In 1996, David Foster Wallace profiled tennis player Michael Joyce in one of the most celebrated pieces of sports writing ever published. Who has he become since?
2017
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Jokes Won the Election
“It’s the thrill of hyperbole, of treating the extreme as normal, the shock (and the joy) of seeing the normal get violated, fast. “Buh-leeve me, buh-leeve me!” Trump said in his act, again and again. Lying about telling the truth is part of the joke.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
I Work in the Restaurant Industry. Obamacare Saved My Family’s Life.
Baker Allison Robicelli on the difficulty of offering insurance (or being insured) in the service industry, and how the Affordable Care Act started to change things — and saved her and her husband’s lives.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Who Was Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Who and what are we really commemorating on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day? Ijeoma Oluo unpacks the myriad ways Dr. King’s story has been softened and re-written to weaken black activism and bolster white supremacy.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Exploitation Of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy By White Supremacy
“The Martin Luther King Jr. that we celebrate every year is no longer a man or a movement. The annual holiday is no longer a remembrance.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Empathy and Escapism — Obama’s Secret to Surviving the White House Years: Books
At The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani reports on how reading and writing helped President Obama to “slow down and get perspective” from novelists, memoirists, and historical figures during the eight years of his presidency.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Obama’s Secret to Surviving the White House Years: Books
A profile of Barack Obama as a reader, which includes a link to Kakutani’s 3,015-word interview with the outgoing president. He discusses his love for reading, some authors he loves–plus short stories he’s written.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Feels of Love
Yes, kids are cruel and adolescence is challenging, but when we equate sexual assault with the standard teasing of adolescence, we normalize rape culture, and that is not normal. Madden’s story of rape and redemption is still too familiar to the many young woman who men routinely victimize. If America is going to progress as […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Many Meanings of Fruitcake
In Food52, Mayukh Sen explores the ways fruitcake became a homophobic slur, queerness, and his own personal attachment to the namesake food.
Posted inEditor's Pick
My Dinners with Harold
How a reserved literature grad student named Harold McGee used a scientific approach to cooking that changed the way the culinary world speaks and thinks about food.