Story of the Week with Joel Stein

With the 96th Academy Awards this Sunday, we wanted to revisit this episode from last year. The Oscars seems to be cursed with a series of chaotic live television gaffes. But one moment in Academy Award history takes the cake. In 1974, a scrawny white man named Robert Opel ran across the stage butt naked, right as the Best Picture category was being announced. New Yorker magazine writer and Oscars aficionado Michael Schulman recoun...

After his cartooning career failed to take off, a German artist named Arno Funke started extorting department stores.  He went by “Dagobert,” the German name for the character of Scrooge McDuck in the cartoon DuckTales. His crime spree lasted for years and made him a folk hero across Germany. Recently, reporter Jeff Maysh got to meet him. 

You can read Jeff Maysh’s New Yorker article “The Strange Story of ...

“Bronze Age Pervert” is the moniker of an influential far-right thinker. He has hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. His book is a top-seller on Amazon, and was reviewed by a former Trump administration official. Journalist Graeme Wood knew him before all that, back when he was just a college student in tevas. 

You can read Graeme Wood’s Atlantic story “How Bronze Age Pervert Charmed the Far Right” here: https://www.theat...

When Andrew Leland was a teenager he learned he had a rare disease that would cause him to become blind by the time he reached middle age. He recently decided to prepare by attending a special school for blind people. 

You can read Andrew’s essay for the New Yorker, “How to Be Blind” here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/how-to-be-blind 

And you can find Andrew’s new book, The Coun...

A car mechanic named Jeff Carpoff invented a portable solar generator. Companies like Geico and Progressive Insurance bought thousands of his generators because they got tax credits for doing so. But there was something not quite right about Carpoff’s invention. You can read Ariel Saber’s Atlantic story, “The Billion Dollar Ponzi Scheme that hooked Warren Buffett and the US Treasury,” here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arch...

A developer named Domenic Broccoli wanted to build an IHOP in Fishkill, New York. But after it was discovered that the plot of land he was planning to build on may have been a Revolutionary War grave site, he became embroiled in a war of his own. 

You can read Reeves Wiedeman’s New York Magazine story “The Battle of Fishkill” here: https://www.curbed.com/article/ihop-fishkill-ny-domenic-broccoli-revolutionary-war.html 

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Laos used to be known as “the land of a million elephants.” Now, there are only about 800 elephants left in the country. Reporter Paul Kvinta went undercover to learn about the illegal elephant trade, and ended up putting in an offer on an elephant himself. 

You can read read Paul Kvinta’s Outside Magazine story “I Bought an Elephant to Find Out How to Save Them,” here: https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/e...

Simone Gold, a former ER doctor, is the founder of a non-profit called “America’s Frontline Doctors,” known for spreading misinformation about COVID. After she was arrested for taking part in the Jan. 6 insurrection, she received millions of dollars in donations. And that’s when the feuding within her organization began. 

You can read Joel Stein’s Financial Times story, “How a squad of MAGA warriors flush with cash turned on each o...

How did the Guinness World Records company come to be? And how, in the age of the internet, does the company make money? Imogen West-Knights spent a year investigating. She learned how to be a record adjudicator (it’s riskier than it sounds), met a man who has broken more than 700 records, and tried to break a record herself. 

You can read Imogen West-Knight’s Guardian story, “The Strange Survival of Guinness World Records,” here: ...

The history of Dr. Bronner’s soap is even crazier than the famously crazy writing on the side of a Dr. Bronner’s soap bottle. The company was founded by a man who escaped from a mental asylum. Now it is the top-selling natural soap brand in North America. How did this happen? Carrie Battan paid their headquarters a visit to find out. 

You can read Carrie Battan’s GQ story, “Is Dr. Bronner’s the Last Corporation With a Soul,” here: ...

In 2010, an art collector named Forrest Fenn published a memoir called “The Thrill of the Chase,” in which he described hiding a treasure chest somewhere in the United States. His memoir inspired hundreds of thousands of treasure hunters to scour the country for it. Now, over a decade later, much about this chest still remains a mystery. 

You can read Svati Kirsten Narula’s story “America’s Greatest Hidden Treasure Was Found—So Why...

Comedian Dave Chappelle has been buying up properties in the tiny town of Yellow Springs, Ohio. The residents have mixed feelings about their powerful neighbor’s real estate decisions and it’s been splitting the town in two.  Reporter Tyler J. Kelley paid a visit to Yellow Springs to see if it’s really becoming Chappelleville.

You can read Tyler J. Kelley’s Bloomberg story “What Happens When Dave Chappelle Buys Up Your Town” here:<...

In celebration of Bloomsday on June 16th, we’re bringing you a special James Joyce mystery. Ten years after achieving stratospheric and unlikely fame, the world’s greatest Ulysses scholar disappeared. Reporter Jack Hitt went on a quest to find out if he was dead, alive or insane.

You can read Jack Hitt’s New York Times story “The Strange Case of the Missing Joyce Scholar, here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/magazine/the...

Every month in New York City, a small group of people who feel like they’ve been ostracized for holding unpopular opinions and their supporters meet up to chat, debate, and even sing folk songs. Reporter Emma Green attended a recent gathering. 

You can read Emma Green’s New Yorker story “The Party is Cancelled” here: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-local-correspondents/the-party-is-cancelled 

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Nearly all of the high-end microchips in the world - the ones we depend on for our phones and cars  –  are manufactured in an unassuming factory in Taiwan. Virginia Heffernan is one of the few reporters to go inside. She wrote about what she saw for Wired.

You can read Virginia Heffernan's story, "I Saw the Face of God in a Semiconductor Factory" here: https://www.wired.com/story/i-saw-the-face-of-god-in-a...

When a nurse named Tiffany Dover fainted on camera after getting a Covid vaccine, anti-vaxxers assumed the worst. Shortly after, the internet was awash in conspiracy theories that she was dead. NBC News reporter Brandy Zadrozny set out to prove that Tiffany Dover was alive. This turned out to be more difficult than she could have imagined.

You can read Brandy Zadrozny’s story, “Conspiracy theorists made Ti...