Monday Medley

What we read while blood doping with Lennay Kekua…

• So Deadspin broke the biggest sports story of 2013, by outing the nonexistence of Mani Te’o's girlfriend. The story got weirder and weirder as Te’o's complicity came under scrutiny, though he denies being anything but a victim.

• In other sports revelations, Lance Armstrong finally admitted using PEDs and blood doping. His interview with Oprah only made people angrier, though, as he failed to show contrition for destroying lives for sake of his lie.

• Even more sad sports news, as baseball lost two legends: Earl Weaver (of the famously profane “Manager’s Corner”) and Stan “The Man” Musial. Joe Posnanski, who profiled Musial a few years ago, remembered The Man, whose statistics are still amazing.

• Robert F. Chew, who played Proposition Joe on The Wire, also passed away last week.

• Tom Junod with a fascinating look at injuries in the NFL.

• It’s been over a week since the death of Aaron Swartz, but people are still seeing the case as an example of prosecutorial overreach and outright abuse of power. The career of Carmen Ortiz is being examined, as well as the powers generally given to prosecutors.

• Facebook introduced a search tool.

• David Remnick with a frightening look at the religious right in Israel.

• On student debt.

Monday Medley

What we read while definitely NOT working for Bain Capital…

• Breaking Bad returned last night for the first half of its final season. In honor of the best show on television, Aaron Paul looked back at Jesse Pinkman’s greatest hits, while Bryan Cranston looked at Walter White’s. Also, how accurate is the show’s portrayal of the meth trade?

• Tom Junod’s story on the lethal presidency of Barack Obama was very controversial last week. Junod responded to comments on the Esquire blog, including whether or not targeted killings are a moral improvement over torture. Meanwhile, mainstream politicians just laughed the whole issue off.

• What is in Afghanistan’s future after American troops leave?

• David Roth nails everything that’s wrong with the ESPYs.

• In the wake of the controversy over Daniel Tosh’s rape jokes, here are 15 rape jokes that actually work (including one from Dane Cook, of all people).

• Grantland’s best pieces have tended to be its oral histories. The latest on WFAN is no different.

• What happened to this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction? A jury member explains.

• Spike Lee chats with Will Leitch.

• Correspondence re: The Great Gatsby.

Monday Medley

What we read while assigning baseball allegiances to past assassins…

• It’s been an interesting stretch for magazine features, starting with Luke Dittrich’s Esquire piece — the title is too long to quote here — on the Joplin tornado. Also at Esquire, Tom Junod tackles Jon Stewart (in kind of the same way he tackled Roger Ailes, i.e. obliquely and not quite as effectively as you might like). Over at GQ, Michael Paterniti goes all second-person in a tale of survival surrounding the Japanese earthquake — which the Nieman Storyboard thought was worthy of some dissection.

• Excerpts from Roger Ebert’s upcoming memoir. One alludes to the feature Chris Jones penned on Ebert some months back. Jones was pretty happy with that one, if he may say so himself.

• Our weekly David Foster Wallace bullet: DFW (very politely) threatens an editor via fax. Also, just what is Jonathan Franzen trying to accuse DFW of here? Speaking of Franzen, here’s a reason to get very excited for a new season of television programming.

• In other TV news, Hulu picked its five favorite magazine articles about television, including this great oral history of The Dana Carvey Show.

• One thing Grantland does that we do like is the director’s cut series on old magazine profiles. Gay Talese’s on Joe DiMaggio is one of the best you’ll ever read.

• If we were to begin a series of old, esoteric interviews, this one from the Paris Review of Jorge Luis Borges would be a good starting point. Learn, among other things, what Borges’ favorite fabricated English word is. Unfortunately, while discussing the origin of character names, he does not bring up our resident sports revolutionary.

• Forget baseball; Stephen Marche on what hockey means to Canada.

• PTI, which Tim celebrated two years ago, reached its tenth anniversary.

• The ten most tweeted moments ever offer an interesting (and possibly depressing) look at what humans are engaged by.

Monday Medley

What we read while joining the ACC…

• The great Mariano Rivera, who not only Tim is in awe of, reached not only 600 saves, but also tied Trevor Hoffman’s all-time saves record. Of coure, Rivera was already the greatest closer ever, but it was nice to reflect on his amazing career. Even if you question the meaning of the “save”….

• We don’t need to tell you Vin Scully is awesome, even if we find his call of Koufax’s perfect game a tad overwrought, Here, Vin  remembers his greatest calls, many of which include the original audio.

