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Nonfiction
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘We Stayed Children’: Akwaeke Emezi on Growing Up in Chaos in Aba, Nigeria
I spent my entire childhood in Aba, a commercial town in the south of Nigeria, where both my siblings were born. When I came back to the country after leaving for college, I knew from my first circling of the Lagos crowd that the location of my childhood would be ammunition against people who thought […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Thelonious Monk on the Moment He Became Aware of the Police
During the 1960s and 70s, legendary jazz drummer Art Taylor interviewed his fellow musicians. The interviews are collected in the 1993 book Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews, and it’s one of jazz’s greatest. The familial, casual conversations are also serious and insightful, full of history, portraiture, and revelations about race relations in America, and the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What Separated Los Angeles from Its River?
In the early twentieth century, a booming Los Angeles was separated from the river in three decisive steps. First, an aqueduct was built more than 200 miles north to water to the city from the Sierra Nevada—a move mythologized in the movie Chinatown. Then, the city took control of all water rights on the river. Finally, the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Art, Activism & Faith: The Life of Corita Kent
At the LARB, Sasha Carrera, the former director of the Corita Art Center, explores the fascinating life and work of this oft-ignored figure in American art history.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Seeing Robert Johnson’s Face for the Third Time
In 2008, Vanity Fair published a story about a guitar salesman named Steven Schein, who found a photograph of Robert Johnson, the world’s most influential Bluesman, for sale on eBay for $25. The photo was mislabeled “Old Snapshot Blues Guitar B.B. King???”. Only two photos of Johnson had been publicly released. The article is about […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Lisa Frank and Growing Up in a Beautiful World
Interviewer Carly Mark and Frank sat down to discuss the longevity of the Lisa Frank brand, as well as her childhood exposure to fine art and her work ethic.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Billionaires Do Burning Man
Like all people who hate Burning Man, I enjoy nothing more than reading articles about Burning Man. In February, Felix Gillette chronicled the semi-clad class warfare at last year’s Burning Man for Bloomberg Businessweek. Despite being a festival based on radical self-reliance, Black Rock City is seemingly overrun with tech billionaires setting up their own exclusive festivals-within-a-festival; ultra-luxe camps that […]