Oh yes: this is the story that has it all, baby: Four Loko, insurance scams, foreclosures, a retired ladies detective club, RICO complaints, fake absentee ballots, the FBI, Las Vegas, offshore bank accounts and actual broken kneecaps. Stick with it, it gets crazier and crazier.

This Nathan Englander story in the New Yorker is pretty great! And in my favorite genre of story, which is "people in a house talking."

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It's the spookiest website in the world, made up (stories about) of terror and spookiness!

THIS IS THE PERFECT TREND STORY! This is IT. It is about how young gay men are "increasingly" (!!!) becoming "sugar babies" to pay for college! Let us break down how it works! READ MORE

"Even Kirstie Alley, who is living in an apartment next door, makes an appearance. She crawls on to her fire escape with a cigarette, making sure that the paparazzi below get a shot of her book, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. An African-American pap takes a few pictures, because there’s nothing else going on, but then she starts yelling about her privacy being invaded, except she yells at the wrong black pap. 'The other black guy is darker than me, and bald, and shorter, Ms. Alley,' shouts the other pap. 'I’m not the same black guy.' He shakes his head. 'But we all look alike, right?'" READ MORE

"After dinner Larry said, 'Come into my study, Terry, you’re going to need some money for the weekend.' We went into his office and he said, “There’s a briefcase by the couch where you’re sitting. Put it on your lap and open it.” So I did. It was full of packs of hundred-dollar bills. Larry said, 'It’s a million dollars. I have this on hand to give validity to the offer.' And he showed me this circular: A standing offer from Larry Flynt to the following women who are prepared to show gyno-pink. One million cash to Barbara Bach, Cathy Bach, Barbi Benton, Cheryl Tiegs.... They were mostly kind of obscure, but there were one or two that were totally out of place, like Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda." READ MORE

I'm so pleased to report that yesterday's story about Mierle Ukeles is, as I suspected, a bit too pat to be true. (It contains "wisps of truths," she says—and they're good wisps!) I'm pleased because I loved the story but I disliked the moral. Also? Hillary Clinton was just coughing in the situation room in that already-famous photograph. This is the deal with narrative, am I right?

"You’d meet, say, a cook at a Times Square restaurant standing on the shower line behind the Port Authority bus terminal. He’d emerge combed and shaven in his white uniform and rush uptown to work. You’d bump into a Cooper Union-trained fine artist at the Goodwill Back to Work center in the Bronx. You’d hear from decorated war heroes who could back up their stories with news clippings and medals. You’d bunk down with day traders from out of town who carried two expensive smart phones and an internet tablet, monitoring the market for their way back in. You’d joke around with friendly Africans and Chinese who were just here to build a new life with maximum economy." READ MORE