Our weekly recap highlighting the best feature stories from around the internet.
Photo: Kanye West Photo: Unknown
The Kanye West Interview – by Dirk Standen, style.com
“That’s part of the reason why I work with really strong women, like Vanessa [Beecroft, the artist who staged the Adidas show], that will not allow a woman to even be halfway disrespected. It’s such a far cry from what you would traditionally hear and see in rap. It was a complete new education.”
Spotify knows what music you're having sex to – by Alex Hern, The Guardian
“[The XX’s ‘Intro’] is apparently considered the perfect song to make love to. It’s the most likely song to appear on user-made “sex” playlists on Spotify – of which the site hosts nearly 2.5m. Yes, Spotify has 2.5m sex playlists.”
A Valentine’s Day Date With My Wife … to See ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ – by Shea Serrano, Grantland
“When I asked my wife if she’d given any thought to whether there was a significant amount of erections around us, she said, “No. I was only thinking about whether you had one.” (I did not.) When I asked her, since I brought it up, if thinking about the possibility made it a more romantic date or a less romantic date, she said, “Less.” So I guess we still don’t agree on what is romantic and what isn’t romantic.”
Brother from another mother - Key and Peele's chameleon comedy - by Zadie Smith, The New Yorker
“Like their Comedy Central stablemates Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, from the sitcom “Broad City,” they pull off the unusual trick of wringing laughs out of amity. One of the network’s original concepts for the show was “Key Versus Peele,” which was soon abandoned when the two stars couldn’t find enough topics on which to disagree, even comically.”
Postscript: David Carr (1956-2015) – by Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker
“At the City Paper, he was the editor every young writer should hope to encounter: as harsh as he was forgiving, accessible, with an outlook that could be described as jaded idealism. He was allergic to euphemism and a believer that journalism was the art of curating minutiae. He also had one of the most valuable attributes a writer can claim—an ability to withhold personal judgment.”
Kobe Bryant Will Always Be an All-Star of Talking – by Chuck Klosterman, GQ
“Knowing that Bryant has to leave the café by 10 o'clock, I decide to take a calculated risk: I tell him that there is no point in pretending we're about to have a normal conversation, because nothing about this meeting is remotely normal. I just want to directly ask him all the things I've always wondered about his life. And from the moment I say this, I can tell that this is what he wants, too.”
Why I have resigned from the Telegraph – by Peter Oborne, OurKingdom
“Telegraph readers are intelligent, sensible, well-informed people. They buy the newspaper because they feel that they can trust it. If advertising priorities are allowed to determine editorial judgments, how can readers continue to feel this trust? The Telegraph’s recent coverage of HSBC amounts to a form of fraud on its readers. It has been placing what it perceives to be the interests of a major international bank above its duty to bring the news to Telegraph readers.”
Let’s Call Female Online Harassment What It Really Is: Terrorism - by Anne Thériault, Vice
“We continue to refer to these occurrences as "harmless threats," and blame women for not being willing to engage in "robust debate." The idea of free speech is often invoked, and women who are targeted are often told that if they can't take a joke, they should get off the internet. People will often say that men experience just as much online harassment as women, an argument which completely ignores the violent, gender-based threats that women receive.”
Last Man Running – by Reeves Wiedeman, The New Yorker
"A hundred and fourteen million Americans had just watched the Super Bowl, more than had ever watched before. Somewhere north of a hundred—no million needed—had decided, instead, to play Last Man, a loosely organized contest that began in the late aughts, when Kyle Whelliston, a blogger who didn’t care much for football, decided to try to be the “Last Man in America to Know Who Won the Super Bowl.”
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