Longreads

How Mexican food became more American than apple pie:

"There is nothing remotely Mexican about Potato Olés—not even the quasi-Spanish name, which has a distinctly Castilian accent. The burrito was more insulting to me and my heritage than casting Charlton Heston as the swarthy Mexican hero in Touch of Evil. But it was intriguing enough to take back to my hotel room for a taste. There, as I experienced all of the concoction’s gooey, filling glory while chilly rain fell outside, it struck me: Mexican food has become a better culinary metaphor for America than the melting pot."

"That you have a nation (and increasingly a planet—you can find Mexican restaurants from Ulan Bator to Sydney to Prague) lusting after tequila, guacamole, and tres leches cake isn’t an exercise in culinary neocolonialism but something closer to the opposite. By allowing itself to be endlessly adaptable to local tastes, Mexican food has become a primary vehicle for exporting the culture of a long-ridiculed country to the far corners of the globe. Forget Mexico’s imaginary Reconquista of the American Southwest; the real conquest of North America is a peaceful and consensual affair, taking place one tortilla at a time."

Gaar Adams on rock stardom for an unsuspecting medical student in Yemen:

"But then a little thing called the Arab Spring changed everything. The protests transformed the pedantic medical student from Sanaa University into a dreadlocked revolutionary, jamming in front of hundreds of thousands of people in Change Square. And the band over which Ahmed lost his family -- 3 Meters Away -- became Yemen's first and only activist music group, playing shows at the very heart of Yemen's protest movement. Between my first meeting with him and my return to Yemen in January 2012, Ahmed went from a scrawny college kid one semester away from a medical license to being introduced as "the artist of the revolution" in front of mobs of his adoring countrymen."

"As he keeps smoking, Hassan's discordant feelings on Yemen become more apparent. In one breath, he marvels at the inspiration and vibrancy of Change Square. But in the next, Hassan laments the miniscule music scene in Yemen while reminiscing about all of his European adventures. "Mostly, I try to be a part of my environment," Hassan says. "So thank God there is this movement here that I can be a part of."

Consider this: according to Discogs.com, about 800 remixes were released in 1983. In 1990, more than 4,000; in 2000, almost 15,000. And in 2010, there were 22,750 remixes released, an increase of…

6. What Really Happened Aboard Air France Flight 447Jeff Wise | Popular Mechanics | Dec. 6, 2011 | 17 minutes (4,253 words) A fatal human error, repeated over and over again, as the reader observes…

A street-level marquee on the mottled limestone facade of a onetime hat factory just east of Washington Square Park, in Greenwich Village, advertises the current attractions at the Bottom Line…

Steve Jobs introduced the new iPhone 4 in San Francisco in 2010.

It’s been an amazing experience. One would not choose to go through it, but I’ve gone through it. It happened. My time came, I guess. From the very moment that I stood on that land mine, that morning on Oct. 23, 2010, I was pretty pragmatic about the whole thing. So many people had been killed around me — friends dying at my feet, no exaggeration — that when it happened to me, I was like: “O.K. My number came up. It’s time to move on.” And here I am, nine months later. I’m standing upright, seeing a lot of wonderful faces looking at me, and it’s an absolute pleasure. It’s been a rough time for the industry. This April in particular was pretty bad. We lost three friends, Tim, Chris and Anton. As it turned out, Libya was a pretty harsh mistress — not only for the foreign expat journalists working there, but for local journalists, too.