Month: August 2014

LONGFORM REPRINTS This excerpt is reprinted on Longform by permission of Buzz Bissinger, who has written a new update of Friday Night Lights for its 25th anniversary. Hear Bissinger discuss the book and more on the Longform Podcast. The faithful sat on little stools of orange and blue under the merciless lights of the high school cafeteria, but the spartan setting… Continue reading Friday Night Lights

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in GQ and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. YOUNG. That’s the first thing you think when you see him. He looks too young. Too little. Not fragile—his shoulders and arms are bulky—but soft. Adolescent. Almost innocent. He smiles. He doesn’t mind. It was always that way. “When you… Continue reading The Big, Bad Wolfowitz

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in Esquire and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. WILLEM. It’s a slangy sound, and he’s sick of it, actually. After all, it’s not his name. Not the name his parents gave him, not the name on his passport. Just a nickname, one of many, and honestly, he likes Willie… Continue reading Where Is Willem Dafoe Going?

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in Esquire and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. “COME ON IN HERE,” an FBI agent grumbled near the end of that piercing winter. It was the first Sunday in March, last year, and Wen Ho Lee was in for more questioning. He had already been interviewed on January… Continue reading Guilty

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in The New York Times Magazine and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. IN THE MENAGERIE of Craig Venter’s imagination, tiny bugs will save the world. They will be custom bugs, designer bugs — bugs that only Venter can create. He will mix them up in his private laboratory… Continue reading The Origin of Species

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in The New York Times Magazine and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. A FEW DAYS AFTER 9/11, a retired Air Force colonel named Randall Larsen entered the northwest gate of the White House, crossed a courtyard to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, stepped through the front door and… Continue reading Dark Winter

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in The New York Times Magazine and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. WE WERE SOMEWHERE around Barolo on the edge of the Italian wine country when my wife’s 68-year-old uncle, Dario, lurched forward in the driver’s seat, fished a small leather pouch from the floorboard and threw… Continue reading The Land of Smoke and Fog

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in The New Yorker and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. LATE ONE NIGHT in September of 2013, Rick Schiller awoke in bed with his right leg throbbing. Schiller, who is in his fifties, lives in San Jose, California. He had been feeling ill all week, and, as… Continue reading A Bug in the System

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in The New York Times Magazine and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL Thursday morning in May, and everything was going wrong. James Turrell had six days to prepare for the biggest museum exhibition of his life — 11 complex installation pieces at the… Continue reading The Mesmerizer