“Coppola still has fascinating things to say about the movie and will do so in the course of our conversations. But what he’s really interested in talking about is something else. Something new. It is a film called Megalopolis, and Coppola has been trying to make it, intermittently, for more than 40 years. If I […]
Peter Rubin
Posted inEditor's Pick
Driving While Baked? Inside the High-Tech Quest to Find Out
“There is no scientific way to tell if you’re stoned behind the wheel. That’s a problem for police—and you. One company is aiming to fix that.”
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What Was the TED Talk?​
“I recently watched some of the talks from this conference on my laptop. They hit like parodies of a bygone era, so ridiculous that it made me almost nostalgic for a time when TED talks captivated me. Back then, around a decade ago, I watched those articulate, audacious, composed people talk about how they were […]
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He Spent 25 Years Infiltrating Nazis, the Klan, and Biker Gangs
“At six feet four and 260 pounds, he fills up a room without meaning to, though he never wastes time trying to merge with his surroundings. He’s funny and profane and could charm a lampshade off its base with his whiskey-sour drawl and Harley swagger. Small wonder that even strangers at the Quik Mart call […]
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Searching for Susy Thunder
“Susan has an aptitude for the plausibly outlandish: the more far-fetched something sounds, the more detail she’s able to provide. It’s not lost on me, as she tells these stories, that I’m on the phone with a phone phreaker or that I’m attempting to tell the true story of an expert deceiver. When she tells […]
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Reading Detroit in a Season of Mourning
“It was during the lockdown bike rides that I started to register this language of landscape as expressed in Detroit. There is a power in these markers of non-instrumental processes, which metabolize what was, and give it new life and new form. It is all beautiful, yes, and the forsythias in April were everywhere and […]
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On the Insanity of Being a Scrabble Enthusiast
“Oliver Roeder navigates the highs and lows of his stint as a competitive player.”
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He Was in Witness Protection in Maine. But His Harlem Life Kept Calling.
“Even in death, a coherent picture of Mr. Martinez’s double life — which was once the subject of a Hollywood movie — proves elusive. He was both a loyal confidant and one of the most infamous turncoats in New York lore. He was a kind friend and an admitted, ruthless killer; a selfless neighbor and […]
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The Assassination of Drakeo the Ruler
“Drakeo was 28 with an incandescent future ahead: He was supporting his son, mother, and paying his sister’s college tuition. Whoever bears responsibility for his murder did more than kill one man. They’ve deprived hip-hop and pop culture of a rare creative vanguard pushing sound and style forward in a landscape glutted with pastiche and […]
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The Radicalization of J.D. Vance
“As he runs for the Senate, the Hillbilly Elegy author has gone from media darling to establishment pariah. Is his new, fiery, right-wing persona an act? Or is something more interesting going on?”