Every Friday Vulture finds a great story that’s a little too long to read on the computer screen. Fiction, long-form narrative journalism, epic blog sagas — any of these could be your Weekend Read. Print it out on the office printer, smuggle it home, and curl up with it after brunch.
With David Milch’s new series, John From Cincinnati, premiering on HBO this Sunday, we had a hankering to read Mark Singer’s ridiculously thorough and well-written profile of Milch, published in The New Yorker in 2005. Luckily, Eustace Tilly and Co. just posted the story online, so Mark Singer’s “The Misfit” is today’s Weekend Read.
Following Milch from his early days on Hill Street Blues to the genesis of his classic series Deadwood, “The Misfit” highlights Milch’s genius dialogue, his addictions, and his willingness to buck the TV system in a way most writers don’t dare. In one telling moment, Milch, struggling to open a pack of Advil, is offered a knife by a cowboy on-set. “No, thank you, Hawkeye,” Milch says. “Believe me, in a life filled with mistakes, this is one I don’t need.”
“The Misfit” [The New Yorker]
