Are We in a Golden Age for Experimental Film Scores?

Pulp Fiction and Garden State created a successful model for soundtracks, but movie directors are now moving away from the curated mixtape formula, and having musicians create idiosyncratic scores to set their films and soundtracks apart.

Source: Pitchfork
Published: Feb 20, 2019
Length: 10 minutes (2,676 words)

The Tragedy of Baltimore

Since Freddie Gray’s death, Baltimore — which once inspired The Wire but in recent years seemed to be experiencing an urban revival — has seen a sharp increase in violent crime amidst  “a failure of order and governance the likes of which few American cities have seen in years.”

Published: Mar 12, 2019
Length: 34 minutes (8,590 words)

The Sound of Evil

“If you’re a character in a current police procedural or prime-time thriller, there are few more frightening, heart-stopping words than when a polite, clean-shaven man asks in a vaguely European accent, ‘Do you like Bach?'”

Published: Mar 4, 2019
Length: 9 minutes (2,300 words)

Close Encounters of the Digital Kind

“The idea seems to be that we all live in the great database in the sky, occasionally summoning aliens with our minds.” Emily Harnett explores Silicon Valley’s appropriation of UFO culture.

Source: The Baffler
Published: Mar 8, 2019
Length: 10 minutes (2,666 words)

Touch

In China, a British expat marveled at the many ways strangers touched each other, creating a common language of the body, during China’s modernization.

Source: Granta
Published: Feb 14, 2019
Length: 16 minutes (4,184 words)

Life And Limb

Sophie Novack reports on why residents of the Rio Grande Valley lose limbs and appendages to diabetes-related amputation at a rate 50 percent higher than anywhere else in the United States.

Source: Texas Observer
Published: Mar 1, 2019
Length: 15 minutes (3,797 words)

The Story of Storytelling

When narratives are examined through an evolutionary lens, they reveal shared cultural origins and the durability of storytelling itself, which has evolved as a kind of organism along with homo sapiens. “If any organism can achieve true immortality,” Ferris Jabr writes, “it is surely the story.”

Published: Mar 1, 2019
Length: 16 minutes (4,213 words)

The Embryo in the Hallway

Jen Gann learned that she and her husband have genetic mutations that can cause cystic fibrosis after her son was diagnosed with the disease. Her second pregnancy involved a lot more people — and a lot more questions.

Author: Jen Gann
Source: The Cut
Published: Mar 7, 2019
Length: 14 minutes (3,693 words)

Life, Death, and PTSD as a Ranger in the Tetons

As a climbing ranger in Grand Teton National Park, Drew Hardesty is one of those charged with rescuing lost and injured hikers, runners, and climbers. When things are good, he’s putting his life on the line, dangling 50 feet below a helicopter harnessed to a survivor. When things get bad, he’s bringing home the bodies.

Source: Outside
Published: Mar 6, 2019
Length: 7 minutes (1,979 words)

Why Is the Wedding Industry So Hard to Disrupt?

Each year, the U.S. wedding industry generates $72 billion dollars in revenue, yet Zola is the first startup to succeed in the wedding category since 1996.

Source: Vox
Published: Mar 1, 2019
Length: 10 minutes (2,603 words)