When music writers are also music fans, they can walk a line between appreciative and intrusive.
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The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Orchids
Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and sometimes it’s a powerful vehicle for giving free rein to our worst colonialist and misogynist impulses.
Anyone’s Son
Cody Dalton Eyre, a 20-year-old Alaskan Native, was having a mental health crisis on Christmas Eve, 2017 when his mother called 911 for help. So why did police officers end up shooting and killing him?
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Natalie Kitroeff and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Brendan I. Koerner, Eve Peyser, Darius Miles, and Bill Wyman.
An American City, Inhabited Yet Abandoned
“Not a single person was killed on the day of the rioting. But the following month, May, would conclude with 41 homicides — the most the city had experienced in a month since the 1970s.”
“We’re All Still Cooking…Still Raw at the Core”: An Interview with Jacqueline Woodson
“When I look at that dress and how much intention went into the making of it…it’s like we want to have something that can’t be destroyed, because so much of the past has been destroyed…”
Sometimes a Tortoise Is More Than a Tortoise
Meet Fred. He’s cold-blooded, beady-eyed, a picky eater, and likely to outlive us all.
Longreads Best of 2018: Crime Reporting
We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in crime reporting.
How the Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies Revived the NBA
Both franchises led the NBA’s international expansion, and to stand out in the hockey-crazed country, the teams would need impressive logos and colorways to break through, but no one expected a red raptor or a grizzly bear outlined in Haida trim.
New York in the 1970s Gave Us Hip Hop, Madonna, and the Chip on Trump’s Shoulder
“You bang your head against the wall to try to get some nice buildings up, and what happens? Everybody comes after you.”

