longreads

The Stutterer: How He Makes His Voice Heard Today, I am still being jolted, and the jagged terrain behind bears the track marks of my own innumerable small humiliations. In the seventh grade: A substitute asks the class to read out loud, and when I stumble over my first sentence, she inquires of the other […]

Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation? Part 10: By the Time We Got to Woodstock ’99 After losing money on the first Woodstock sequel in 1994, Scher told reporters at Woodstock 99 that he was determined “to try and make a profit on this one.” Organizers were later criticized for charging $150 a ticket ($180 at […]

The People V. Football She had no idea, back then, that he was sick. She had no idea he was losing his mind. Something neurological, the doctors are now saying, some kind of sludge blocking pathways in his brain. Would it have made a difference if she knew? Of course it would have. But you […]

Rage Against Your Machine: Drivers vs. Cyclists in America “As a couples therapist, I tell people that we take things so personally,” he says as we near the Whitestone Bridge, on the first dedicated bike path we’ve seen in more than two hours. It’s easy, when a car edges too close or cuts him off, […]

The Truth About Sex Addiction Within a half-hour of my first meeting Neil Melinkovich, a 59-year-old life coach, sometime writer and former model who has been in Sex Addicts Anonymous for more than 20 years, he told me about the time in 1987 that he made a quick detour from picking up his girlfriend at […]

The Loneliness of the American College Transfer Student I don’t usually bother telling people I went to Michigan for a single semester anymore. There isn’t much point because I’m at the age where people don’t give a shit where you went to school. They just ask you that question as a way of passing the […]

Taming the Wild Mavrik, the object of Trut’s attention, is about the size of a Shetland sheepdog, with chestnut orange fur and a white bib down his front. He plays his designated role in turn: wagging his tail, rolling on his back, panting eagerly in anticipation of attention. Trut reaches in and scoops him up, […]