michelleweber

Since Freddie Gray’s death, Baltimore — which once inspired The Wire but in recent years seemed to be experiencing an urban revival — has seen a sharp increase in violent crime amidst  “a failure of order and governance the likes of which few American cities have seen in years.”

“If you’re a character in a current police procedural or prime-time thriller, there are few more frightening, heart-stopping words than when a polite, clean-shaven man asks in a vaguely European accent, ‘Do you like Bach?’”

“Garishly food-styled heads of hollowed-out iceberg packed with pimiento cheese, or baked beans in aspic, bolster our own superior sense of ourselves. Like the Instagram freakshake, they are fantasy transgressions against which we define our superior awesomeness.”

The news cycle means that Esquire‘s March cover story is already a half-dozen horrors ago, but that was the time needed for Patrick Nathan to produce this smart, searching exploration into the danger of false journalistic neutrality.

Does your heart require warming? Look no further than Mera, a very, very good dog.

Stéphane Breitwieser stole over 300 objects, stolen from 200 different locations, worth over $1.4 billion. Brashly. Brazenly. Constantly. Why? They art was beautiful.