor faux-trend piece any day.   

Coke, Hookers, Hospital, Repeat (GQ): The great Amy Wallace got scooped a bit by Charlie Sheen’s movable feast earlier this year, but she still offers the definitive portrait of being too famous for too long. 

The CrunchFund: Actually, Tim, We Don’t All Have Different Standards (TechCrunch): The long-running (still running, in fact) psychodrama that followed the creation of Mike Arrington’s angel-investment fund and eventually his exit from the tech blog he founded produced a lot of amazing schaudenfreude reads. This early Paul Carr one where he rips his boss’s boss’s boss is my favorite.  

Top 5 Comedy Longreads of 2011

I’m a comedy nerd, so I can’t resist throwing this in the mix: 

Louis C.K. Walks Us Through Louie’s Second Season (Onion AV Club, Parts One, Two, Three, and Four): I’ll admit that I have complicated feelings about Louis C.K., in particular all the outsized, mostly uncritical praise he gets. But that said, what a joy to read in depth about all the creative choices C.K. made on the road to the year’s most compelling (note, not the funniest, or the best, but most demanding of your attention) TV show. 

Travels with Kyle (SplitSider, Parts One, Two, and Three): Kyle Kinane is one the most original voices in standup comedy today, a born storyteller who draws from his colorful life experiences. Isaac Fitzgerald of The Rumpus tags along on a week-long mini-tour of the West with Kinane and files three dispatches from the road, each one a captivating gem of what it’s like to be a performer on the road.   

The Schleppers: Stale Gags & Stale Food in Mid-Century Manhattan (WFMU’s Beware of the Blog): Kliph Nesteroff routinely plumbs long-forgotten but fascinating entertainment history for this site. This profile of the heyday of midtown Manhattan’s performer scene is a standout, full of desperate characters hanging out in delis all day scrounging for scraps of every kind, a great picaresque of a bygone New York. Bonus: The young Rodney Dangerfield profile tucked into the narrative. 

Jon Stewart and the Burden of History (Esquire): I admire the ballsiness to take on Stewart, who has to be the number-one sacred cow in media, and Tom Junod makes many smart points about the difference between adulation and humor. I do wish the piece weren’t quite so overwritten. 

Your Comedy Is So Much Cooler Than Mine (SplitSider): This may not quite qualify as a longread, but I still very much enjoyd Alex Blagg gleefully eviscerating the comedy nerd and his/her holier-than-thou snobbishness.

uhuh-she-said:

angrierangel:

tehblackbird:

paul-dinellos-abs:

youthiswasted:

Emotionally intense images of retired Philadelphia police captain Ray Lewis - who has joined the #OccupyWallStreet protests - being arrested by the NYPD.

Captain Lewis has been outspoken against the NYPD’s wrongful use of violence against peaceful protesters.

From what I have seen, Ray Lewis’ conduct defines honor, bravery, and dignity.

There is a media blackout on images of his participation in the protest, and on his arrest:

crosscrowdedrooms:

It’s proved impossible for me to get this shot of former Philadelphia Police Cpt. Ray Lewis being arrested, published anywhere.  I was adamantly rebuffed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, NYT, local NY papers, and Newsweek, before even looking at the photograph.  One of the only published photos of this paradoxical and intense event is located here at the NYC Observer:

http://www.observer.com/2011/11/former-philadelphia-police-captain-ray-lewis-arrested-ows/

Make this viral and they will come.

Ray Lewis gets 2 posts this morning, because this needs to be seen. I’m not even sure why, but this pair of photos made me cry hysterically.

oh my god. so much props to this man. this country has turned into utter fucking insanity. 

I have so much respect for this man.

Always reblog Cpt. Ray Lewis.

That’s some real shit there.

(via alexblagg)

longreads:

In the weeks after Color’s belly flop last spring, friends and colleagues were concerned that Nguyen might be humiliated, or devastated, or at least very stressed out by the $41 million of venture money invested in his failed product. But Nguyen understands the arithmetic of Silicon Valley, and anyway he isn’t one to reflect. “I never get emotional,” says Nguyen, who hasn’t spoken to his parents in six years. “I can have the biggest argument with someone, and five minutes later, I won’t even remember that it happened.” He’s not even particularly attached to his name. In third grade, he had a crush on a classmate whose mother asked him his name. “I go, ‘Vu.’ She goes, ‘Bill,’ and I go, ‘Aha!’ And all my friends have called me Bill since then,” recalls Nguyen. “My whole point was, I don’t care what people call me. It’s like, whatever’s easier for people, I’m totally cool with it.” He adds, “There is no Vietnamese person in the history of the world born with the name Bill. It’s a total facade.”

“Bill Nguyen: The Boy In The Bubble.” — Danielle Sacks, Fast Company

See more #longreads from Fast Company

Very proud of this one. 

airgordon:

Robert Mays (Editor, Grantland): I said to Bill, I’ve got a story idea.

Bill Simmons (Editor-in-Chief, Grantland): It was a Tuesday and I hadn’t had my coffee yet. That’s about all I remember.

RM: Friday Night Lights is ending and we should write a story about it. Something that hasn’t been…

I am a fan of the oral history story form, but it does seem to be getting a bit of overuse lately. Nicely done, Air Gordon. Look forward to more….

Most Creative Footwear #MCP11 (Taken with instagram)

bajillionhits:

Internet Week NY In-Flight Safety Video

As an official brandbassador/flight attendant for Internet Week NY, I prepared this in-flight safety video to ensure a smooth, successful, socially networked festival for all attendees.

Please take note of my many Internet Week pro-tips, and the sweet Southwest Airlines swag I was just casually hanging out in for no particular financially-motivated reason.

Follow A Bajillion Hits on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube.

(Directed by Andy Schlachtenhaufen)

Nicely done. One bizword in here that I am extremely jealous of. 

edasalazar:

Tell someone how much your love for them hurts. 

supinternets:

I made Marc Maron Valentines. Enjoy.

Other possible Maron-tines: “Well, I’m certainly not going to chase after you.”

“No amount of pancakes can make up for ‘Shut the fuck up.’”

“We good?” 

(via thecomedybureau)

Taken with instagram

Picture of a picture on picturesque Wooster St. Meta meta metaphor

longreads:

Richard Ben Cramer’s “What It Takes” is now widely considered the greatest modern presidential campaign book. But the judgments of Washington’s elite come late to Maryland’s remote Eastern Shore, and the book’s place in political writing has dawned only very late on its author. When it came out in the heat of the 1992 campaign, the tome dropped with a heavy thud. It was viewed as eccentric, affected, too long for its boring subject. Who, four years after he lost, wanted to read 100 pages on Dick Gephardt’s childhood?

By Ben Smith, Politico

It seems almost cliche to express your love for this book, but I have loved it since I read the excerpt from What It Takes on Bush I in Esquire in the fall of 1992.