A River Runs Through It

A history of Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios, which became a safe haven for artists during a time when record companies operated with an “ironfisted grip,” and went on to mentor artists like Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Mos Def and Talib Kweli, Santigold and Bilal.

Source: Believer
Published: Jan 5, 2015
Length: 20 minutes (5,171 words)

What Ruth Bader Ginsburg Taught Me About Being a Stay-at-Home Dad

Ryan Park decides, after his clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to spend a year at home with his daughter before pursuing a corporate job. What he learned about the state of stay-at-home dads in America.

Author: Ryan Park
Source: The Atlantic
Published: Jan 10, 2015
Length: 21 minutes (5,375 words)

The Murder that Has Obsessed Italy

In Italy, the 2011 murder of Yara Gambirasio has sent shockwaves through entire communities, prompting the police to launch the most complex investigation in the country’s history — an investigation that would end up exposing family secrets that had been buried for decades.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Jan 8, 2015
Length: 20 minutes (5,235 words)

What to Eat After the Apocalypse

Engineer Joshua Pearce explains how to feed 7 billion people after a global catastrophe. Hint: get ready to eat some bugs.

Source: Nautilus
Published: Dec 18, 2014
Length: 7 minutes (1,800 words)

Mainline Street

How heroin grabbed hold in the small town of Laramie, Wyoming, thanks to a drug dealer named Ory Joe Johnson, who started selling after getting addicted to prescription pain medication.

Author: Sean Flynn
Source: GQ
Published: Jan 7, 2015
Length: 22 minutes (5,523 words)

Burying My Family’s History in Bakersfield.

An essay about clearing out a dead father’s home, and the evolution of a landfill in California’s Central Valley.

Source: Boom
Published: Jan 6, 2015
Length: 24 minutes (6,000 words)

To the Office, with Love

What do we lose when the traditional office job disappears? An examination of the forced freelance future.

Published: Jan 7, 2015
Length: 17 minutes (4,300 words)

The Town Without Wi-Fi

People afflicted with “electromagnetic hypersensitivity”—ailments related to being around devices like cell phones that emit electromagnetic frequencies—have flocked to the town of Green Bank, West Virginia, where modern technology has been banned due to their possible interference with a government telescope. The locals aren’t happy about the stream of newcomers.

Source: Washingtonian
Published: Jan 5, 2015
Length: 16 minutes (4,247 words)

The Politics of Drinking Water

A brief examination of drinking water’s place in American history, and the current politics of clean water.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Dec 30, 2014
Length: 8 minutes (2,211 words)

The Story Behind Jeff Bezos’s Amazon Fire Phone Debacle

Insider-y account of what went wrong with the Fire phone: Bezos himself served as head of product for the device, which meant teams would be hesitant to question his ideas. The stumble means more questions about whether Amazon is on the right track.

Source: Fast Company
Published: Jan 6, 2015
Length: 25 minutes (6,351 words)