Teen Girls Finally Get to Touch Themselves By Soraya Roberts Feature Pop culture loves to show teen boys jerking off, but girls never seemed to get the same attention. They are getting their happy ending now.
Shelved: Sonny Rollins Live at Carnegie Hall By Tom Maxwell Feature The saxophone colossus recorded two concerts at the same venue fifty years apart. Only one recording emerged from the vault.
Writing for the Movies: A Letter from Hollywood, 1962 By Longreads Feature In this classic essay about a classic American art form, legendary screenwriter Daniel Fuchs reflects on his lifetime learning the trade.
Why Must We Tarnish the Glittering Legacy of Italo Disco with Petty Squabbles By Michelle Weber Highlight There’s no “I” in “Disco.” Oh wait, yes there is. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Remembering James Ingram By Tom Maxwell Commentary The R&B singer and songwriter made it look easy, even when it wasn’t.
The Paths of Rhythm By Longreads Feature A Tribe Called Quest’s pioneering music is one of many filaments that connects Americans of color with each other now and back through time.
Accidental Music History: How Jeff Gold Saved Rare Iggy & the Stooges Recordings from the Dump By Aaron Gilbreath Feature Sometimes this is how musical history gets saved.
Edward Gorey: A Highly Conjectural Man By Bridey Heing Feature When asked if there was “anything people don’t understand” about him, Gorey responded: “Yes. No. Yes. No.” A new biography by Mark Dery attempts to sort myth from reality.
Shelved: Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine By Tom Maxwell Feature How the songwriter’s abandoned third album became two albums.
Chimayó By Longreads Feature Esmé Weijun Wang discovers a new interpretation of faith while on two kindred pilgrimages: one to find an accurate medical diagnosis, one to a sacred site in New Mexico.
This Is the Excellent Foppery of the World By Michelle Weber Highlight Mercury’s in retrograde, so it’s a great day to read this post.
This Post Was Originally 200 Words Longer But They Weren’t Sparking Joy By Michelle Weber Highlight “Instead of homes, we live in commodities.”
When Black Male Singers Were Sex Symbols By Ericka Blount Danois Feature Teddy Pendergrass was the R&B singer women wanted and who men wanted to be. And the one whose life-sized cardboard cutout stood in one family’s living room.
Carvell Wallace on ‘Moonlight’ Writer Tarell Alvin McCarney’s Next Acts By Danielle Jackson Highlight Tarell Alvin McCarney’s Broadway debbut,, “Choir Boy,” is a tender coming of age story about a queer Black boy at a prestigious boarding school.
True Crime and the Trash Balance By Soraya Roberts Feature True crime has a reputation for being trashy, but a recent renaissance has it tipping into advocacy.
‘Rhyming Was No Longer a Symptom, But a Cure’: From Stroke Survivor to Rap Legend By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight For stroke survivor Sherman Hershfield, rapping and rhyming kept his seizures under control.
Fruitland By Steven Kurutz Feature Privately made records enjoy a cult following among collectors, but few are as legendary as Donnie and Joe Emerson’s 1979 LP Dreamin’ Wild.
Musicians Come Clean on How They Live, Create, and Thrive While Sober By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight Chris Heath at GQ interviews nine sober musicians on thriving creatively.
Of Blackness and ‘Beauty’ By Morgan Jerkins Feature At an art exhibit exploring black models through Western art, Morgan Jerkins finds historical evidence of the white supremacist definitions of beauty Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom identifies in ‘Thick: and Other Essays.’
The Laws of the Awards Podium Protest By Soraya Roberts Feature Stars are increasingly using Hollywood awards podiums as sites of protest, but few of them are men, and even fewer are white men.
Blackstars By Michael Gonzales Feature Michael Gonzales reflects on the deaths of a dear friend, and a bookworm he idolized: David Bowie.
A History of American Protest Music: Come By Here By Tom Maxwell Feature How cultural appropriation and erasure turned an African American spiritual into a white campfire sing-along.
Where Have All the Music Magazines Gone? By Aaron Gilbreath Feature Inside music journalism post-2008 recession, and how media consumption in the 21st century offers a road map for the continuation of the once-robust medium.
Memory and the Lost Cause By Danielle Jackson Feature An incomplete nostalgia still undergirds parts of American life.
Regarding Joan Miró By Sophie Beck Feature How can the life of a famous surrealist painter be so drabbly predictable?
Take Script, Add Snow By Jane Borden Feature The psychology behind America’s obsession with Hallmark Christmas movies.
How Famous Women Clean Up After Men By Soraya Roberts Feature When men like Offset and Kanye West make a mess, women like Cardi B and Kim Kardashian West are there to restore order. But emotion work is not a woman’s job.
Longreads Best of 2018: Arts and Culture By Longreads Commentary We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in arts and culture.
The World of Nora Ephron: A Reading List By Sarah Edwards Reading List Seven stories about the journalist and director, on the 20th anniversary of the release of the film, “You’ve Got Mail.”
