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I finally saw Into the Wild, and thought it was excellent. This is the magazine article that begat the book that begat the movie.—JM

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Just pretend that Year One never happened, and you can enjoy this lengthy, meaty interview with the comedy legend.—JM

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As with most McSweeney's pieces, hilarious and beautifully crafted.—BK

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Gladwell looks at how the digital age has transformed the ways in which things are made and sold by way of a review of Chris Anderson's new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price.—BK

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A rare inside look at the busiest – and highest paid (I think) – man in television comedy.—BK

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AMPAS shifts to ten Best Picture nominees, inviting discord over whether they've ever gotten five right. (A rant familiar to devoted readers.) Foote's conclusions are debatable (Shrek? Madison County?), but then that's the point, isn't it?—JS

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A slightly hysterical overview of parallax in the TV depiction of baseball pitching: more accurate vs. easier to watch.—JS

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Sometimes a person just needs a little reminder of what behavior is socially acceptable and what is not.—JS

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Okay, admittedly this isn't nearly as funny on the page, but as you read it, just replay your memory of the sketch in your head. (Or, if you've never seen it, imagine something very funny.)—JS

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"Politicians will, almost by definition, be deeply weird." It seems to me that I remember Jerry Seinfeld doing a routine along these lines once, too. And, if you think about it, if any of your buddies pulled you aside one day and said "I've decided that I'm honestly and seriously going to try to become the President of America," you'd think he'd gone completely nuts. And yet, every four (or eight) years, one guy does it.—JM

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A bit of classic PoopReading from 2000: a profile of Simpsons writer George Meyer, one of the best profiles The New Yorker has ever done (and that's saying something).—BK

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Infidelity may no longer be the political career-killer it once was.—BK

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This piece may go a bit easy on Michael, but it's a very thoughtful rumination on his life from someone who really, really tried to help him (and essentially predicted his fate).—JM

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Without overstating the case, I can say that reading Bill Simmons' annual NBA Draft diary is one of the highlights of any true sports fan's year.—JM

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A new album, a Tonight Show appearance, and a "world tour" – a quarter century later, the Tap lives on.—JS

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An update on the quest to develop homegrown software code that can beat the Netflix movie recommendation system.—JS

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A few election predictions make it a little dated, but overall a nice introduction to a fascinating topic.—JS

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Sure, public figures should have private lives. But when those figures legislate from a stance of denying others' privacy, it's hard not to pile on.—JS

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There's good old-fashioned schadenfreude, and then there's piling on just to do it.—JM

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"Anything I give you would only be a placebo." "Where do we get these placebos!?"—JM

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As a warning to the presumptive #1 selection in the upcoming NBA draft, Blake Griffin, Los Angeles Clippers season ticket holder Bill Simmons breaks down the post-1976 history of the team that holds this year's top pick. It's as comprehensive as it is horrifying; that is to say: very.—JM

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As with most successful people who didn't benefit from nepotism, John Grisham's rise to publishing super-stardom took talent, hard work and a decent amount of blind luck.—JM

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A little something to pass the time as we wait for his new Comedy Central show Michael and Michael Have Issues (with PoopReading favorite Michael Ian Black) and the release of The State DVDs, two events that are apparently happening in the same glorious week in July.—BK

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I've always tended to join the torch-wielding masses when it comes to Fehr, hating him for his part in the 1994 strike and the steroids problem in baseball. But you can always count on Joe Sheehan to play the contrarian to conventional wisdom, and that's why I love reading his stuff.—BK

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Today's teens can't relate the alienated young protagonist of J.D. Salinger's classic novel, calling him "whiny," "immature," and "in need of Prozac." Couldn't the same things be said about the cast of The Hills?—BK

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Well, duh. But Henry Fairlie said it all along, and his decades as a political essayist make for a revealing account of one conservative's deepening dissatisfaction with conservatism.—JS

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One of the phone's latest tricks is already making for gritty suspense drama on the streets of Chicago.—JS

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Or, essentially, "One Media Outlet's Extensive History of Whipping People into a Frenzy, Just to Do It."—JS

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It's like they want us all to move to Arizona or Nevada.—JM

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I've never been particularly interested in tennis, but I find Roger Federer's quest for all-time greatness compelling nonetheless. Maybe because your typical American sports fan seems to be ignoring it completely.—JM

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He talks about a lot of things over the course of a long, rambling conversation, including putting an end date on 30 Rock.—BK

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Seems to be an interview minus the questions, with all of Cera's answers provided with no context. So it's a bit of an odd duck, but still interesting.—BK

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Most of what we know is how much we don't know, but it's still fascinating when we get a little new perspective (on both).—JS

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"Movies used to be better!" Does saying that still make you sound like a codger if it's demonstrably true?—JS

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This plods along with some intriguing observations about whether the true frontier is without or within... then the last paragraph of the footnote blew my mind!—JS

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A book excerpt from Wertheim's tome about the epic 2008 Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Father's Day is coming up, you know...—JM

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A 5,000-word piece taking bores to task... put that in your irony pipe and smoke it!—JM

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A "comfort wipe" is basically a stick to help old and/or obese people wipe their butts.—JM

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We here at PoopReading don't always agree on everything, but the title of this profile is definitely a sentiment we can all get behind.—BK

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I've always had a soft spot for this little bit concocted by Dana Carvey and Robert Smigel, which apparently originated as a sketch in the unaired eighth episode of The Dana Carvey Show.—BK

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That settles it; I'm going to start punching a lot more people.—BK

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Pitch counts in baseball have evolved from a beneficial cautionary guideline to an overly simplified rule and a way for managers to avoid criticism in the press. Joe and Bill like how Nolan Ryan and the Rangers are trying to change that mindset, and I concur.—BK