The Torch Singer
Patti Smith is fifty-five, but she doesn’t look much different than she did in 1975, when her friend Robert Mapplethorpe photographed her for the cover of “Horses.” The Mapplethorpe photograph, which was shot in black-and-white—unusual for the time—is one of the most recognizable images in the iconography of rock and roll. Smith is standing against a white wall. Her dark hair, which grazes the base of her neck, is thick and wild, and she stares insolently at the camera. She wears a white shirt and has tossed a black jacket over her left shoulder in an homage to Frank Sinatra’s boulevardier poses. She looks arrogant, androgynous, and fragile.
Burger Queen: April Bloomfield’s Gastropub Revolution
Jay-Z, an investor in the Spotted Pig, and a frequent patron, wanted the smoked-trout salad, but the kitchen was out. He and his group settled on the house specialty—burgers, which the restaurant’s chef, April Bloomfield, serves one way: char-grilled, on a brioche bun, topped with crumbled Roquefort. Only Lou Reed, a fixture in the neighborhood, is allowed to have his burger with onions, and that is owing to precedent: an awestruck employee took his order one afternoon when Bloomfield was out.
A Deadly Misdiagnosis: Is it possible to save the millions of people who die from TB?
Prasad said nothing more about the medical needs of his patients. “It’s a nice lab,” Mannan said when we left. “Beautiful, actually. But if the doctors used it properly that would interfere with their private practice.” I asked what he meant. “It is simple,” he said. “If patients are treated at the hospital, they won’t need to pay for anything else.”
The Perfect Stride: Can Alberto Salazar straighten out American distance running?
At first, Salazar’s scheme was bizarrely complex. Among other things, he arranged for the design of a sealed house near the Nike campus in which athletes would sleep in rooms with varied amounts of oxygen. He also used an obscure computer program from Russia that claimed to measure an athlete’s fatigue level using electrodes that tracked variations in heart rate and in a runner’s “omega brain waves.”
Overdrive: Who Really Rescued General Motors?
In February of 2009, Steven Rattner was selected by the Obama Administration to oversee the federal bailout of General Motors and Chrysler. It was not a popular choice. Rattner was a Wall Street financier with no expertise in the automobile business. But, as Rattner makes clear in “Overhaul,” his account of the experience, the critics misunderstood his role.
In the Name of the Law
Mexico’s war on crime and drugs in Tijuana. A colonel cracks down on corruption.
Desert Storm: Harry Reid and Sharron Angle square off in Nevada
Harry Reid is the most powerful man in the Senate. Can the far right bring him down?
Search and Destroy
Inside Gawker founder Nick Denton’s blog empire
Later
What does procrastination tell us about ourselves?
As the World Burns
How the Senate and the White House missed their best chance to deal with climate change.