still working on that niche

Grantland chronicles the rapid rise and fall of The National, an attempt at producing a national daily newspaper dedicated to sports that became infamous for spending money, shall we say, frivolously:

[Editor-in-Cheief Frank] Deford: Oh, Christ. John [Feinstein] was overseas. The French Open ends. It’s another three weeks before Wimbledon. He calls me up and says, “Listen. Can I come home? It’s cheaper for me to fly home — and not on the Concorde — than to stay over here. I haven’t been home for a month.” I said, “Sure.” Where that crap came from about the cats, that’s one of those great urban myths. No way in the world did he come home to feed his cat. That is so much bullshit: that he’d come home on the Concorde to feed his cats or because he missed his cats or because a cat died. The cats weren’t in the conversation. I can assure you.

The National began publishing when I was three years old, and ceased publication before I turned five. Also, someday, perhaps soon, I will stop linking repeatedly to Grantland. (It probably won’t be soon.)

Ian Ranking overreacts, at The Quietus, about not receiving Radiohead’s deluxe newspaper album on time:

Radiohead have tried to subvert the traditional system, to set themselves up as a cottage industry paid for by the fans and in tune with those fans. However, at a point in history when it has never seemed so important for b(r)ands to stay on friendly terms with their fanbase, Radiohead have turned the other way, courtesy of their own website’s uncomprehending and faceless blankness.

A remix version of The King of Limbs will be appearing soon. Trust me, I’ll be last in the queue. Radiohead are Radiodead to me now.

His package got lost in the mail, and was signed for by some mysterious stranger. Radiohead’s lack of human support is understandably frustrating, but his tale reveals someone who should be angry at DLH, not W.A.S.T.E.

Chuck Klosterman — in his inaugural column for Grantland — on the most memorable sporting event he’s ever witnessed:

Attending school at [United Tribes Technical College] is the polar opposite of idyllic. But that’s just how college life was (and still is) for so many Native American students — it’s just that nobody pays attention. No American minority is less represented in the national consciousness. This was a collegiate program where the basketball team could not afford to print the name of its school on the front of its jerseys.

“We didn’t even have warm-up clothes,” says former United Tribe coach Ken Hall. “And Bottineau had those tear-away sweat pants! Half their team was dunking during pregame, and I didn’t have one guy over 6-foot. But as anyone who ever played for me will tell you, everybody on our roster was in the best shape of his life. We could run all day.”

This is how five Native Americans — and then four, and then three — defeated a team that should have routed them by 30: They ran and they ran and they ran. And then they stopped.

Grantland is just getting started, but already the site has produced great material. Every article so far is — for me — a must read. Of course, that doesn’t mean everybody agrees. (And The Atlantic doesn’t even mention the site’s anemic RSS feed.)

John Jeremiah Sullivan on getting stoned at Disney World and so much more:

Now we were truly at Disney World. A person didn’t come here every day! What is the scene here? Hello, primary colors; hello, quickly fading microdramas of passing human faces, incessantly deciding whether to make eye contact; hello, repeating stalls and gift shops. We were walking on the balls of our feet. The surface of things had become porous and permitted of the potential for enjoyment. Where were our womenfolk and Lil’ Dog? Let’s find them. Let’s be good fathers. Tomorrow was Father’s Day. Oh, my God, I didn’t even remember that!

Steve Jobs presents Apple’s plans for their new campus to the Cupertino City Council:

An incredible vision of what a corporation can achieve when thought and care go into every decision.

via macrumors

From Sarah Miller at The Awl:

“You know I’ve never even seen any of the Harry Potter movies,” her roommate said.

“I know,” Emma said, taking care to keep her tone light. “You mentioned that several times last night while you were sighing over how hard it was to get bit torrent to download Satyricon on the shared Wifi.”

“No offense,” her roommate said. Her voice fell to a whisper. “But like, I came to Brown because it has the best semiotics program in like, the world.”

Settlers of Catan is going mainstream:

After Settlers was first released in 1995, a small but passionate following emerged. It wasn’t until a decade later that the game’s popularity began to blossom. “The start of the tipping point was 2008,” said Bob Carty, a spokesman for Settlers manufacturer Mayfair Games. “Settlers is three to five years away from being a household word.” Last year alone, the game’s sales grew 35 percent.

Semi-relatedly, game publisher Days of Wonder just released a beautiful iPad edition of Ticket to Ride, their best-selling board game. I’d never played the Switzerland map before — it’s wonderful.

Cult of Mac interviews former Apple CEO John Sculley about Steve Jobs:

The Apple logo was multicolor because the Apple II was the first color computer. No one else could do color, so that’s why they put the color blocks into the logo. If you wanted to print the logo in a magazine ad or on a package you could print it with four colors but Steve being Steve insisted on six colors. So whenever the Apple logo was printed, it was always printed in six colors. It added another 30 to 40 percent to the cost of everything, but that’s what Steve wanted. That’s what we always did.

“I need $20,000 in cash in a bag right now. We’re sending someone to Tijuana to buy a Smart car.” Wired chronicles the rising fortunes of Tesla’s electric car gamble. To prove the efficacy of their electric battery to top Daimler executives, Elon Musk instructed Tesla’s engineers to retrofit a Smart car with an electric engine. (At the time, the Smart car was not available for purchase in the United States.)

Fun fact: Tesla recently purchased the NUMMI auto factory from Toyota, the factory featured earlier this year on This American Life.