Rhiannon Giddens and What Folk Music Means
John Jeremiah Sullivan’s profile of American folk singer, composer, and MacArthur Fellow Rihannon Giddens includes a history of the influential, but little known black antebellum fiddler Frank Johnson, as well as the 1898 racial massacre in Wilmington, North Carolina.
How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster
This is what happens when a company concerns itself more with marketing than with retail service.
My Childhood in a Cult
Actor, writer and screenwriter Guinevere Turner recalls growing up in a cult called “The Lyman Family,” and reveals its lingering effects on her, many years after her departure from it.
Tracy Morgan Turns the Drama of His Life Into Comedy
Vinson Cunningham profiles Tracy Morgan as the comic films the second season of his Jordan Peele-produced TBS show “The Last O.G.” and explores the complex audience dynamics of black comedy.
If You Should Find Yourself in the Dark
A personal essay in which Debbie Weingarten considers the anxieties of mothering and being human in a volatile world.
Kokoro Yasume
Perched between her family’s Unitarianism, her Japanese mother’s shinto, and a world infused with beauty and death, an atheist daughter wrestles with mythology, ritual, and ways to stay connected to who she is, where she comes from, and where is going.
The Birth-Tissue Profiteers
Stem cell purveyors suggest that they “ease” every aging-related malady from arthritis and erectile dysfunction to wrinkles and everything in between. What don’t these stem cell snake-oil salespeople have? Any science to prove these claims or any scruples about preying on the vulnerable at tens of thousands of dollars per injection.
Friends of the Pod
“Podcasts intensify our saturation while pretending to relieve it. It’s like a voluntary authoritarian state, except instead of state-funded sitcoms, we have Marc Maron. But what would we do without it? Die, probably. Be murdered. Become a true-crime podcast. Don’t forget us when we’re gone; please rate us on iTunes.”
The Price of Plenty: How Beef Changed America
Before there was modern agribusiness or assembly-line production plants, there was the American beef industry.
The Joy of Watching (and Rewatching) Movies So Bad They’re Good
In this personal and critical essay, Michael Musto sings the praises of his favorite cinematic clunkers.
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