American Pie

On a decade-old family ritual, in which a Chinese woman and her visiting Chinese-American granddaughter make a pilgrimage to Pizza Hut to share a Hawaiian pizza.

Source: Eater
Published: Aug 27, 2018
Length: 8 minutes (2,133 words)

The Lost Civilization of California Wine

Why are some of California’s greatest red wines collecting dust in a storeroom near Yuba City? It has something to do with the cult that produced them.

Published: Aug 23, 2018
Length: 23 minutes (5,965 words)

To Be Clean

A tender relationship with a fellow exotic dancer shows Natassja Schiel how to love her sister, a recovering addict.

Source: Longreads
Published: Aug 27, 2018
Length: 26 minutes (6,630 words)

Who’s Killing Buck Birdsong’s Cows?

Someone poisoned eighteen of the Birdsong family’s calves in the past four years by feeding them a mysterious grain. But who? And why? Texas Monthly writer-at-large Leif Reigstad digs into a confounding true-crime cold case with no leads, no motive, no patterns, and no suspects.

Source: Texas Monthly
Published: Aug 24, 2018
Length: 17 minutes (4,317 words)

Semi-Fluid States: The Rigid Line of Straightness

In the fourth installment of her series on #Dating_While_Woke, Minda Honey interrogates her sexuality and questions the future of straight-by-default.

Source: Longreads
Published: Aug 24, 2018
Length: 11 minutes (2,750 words)

Sex, Steroids, and Arnold: The Story of the Gym that Shaped America

A sprawling oral history of Gold’s Gym recounts bodybuilding’s transformation from a small, niche scene to a mainstream cultural phenomenon (thanks, in no small part, to one entrepreneurial Austrian immigrant).

Source: Deadspin
Published: Aug 21, 2018
Length: 42 minutes (10,642 words)

Raphael Saadiq Interviewed by Elise R. Peterson

Musician Raphael Saadiq talks about soul music and his own career’s longevity.

Source: The Believer
Published: Aug 1, 2018
Length: 21 minutes (5,492 words)

What Happened at Camp Lejeune

Living next to North Carolina Naval Base Camp Lejeune, Lori Lou Freshwater grew up drinking and bathing in water contaminated at levels 240 to 3400 times the safety standard. Now a Superfund site and a candidate for “the worst water contamination case in U.S. history,” the area’s carcinogens caused her mother to lose two sons, one born with an open spine, the other with no cranium, and to develop two kinds of leukemia. As a stopover base for military personnel, up to a million others could be affected.

Published: Aug 21, 2018
Length: 12 minutes (3,143 words)

Why Doesn’t Boston Give New Edition Their Due?

G. Valentino Ball wonders whether Bostonians understand the true impact of New Edition, the boy band formed in late 70’s Roxbury that became the prototype for Boyz II Men, New Kids on the Block, the Backstreet Boys, and NSYNC.

Source: Boston Magazine
Published: Aug 21, 2018
Length: 13 minutes (3,454 words)

The Nastiest Feud in Science

Do you think a giant asteroid caused the earth’s most recent mass extinction? Princeton paleontologist Gerta Keller has a competing theory, and her decades of research have earned her so much ire in the scientific community that she keeps a list of insults others have thrown at her.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Aug 18, 2018
Length: 33 minutes (8,354 words)