In minimum security, the cook-ups took place on empty top bunk beds. Mattresses were removed, and four or five prisoners would gather around the makeshift table with beef sticks, cheese sticks, squeeze cheese, turkey sticks, dried beans, rice, bags of chips, pickles, jalapenos, packs of tuna, and anything else worth wrapping up in a tortilla. […]
Nonfiction
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Rise of Independent Travel Magazines
Subject matter can be almost self-consciously esoteric. The latest issue of Ernest includes a piece by Queen guitarist Brian May on diableries (19th-century stereoscopic photographs of clay model demons). Cereal has 10 pages on Anglepoise lamps; Avaunt has a feature headlined “Politics of map projections”. The new magazines also move away from the traditional “colonial” […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Roots of the Greek Debt Crisis
The crisis in Greece is getting worse. Its people on July 5 voted against the terms of the most recent bailout deal in a referendum, rejecting austerity. If a new deal isn’t reached soon, its government won’t be able to pay its debts and will run out of euros, which many expect it will mean […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘A Sweatshop for Trustafarians’ Inside Vice’s Williamsburg Headquarters
Vice’s headquarters are a 30,000-square-foot amalgamation of converted warehouses in Williamsburg, Brooklyn—hipster capital of the US. [Vice co-founder Shane Smith], who was not made available for an interview with CJR despite repeated requests, has called his office of 425 workers “a sweatshop for trustafarians” and the culture “like an incestuous family.” The interior matches Vice’s style: gritty […]
Posted inNonfiction
Well-Aimed and Powerful
The death of the shuttle, the moon hoax conspiracy theory, and why one man deserved to be punched in the damn mouth by Buzz Aldrin.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Well-Aimed and Powerful
The death of the shuttle, the moon hoax conspiracy theory, and why one man deserved to be punched in the damn mouth by Buzz Aldrin.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Katie O’Reilly on the Downsides to Donating Your Eggs
For a brief while in my late twenties, I toyed with selling my eggs. In the end, I was afraid of having the procedure, of what the fertility drugs might do to me—and the idea of having offspring out in the world whom I might never know. (I was afraid enough of having offspring I […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Art of Paint-and-Sip Franchising
The paint-and-sip industry is a little more than a decade old. People show up to drink while an instructor slowly guides them, step-by-step, through the creation of a prechosen design. The idea was pioneered by Painting With a Twist, which two women in New Orleans started while looking for a reason to gather after Hurricane […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Benefits of Being No. 2 in Business
Back in the early 1960s, also-ran Avis — a smaller, less successful business than Hertz — decided to run a new advertising campaign, one that embraced its market position rather than trying to change it. “When you’re only No. 2, you try harder. Or else,” the company’s advertisements read. Avis’s initial business insight was to […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
On Falsely Laying Claim to a Literary Lineage
The first time I admitted that yes, I was related to Francis Scott Key, it came as a shock, even to me, because, of course, I was lying. While my other college friends experimented with drugs and God, I experimented with genealogy. Soon, I found myself trying to learn to pretend to be a writer […]