Style is an Algorithm

No one is original anymore, not even you.

Source: Racked
Published: Apr 17, 2018
Length: 24 minutes (6,025 words)

K.D. Lang Doesn’t Have to Indulge Your Constant Cravings

At the New York Times, Penelope Green profiles Canadian singer-songwriter K.D. Lang 25 years after the release of Lang’s album Ingénue. Green writes about how Lang has come to terms with her success, her “chapter in the history of the gay rights movement,” and about reaching middle age as an artist.

Published: Mar 22, 2018
Length: 11 minutes (2,846 words)

A Port In a Storm

When the village of Portpatrick, Scotland formed a trust to protect its harbor from further decay and outside ownership, a financial scandal forced the village to try a very different type of ownership model, a truly equitable one, called community shares. This model would be difficult in capitalist America.

Published: Apr 1, 2018
Length: 24 minutes (6,210 words)

Why My Grandmother Carried a Plastic Brain in Her Purse

Dara Bramson’s grandmother decided to donate her brain to science, so Bramson visited the donation center to help understand the importance of research and challenges to donations.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Apr 11, 2018
Length: 5 minutes (1,444 words)

The Strike: Chemicals, Cancer, and the Fight for Health Care

Workers at Momentive Performance Materials had given their lives to the chemical plant. The strike was supposed to save what little they had left.

Author: Ian Frisch
Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 16, 2018
Length: 32 minutes (8,040 words)

Never Solved, a College Dorm Fire Has Become One Man’s Obsession

The eight young Ph.D. students who died in a fire at Cornell University in 1967 have become the reason for one amateur detective to live. But why is William Fogle obsessed with other peoples’ tragedy?

Published: Apr 13, 2018
Length: 32 minutes (8,040 words)

Cashing in on Standing Rock

Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, a self-described “peaceful, unarmed militia,” was established in 2016 to help protect Indigenous opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. High Country News finds that the $1.4 million they raised on GoFundMe during the confrontation was “at best, squandered and at worst, egregiously misspent.”

Published: Apr 13, 2018
Length: 27 minutes (6,840 words)

Real Museums of Memphis

In the wake of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. in Memphis, essayist and scholar Zandria F. Robinson wonders what has changed in the city in the intervening years and sheds a light on what hasn’t.

Published: Apr 12, 2018
Length: 19 minutes (4,794 words)

“Who Can Explain the Athletic Heart?”

Michael MacCambridge—author of 1997’s The Franchise, a classic in media reporting—deep-dives what to make of Sports Illustrated following Meredith’s acquisition of Time Inc, and how (and even whether) the once-essential magazine can continue to survive in a continuously evolving media landscape

Source: The Ringer
Published: Apr 13, 2018
Length: 23 minutes (5,862 words)

How Do We Write Now?

The world’s a mess, but that doesn’t mean creativity must end. Staying creative just requires great effort.

Source: Tin House
Published: Apr 10, 2018
Length: 11 minutes (2,808 words)