After Exploring the Past in his Bestselling Memoir, Bettyville, Writer George Hodgman Looks Toward the Future

A profile of George Hodgman, author of the bestselling memoir, Bettyville, about returning to Paris, Missouri to care for his charismatic dying mother. Hodgman weighs whether to stay in Paris, move to St. Louis, or return to to New York City. In the mean time, he prepares to see himself portrayed by Matthew Broderick, and his mother portrayed by Shirley MacLaine, in a Paramount TV dramedy adaptation of the book.

Published: Mar 16, 2017
Length: 25 minutes (6,347 words)

The Dirtbag Left’s Man in Syria

A profile of Brace Belden, a Jewish 27-year-old anarchist and former punk musician from San Francisco who spent six months in Syria fighting against ISIS with Kurdish rebels.

Published: Apr 3, 2017
Length: 22 minutes (5,546 words)

Poor, Gifted, and Black

In South Africa, students of color still struggle with the long-lasting effects of apartheid, because education, like society, is still run by and for the white minority.

Source: BuzzFeed
Published: Mar 30, 2017
Length: 23 minutes (5,909 words)

The (Still) Awesome Life of Dick Vitale

It’s impossible to escape Dick Vitale, the original ESPN personality and longtime mensch of college basketball, but at age 77, and after watching countless friends retire from the broadcast booth, The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis tries to answer the question of what continues to push Vitale?

Source: The Ringer
Published: Apr 3, 2017
Length: 21 minutes (5,261 words)

Cooking Lessons

Two successful chefs decided to open a chain of healthy fast food restaurants in lower income neighborhoods where fresh, nutritious food is scarce. They started in Watts and hired in Watts. They kept prices low, wages fair and quality high. They were disrupting conventional fast food. Their model had a mandate. Making it work has been difficult.

Published: Mar 30, 2017
Length: 27 minutes (6,952 words)

To Save the City We Had to Drown It

Kim Stanley Robinson, the utopian sci-fi writer with an eye towards climate change, set out to write a “comedy of coping” with his latest book, New York 2140, which is set forty years after the catastrophic flooding of the city from rising sea levels.

Published: Apr 27, 2017
Length: 11 minutes (2,800 words)

Building In the Shadow of Our Own Destruction

Those who would build enormous structures—skyscrapers, bridges, border walls—should do so with an eye toward their eventual ruin.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 3, 2017
Length: 12 minutes (3,060 words)

The Burning Desire for Hot Chicken

How a decades-old standby dish in Nashville found its way into stardom.

Author: Danny Chau
Source: The Ringer
Published: Aug 31, 2016
Length: 20 minutes (5,244 words)

ESPN Has Seen the Future of TV and They’re Not Really Into It

No matter how innovative or cutting-edge ESPN makes itself, the cable money is just too lucrative, and the costs of licensing live sports are just too great, to finally cut the cord and offer itself as a standalone internet subscription service the way HBO did with HBO Now.

Published: Apr 1, 2017
Length: 13 minutes (3,473 words)

Inside the ‘Tinderization’ of Today’s NBA

A compelling argument: Home teams are losing their advantage in the NBA because visiting players are partying less. ESPN’s Tom Haberstroh suggests players are using dating apps like Tinder to hook up without going to a club (and get more sleep), and they’re more serious about the detrimental effects of alcohol on physical performance.

Source: ESPN
Published: Apr 1, 2017
Length: 10 minutes (2,634 words)