Now, This Is a Supermodel
A profile of the plus-size model Ashley Graham, who has appeared on the covers of Vogue and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and has become an ambassador of a beauty movement that celebrates the bodies of real people.
What I Know About My Best Friend’s Murder
An excerpt of The Hot One: a Memoir of Friendship, Sex and Murder, by Carolyn Murnick. Murnick tries to make sense of the stabbing death of her childhood best friend at 22, in 2001, just eight months after they last saw each other.
What’ll It Be For The New York Diner?
Diners were once essential threads in the fabric of New York City life. Now they’re dying off. Their loss signals a fundamental shift in not only the city’s tastes and economy, but the city’s evolving identity and values. Thankfully, not all are giving up their 22 different hamburgers and 24 types of omelettes yet.
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.
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.
John Hinckley Left the Mental Hospital Seven Months Ago
Can a man who tried to murder a president be rehabilitated?
Why Millennial Pink Refuses to Go Away
It’s a muted form of pink—more sophisticated than bubblegum, more luxurious than eraser pink—and it can be found on book covers, runways, Pinterest boards, cosmetics labels, and almost any Instagram feed. It’s been around almost as long as millennial-hating has been around, and it also shows no signs of letting up.
The Forgotten Black Woman Behind Betty Boop
The comic character Betty Boop is enjoying a renaissance, with new cartoons, a new trademark red lipstick, and women’s fashions on offer. Gabrielle Bellot explores the original inspiration for Betty Boop — a black jazz singer named Baby Esther Jones — whose signature voice and scat-inspired patter inspired not only Betty’s look, but her signature phrase, “Boop-oop-a-doop.” As Bellot says, Boop was far more than just a cartoon character — quite the opposite — as the first feminist depicted in animated film.
Choose Your Own Rachel Cusk
A profile of feminist author–memoirist, novelist–Rachel Cusk, and the many contradictions contained within her, and her writing.
Pandas Will Fix Everything
How importing cute Chinese guest workers on temporary visas became a cuddly “Kumbaya” dream for New York’s rich and powerful.