Autumn and the Plot Against Me

Going deeper, a file called “Autumn Properties” reveals only that it’s a five-kilobyte Windows Theme File. When I try to find out what a theme file is, the Windows Help and Support Center suggests, “Check your spelling.” Well, hell, somebody at Microsoft ought to know. As it turns out, if they do, they’re not telling. Curiosity becomes yearning, and yearning becomes obsession. Several friends are drawn into my search. I no longer want merely to find Autumn and go there. I now want to go there and look for a little place to live not far from that leaf-covered path. Photo editors, editor editors, fact-checkers, researchers, computer guys and computer dolls—my motley, shifting, devoted crew come to be known as Team Autumn.

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Feb 19, 2007
Length: 8 minutes (2,028 words)

Confessions of an Opium-Seeker

Driven by romantic, spiritual, and medicinal imperatives, the author goes in search of something everyone tells him no longer exists: an opium den.

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Sep 1, 2000
Length: 11 minutes (2,778 words)