Best pieces, long or short, that you read this week 11/27 to 12/3

[Double Down]

Putting this post here because this board seems to get the most traffic.

I'm guest editing a fairly-popular newsletter this week, picking stories to include as sort of a "Best of..."

If you read something you enjoyed and would like to see it considered (needs to be published this week, or at worst, last week) post it here or shoot me a PM and I'd love to give it a read. Have been spending all week reading thus far...

Doesn't need to be "longform" (a term I loathe), just something that's good.

Many thanks!

 

[typefitter]

It'll be tough to top this one.

A woman approached The Post with dramatic — and false — tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation.

 

[lcjjdnh]

From last week, and more of an analysis than a reported story, but found this very interesting.

The new great game in the Middle East

 

[Inky_Wretch]

This was very good. I ordered the book off it.

How a Murder in the Grand Canyon Changed Three Lives

 

[LongTimeListener]

Warriors' Kevin Durant on finding his black identity in America

A long interview.

I didn’t have it as rough when it comes to that, as far as social or systematic oppression or any social issues. They didn’t really apply to me because I could put a ball in a basket. Just me saying that kind of woke me up a little bit, like “Damn, that’s all I’m good for?” Like, if I wasn’t a basketball player, what kind of man would they look at me as, you know what I’m saying?

In terms of what value can I bring to you outside of playing basketball. I bring a lot of value to people as far as how I treat them, how I encourage them, how I just try to be a good person to them. I feel there’s like a lot of black men that have those traits, but they often just get stereotyped or judged off of one incident or not given a second chance.

 

[lcjjdnh]

Also, I’m a big fan of Lunch with the FT in general, so perhaps I’m biased, but this one was pretty good. Bernie Ecclestone is bonkers.

Subscribe to read

 

[Slacker]

This is from last week, but I just found it, and anyway it's a new thread.
Gregg Doyel with a solid winner about overcoming some personal struggles.

It was a stupid idea – but then, this story is full of dumb ideas. Starting with my idea to see a therapist.

You couldn’t find someone less into therapy than I am, but a drowning person will grab onto anything, and a few years back the water was up to my neck. Not to get too personal – OK, we’re already way past that – but the third week of October 2014 was rough. The divorce became final that Oct. 17, a Friday. The job here at IndyStar started on Oct. 20.

So much was happening, all at once: Pack my house near Cincinnati, get it ready to sell, move to Indiana. Help the ex-wife move into her new home back in Ohio. Help my younger son move with her – while my older son is starting his freshman year of college, three hours away.

It was too much. That first year here in Indianapolis was the best year of my life, professionally – and the worst of my life, personally. The stress overload had made me a basket case: volatile, emotional, confused and overwhelmed by the speed with which life was changing. It didn’t take much to set me off in those days. Tears of joy, tears of pain, it was hard to tell the difference.

So, anyway. The therapist.

Doyel: Stupid idea will help me have a happy Thanksgiving

 

[Double Down]

This is from last week, but I just found it, and anyway it's a new thread.
Gregg Doyel with a solid winner about overcoming some personal struggles.

It was a stupid idea – but then, this story is full of dumb ideas. Starting with my idea to see a therapist.

You couldn’t find someone less into therapy than I am, but a drowning person will grab onto anything, and a few years back the water was up to my neck. Not to get too personal – OK, we’re already way past that – but the third week of October 2014 was rough. The divorce became final that Oct. 17, a Friday. The job here at IndyStar started on Oct. 20.

So much was happening, all at once: Pack my house near Cincinnati, get it ready to sell, move to Indiana. Help the ex-wife move into her new home back in Ohio. Help my younger son move with her – while my older son is starting his freshman year of college, three hours away.

It was too much. That first year here in Indianapolis was the best year of my life, professionally – and the worst of my life, personally. The stress overload had made me a basket case: volatile, emotional, confused and overwhelmed by the speed with which life was changing. It didn’t take much to set me off in those days. Tears of joy, tears of pain, it was hard to tell the difference.

So, anyway. The therapist.

Doyel: Stupid idea will help me have a happy Thanksgiving

Loved this so much.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Personal, nostalgic and heart-warming.

My 22 Crushes

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

As a teen, he savagely beat a classmate. The attack was forgotten, until he went into politics


Crazy story about a crazy guy.

 

[Songbird]

I think I read this quote a day or two earlier lol

He believes, as Norman Maclean stated in "A River Runs Through It," that the world is full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula, Montana.

The Sunday Long Read

 

[Webster]

As a teen, he savagely beat a classmate. The attack was forgotten, until he went into politics


Crazy story about a crazy guy.

My two half-brothers went to that school at the same time. That's an insane story

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

California Sunday Magazine is on a roll. Love the daughter's annotations:

Raising a Teenage Daughter*

 

[Dick Whitman]

California Sunday Magazine is on a roll. Love the daughter's annotations:

Raising a Teenage Daughter*

Young Hannah Weil-Duane gets written about more than Lena Dunham these days.

Daniel Duane on Giving His Daughter a Yosemite Education

 

[swingline]

Every time Double Down starts a thread like these, they're the best rabbit hole of my day.

 

[typefitter]

Every time Double Down starts a thread like these, they're the best rabbit hole of my day.

I'd gargle John Jeremiah Sullivan's balls to a fine sheen, but I highly recommend the jawbone story.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

This was fantastic storytelling. More video than copy, however.

Vox Borders: life at the edge of nations

 

[swingline]

From Sullivan's 2006 Axl Rose story in GQ:

The readers of Teen magazine, less than one year ago, put him at number two (behind "Grandparents") on the list of the 100 Coolest Old People…Axl Rose, who hasn't released a legitimate recording in thirteen years and who, during that time, turned into an almost Howard Hughes—like character—ordering in, transmitting sporadic promises that a new album, inexplicably titled Chinese Democracy, was about to drop, making occasional, startling appearances at sporting events and fashion shows, things like that—looking a little feral, looking a little lost, looking a little like a man who's been given his first day's unsupervised leave from a state facility.

****ing hilarious. I'd give Typefitter's left nut to write that sentence.

 

[typefitter]

From Sullivan's 2006 Axl Rose story in GQ:

The readers of Teen magazine, less than one year ago, put him at number two (behind "Grandparents") on the list of the 100 Coolest Old People…Axl Rose, who hasn't released a legitimate recording in thirteen years and who, during that time, turned into an almost Howard Hughes—like character—ordering in, transmitting sporadic promises that a new album, inexplicably titled Chinese Democracy, was about to drop, making occasional, startling appearances at sporting events and fashion shows, things like that—looking a little feral, looking a little lost, looking a little like a man who's been given his first day's unsupervised leave from a state facility.

****ing hilarious. I'd give Typefitter's left nut to write that sentence.

*quiet voice* But... Um... But I want my left nut.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Have I missed a new thread with updated days on it? Or should we just make this a running thread?

Anyway, this was excellent ...

Hard drive full of death: Secret chronicles of Islamic State