Cutler investigates the complete history of the Bay Area’s housing crisis—from technology and rent control to California’s Proposition 13: Earlier in the summer of 1978, a cantankerous former small-town newspaper publisher named Howard Jarvis led a “taxpayer revolt” as property prices were soaring, threatening to throw home owners out of their homes because of rising […]
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Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
‘A Taste of Power’: The Woman Who Led the Black Panther Party
Elaine Brown was the first and only woman to lead the male-dominated Black Panther Party. She looks back on Jean Seberg, COINTELPRO, and internal divisions within the organization.
Posted inNonfiction, Quote Posts, Reading List
Tiny Houses, RVs, and Other Places We Call Home: A Reading List
Here are four pieces exploring different approaches to space and home—from living on wheels to escaping the grid.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
Glamorous Crossing: How Pan Am Airways Dominated International Travel in the 1930s
Starting with just a mail route, Juan Terry Trippe helped create a uniquely American luxury experience.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘If Both of You Don’t Grow Up, One of You Is Going to Die’
It never fully leaves. Years later, you find yourself at a New Year’s party and idly ask a friend a question about dads, and after 10 minutes’ conversation you realize both of you are on the verge either of insensate bawling, or else ready to throw a chair through a window. Or you find yourself […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How a 26-Year-Old From Dallas Turned Fashion Blogging Into Big Business
Affiliate marketing is almost as old as the Internet; it developed back in 1994 thanks to pornography sites, and it was implemented by Jeff Bezos at Amazon shortly afterward. Here’s how it works: Say you search for flights on Priceline. The hyperlinked airfare results aren’t just any old links. They’re affiliate links. The act of […]
Posted inNonfiction
Science, Chance, and Emotion with Real Cosima
Through her work on clone-thriller Orphan Black, science consultant Cosima Herter has helped open our eyes to the possibilities and perils of synthetic biology and the pursuit of genetic perfection.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Robin Williams: 1951-2014
Comedian and actor Robin Williams died today at the age of 63. Here are five in-depth interviews with him. 1. Robin Williams: ‘The Night Listener’ (Terry Gross, Fresh Air, Aug. 3, 2006) Terry Gross talks to Robin Williams, and, towards the end of the interview, asks him about depression: “Do I get sad? Oh yeah. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Love, Identity, and Genderqueer Family Making
An excerpt from Maggie Nelson’s ‘The Argonauts’.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
‘Living for a Plank and Four Wheels in a Profligate Culture’
My wife, Daphne, got to something I’d been trying to figure out for years when, after reading a particularly asinine article in the February 2003 issue [of Thrasher magazine], she said: “It’s really not OK that these people are using so little of their brains.” “Using so little.” It’s the perfect indictment of everything that’s […]
