By protecting ourselves and no one else, we destroy ourselves along with everyone else.
Arts & Culture
William Gibson on How Science Fiction Portrays Reality
“Every fiction about the future is like an ice-cream cone,” Gibson says, “melting as it moves into the future.”
Violence Girl
How a young bilingual Latina became one of punk’s enduring icons and helped create a new musical universe.
What Brings True Happiness: the Booze or the Bonding?
“But there’s nothing wrong with a nudge toward examining the difference between what makes us happy and what is merely habitual.”
How Bagel Makers’ Union Local 338 Beat NYC’s “Kosher Nostra”
‘“A bagel,” the newspaper of record explained in 1960, “is an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis.”’
When Media Miscalculations Pivot Talented People Out of a Job
Pivoting to video is only one of many ways media workers lose their jobs, but it’s still a horrible way.
Still Waters
The muted response to Todd Haynes’s “Dark Waters” is depressingly similar to our culture’s muted response to climate change
Longreads Best of 2019: Music Writing
We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in music writing.
Wonderful Things: The Kid Creole and the Coconuts Story
Combining island sounds with stylish clothes and an unforgettable stage presence, one of New York City’s most original bands helped influence 1980s pop culture, and they never sacrificed their unclassifiable artistic vision.
Purging the Unhealthy Value System of the American Literary World
It’s time writers free themselves from concepts like “break out books” and “making it.”
