The Catastrophe of Success

“Security is a kind of death, I think, and it can come to you in a storm of royalty checks beside a kidney-shaped pool in Beverly Hills or anywhere at all that is removed from the conditions that made you an artist, if that’s what you are or were intended to be.”

Published: Nov 30, 1947
Length: 8 minutes (2,155 words)

On a Remote Greek Island, Learning to Take a ‘Real’ Vacation

In creating a routine “entirely alien to his normal life,” Alexander Chee attempts a real vacation from his work as a writer. As he sketches his way around Sifnos, capturing both the “least famous” Greek island and his memories of it in a Moleskine notebook, he learns how to draw fresh strength to fuel his work.

Published: Jul 12, 2017
Length: 11 minutes (2,837 words)

Phil Ivey’s Semi-Bluff

During poker’s boom in the early-aughts, Phil Ivey was the sport’s first genuine superstar, an intimidating manipulator with an utterly brilliant mind who helped catapult poker (and his own bank account) to dizzying heights. “I like it when I lose so much money I can barely breathe,” he once told a table during the filming of NBC’s Poker After Dark. But then Ivey disappeared, hamstrung by the lingering accusation and subsequent lawsuits that he had cheated casinos out of millions playing baccarat, which begs the question—does poker still need Phil Ivey?

Author: David Hill
Source: The Ringer
Published: Jul 13, 2017
Length: 32 minutes (8,071 words)

The Town Where Everyone Owns a Gun

After the mine closed nearby, and the residents started to move out of Nucla, Colorado, the town passed an ordinance that every household in the municipality was required to own a gun. But as the residents see it, their main enemy is Telluride, the liberal city next door.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Jul 14, 2017
Length: 20 minutes (5,000 words)

The Benzodiazepine Pilgrim

A man visits the Croatian town where Leo Sternbach, the inventor of benzodiazepines, was born. Benzos were the author’s drug of choice. Thankfully the town’s Margherita pizza outsells the Valium.

Published: Jun 27, 2017
Length: 8 minutes (2,092 words)

The Selfie Monkey Goes to the Ninth Circuit

Can a monkey be an “author” under U.S. copyright law? PETA forges ahead with a claim on behalf of Naruto the macaque, and Sarah Jeong walks us through the details.

Source: Motherboard
Published: Jul 13, 2017
Length: 7 minutes (1,804 words)

The Weather of the Place

Writer and editor Andrew Mitchell Davenport uses Jean Toomer’s Harlem Renaissance novel Cane to shed light on the ongoing reality of racial terror.

Published: Jul 12, 2017
Length: 10 minutes (2,616 words)

Even After 40 Years, Maze and Frankie Beverly Play On

For 40 years, North California soul band Maze featuring Frankie Beverly has drawn crowds of devoted fans to its live shows without mainstream radio play. Bruce Britt offers a thrilling account of the band’s rise.

Source: The Undefeated
Published: Jul 12, 2017
Length: 16 minutes (4,209 words)

Late in Life, Thoreau Became a Serious Darwinist

But he died before he could finish his book on natural history. As Emerson put it, Thoreau “depart[ed] out of Nature before… he has been really shown to his peers for what he is.”

Source: Viking
Published: Jul 13, 2017
Length: 27 minutes (6,840 words)

“What Are You Doing Here, Sister?”

“In the beginning, there was a plane; and then there was an airport. And then there was a language. And then there was a city that taught me to live. This queer city, this brown city — this queer brown city. Finally, finally, I am home.”

Author: Lamya H
Published: Jul 7, 2017
Length: 19 minutes (4,897 words)