The long, tangled, and mostly wrong history of the psychedelic toad.
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Bad Blood (Longreads’ Version): A Musical Feuds Reading List
Whether competition between artists or strife within a band, popular music features some of pop culture’s messiest rivalries.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week features pieces from Sabrina Imbler, Natan Last, Lulu Miller and John Megahan, Casey Cep, and David Grimm.
Johnson & Johnson and a New War on Consumer Protection
The company has spent billions on cases about one of its most popular products. As its executives try a brazen new legal strategy to stop the litigation, corporate America takes note: Johnson & Johnson has always insisted, including to this magazine, that its baby powder is “safe, asbestos-free, and does not cause cancer”; however, a 2016 […]
Into the Darkness
Germany’s Black Forest faces a future of transformation. So do the people who have lived there for centuries.
Musical Rivalries and our Weekly Top 5
“Before hip-hop brought the concept of ‘beef’ into the mainstream, rock and roll’s aggression and excess resulted in many an unfriendly rivalry; decades earlier, the hard life of the traveling jazz musician led to some heady and memorable fallouts. Whether it’s pop stars, country singers, dancehall artists, or Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s recent multi-song war, […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Notable reads by Marco Giancotti, Jessica Davey-Quantick, Reeves Wiedman, Emily Fox Kaplan, and C Pam Zhang.
The Most Corrupt Cop in New Orleans and Our Weekly Top 5
“Murder is what landed Davis in court, but the victim wasn’t in the drug game. She was a single mother who had filed a brutality complaint against Davis. The next day, he ordered a hit man to kill her.” Congratulations, we’ve made it to the fifth month of 2024! For you, in addition to our […]
Silicon Valley Circuits
“Route 85 in California now inspires dread. Some of us remember when it was a vision of the future.”
Sinead O’Connor Remembers Things Differently
“The mainstream narrative is that a pop star ripped up a photo of the pope on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and derailed her life. What if the opposite were true?”


