Why Revolutionaries Love Spicy Food
To early Chinese Communists, if you couldn’t stand spicy food, you weren’t equipped to fight for the revolution. Science suggests this association between strength, risk and Maoists might have to do with the chemical interactions between the chili pepper, culture and certain personality types.
This Man Is An Island
A profile of renovator and land developer David Wolkowsky, age 98, whose particular brand of charm, philanthropy, joie de vivre, and camp has permanently shaped Key West, Florida’s unique allure.
One Man’s Mission to Bring Better Ramen to the Incarcerated
Instant ramen is one of the most popular items in prison commissaries, where food runs from awful to inedible, but the ramen is dangerously high in sodium. To save inmates from dietary issues and help the government save money on health care, one man has designed a low-sodium alternative. Time in prison showed him the way.
The Country Where Fútbol Comes First
Uruguay, a small nation with a deep-seated passion for soccer, is the inspiration for any underdog vying to win a World Cup.
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Debt to Me
M.H. Miller shares his family’s story of financial collapse and explores the crippling effects of long-term debt.
Where are the Radical Politics of Cyberpunk?
As the long-anticipated video game Cyberpunk 2077 looms on the horizon (or begins to, at least) Cameron Kunzelman writes about how the politics of the cyberpunk genre are in its aesthetics, and considers what exactly it is those politics are.
Are Great Chefs Also Great Artists?
A Ghirlandaio painting and an Eric Ripert entrée are closer cousins than you might think.
My Brother Comes to Moscow
An excerpt from Keith Gessen’s new novel, A Terrible Country, in which two very different brothers argue over the care of their aging grandmother. “We had had many arguments, but he was my brother; he had always been my brother.”
Gone Gray
In the first essay in Longreads’ new “Fine Lines” series on age and aging, Jessica Berger Gross reflects on what letting her roots grow in at age 45 has meant, in terms of feminism and resistance.
Adrian Piper Speaks! (for Herself)
Conceptual artist and philosopher Adrian Piper’s current exhibition, “A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965-2016,” at MOMA, is the “largest show the museum has ever assembled for a living artist.” In an interview with Lauren O’Neill-Butler, Piper discusses the interdependence of her work in philosophy and her artistic practice.
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