• In other sporting news, was this year’s U.S. Open a pivotal moment in tennis history?

• Aziz Ansari likes food, and the New York Times is looking for a new food critic. Speaking of food, Dippin’ Dots candy? Really?

• And Chuck Klosterman analyzes college football’s most fascinating offenses.

• What is the best way to educate students?

• Comedians telling hilarious stories – except the one by Dane Cook.

• Tom Junod calls out Jon Stewart for, among other things, not being funny anymore.

• Michele Bachmann won’t stop lying.

Monday Medley

What we read while almost leading the Bears’ fourth-quarter comeback…

• NPI mourns the passing of writer and, for a lucky few of us, professor Reynolds Price. Price was an institution at our alma mater, someone who fought hard against the excesses of the University that have come to light all too often over the past few years. In addition to his work representing Duke University and the American South, he was also a frequent guest on Charlie Rose.

• Kim Clijsters became one of our favorite female tennis players with this post-match interview.

• You’re probably not going to believe this, but the real Baltimore Police Commissioner is not a fan of The Wire. Predictably, David Simon has a response.

• A couple long reads caught our eye this week, with Tom Junod’s exploration of FOX News’ chief Roger Ailes at Esquire and Gabriel Sherman’s profile of Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio in GQ. (Here’s an SEO hint, kids: Look at GQ‘s URL for that story.)

• Tim hasn’t necessarily hid his Auburn fandom over the last few months, but things like this make him proud to say he’s an out-of-state Auburn fan.

• Murray Hill is rightfully mocked (it’s from a while ago, but it still applies).

• An easy way to acquire one million dollars?

• Could this actually be a reason to watch The Office (Probably not)?

• The Awl gives us much-needed guidelines when it comes to dating coworkers.

• I love it when I fall into the correct market segment…

Monday Medley

What we read while eating a goddamn snack on Revis Island:

• So what’s the state of political discourse in the week after the tragedy in Tucson? Some want us to tone it down, while others think that’s a silly overreaction. Tom Junod at Esquire and Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone have each offered intriguing thoughts on the debate about debate.

• Less seems to be more in football announcing.

• Wikipedia celebrated its tenth anniversary last week.

• CalTech: In a class by itself? Speaking of intelligence, Jeopardy may have for itself a perpetual winner.

• Only one of us still occasionally puts two spaces after a period. It’s such an editing hassle.

• Roger Ebert’s best documentaries of 2010.

• What was more awkward: Ricky Gervais’ monologue at last night’s Golden Globes, or Bill Murray’s speech to Sofia Coppola at the NBR awards?

• Shake Shack’s different locations are compared by Serious Eats.

• Agree to disagree on this one: SplitSider on why the Arrested Development is a lousy movie AND why that’s OUR fault.

• Jill Lepore dissects America’s relationship with the Constitution.

• We don’t agree with all of their choices over at This Recording (there’s no way DFW is the White Swan), but this is obviously a great game…

• A breakdown of pretty much every funny tweet you’ll ever read.

• It may be in Spanish, but this graphic of The Simpsons‘ demise couldn’t be clearer. And as far as gifs go, they don’t get much better than Homer’s Night Out (h/t on each to Dead Homer Society, as usual).

Monday Medley

What we read on the clandestine flight to South America:

• This probably isn’t Tom Junod’s best work–the paragraph-to-paragraph logic is a bit lacking at times–but it is the best thing we’ve read about who, and more importantly what, Michael Jackson was. It’s also another reminder of a simple rule we have: If Junod writes it, we’ll read it. See: The Falling Man, which may just be his best.

• Josh alluded to David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster earlier this week. Here’s the NPI consensus best essay from that collection. Take our word: It’s about much more than grammar. (N.B.: Feel free to skip the first paragraph/subtitle.)

• Roger Ebert offers a scathing criticism of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on his highly recommended blog for the Chicago Sun Times. He also wrote a pretty good thing about Michael Jackson.

• Ever wonder why we undergo  déjà vu? A study by Elizabeth Marsh of Duke University (this, shockingly, is our first explicit Duke reference on the blog)  and Alan Brown of Sam Madison University provides a reasonable and interesting explanation.

• John S asked why we aren’t asking more questions about David Ortiz and steroids…well, The Big Lead and Jeff Pearlman of SI asks the same question about A-Rod.

• Any fans of Stella and The State out there should be reading this blog in preparation for Michael and Michael Have Issues.