Other Voices, Other Rooms

Leslie Jamison reviews “Private Lives Public Spaces,” an exhibition of home movies and photography at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. What makes the exhibit fascinating is the thread of desire that runs through it — that keen human need to document our present as it all-too-quickly turns into our past.

Published: Apr 23, 2020
Length: 19 minutes (4,922 words)

Do We Really Want to Live Without the Post Office?

The history and future of the American mail system, an incredible story from 2013 that is relevant once again.

Source: Esquire
Published: Jan 22, 2013
Length: 40 minutes (10,136 words)

46 Years in Prison, and a Plan to Kill the Man Who Framed Him

“Richard Phillips survived the longest wrongful prison sentence in American history by writing poetry and painting with watercolors. But on a cold day in the prison yard, he carried a knife and thought about revenge.”

Source: CNN
Published: Apr 23, 2020
Length: 34 minutes (8,600 words)

The Wonderful, Transcendent Life of an Odd-Nosed Monkey

“The island of Borneo is the only home of the proboscis monkey, an endangered primate that is surprisingly resilient.”

Source: Hakai Magazine
Published: Apr 20, 2020
Length: 22 minutes (5,500 words)

Lights

Have New York City’s LED streetlights taken something from the city, or added to it?

Published: Jan 1, 2019
Length: 15 minutes (3,953 words)

Marie Kondo cleaned house. Now she wants to fix your whole life

“For several years, it seemed like she was following the playbook of other celebrity entrepreneurs. But now she has clearly decided to throw that strategy out the window. Apparently, it no longer sparked joy. Perhaps it never did.”

Source: Fast Company
Published: Apr 27, 2020
Length: 13 minutes (3,410 words)

O! Small-Bany! Part 4: Fall

The final piece in Elisa Albert’s Albany quartet: Notes on an autumn in search of acceptance in a small city with dangerously lax traffic laws.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 28, 2020
Length: 21 minutes (5,474 words)

Funk Lessons in Sonic Solitude

“Joi’s recorded performances embodied all the funkiness my little soul had been waiting for.”

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 23, 2020
Length: 16 minutes (4,096 words)

Jason Isbell’s Redemption Songs

“A decade after bottoming out and cleaning up, Jason Isbell has become the last of his kind: a guitar-playing, compulsively honest, relentlessly consistent songwriter. Oh, and he slays on Twitter too. Zach Baron goes to Isbell’s family home near Franklin, Tennessee, and finds there’s no question the four-time Grammy winner won’t answer.”

Author: Zach Baron
Source: GQ
Published: Apr 23, 2020
Length: 21 minutes (5,351 words)

Driving A Bus Through A Pandemic

With limited protective gear and no way to avoid the public, bus drivers have little way to protect themselves from exposure, and they cannot tell which passengers carry the virus.

Source: HuffPost
Published: Apr 10, 2020
Length: 8 minutes (2,056 words)