Tag: originals

Are cat videos mindless distraction or a radical form of pure entertainment? A visit to the Internet Cat Video Festival at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Social scientist Bella DePaulo’s research reveals a broader array of lifestyles—from our relationships to our living spaces—than many of us could dream up.

Rachel Hills on her new book, ‘The Sex Myth,’ which explores our cultural obsession with sex and our disdain for prudishness, vanilla tastes, and virginity.

What’s the point of a hunt without a kill? A look inside the (nearly) bloodless world of fox hunting and a thwarted family legacy.

An Interview with “America’s Test Kitchen” founder Christopher Kimball on how cooking is like woodworking, the business model behind “Cooks Illustrated,” and the awesome powers of baking soda and gelatin.

“On the last day of my old job, I stumbled out the door, holding aloft that iconic emblem of termination: The Box. Though from the outside it might look wholly indistinct, we who have felt its symbolic weight know this is no ordinary box; this is a box that can make grown men cry.”

An interview with Kay Cannon, Pitch Perfect screenwriter, on how her a cappella comedy might be changing the definition of cool.

An interview with Vivian Gornick about the problem with writing programs, the memoir’s potential for dishonesty, and finding her way as a writer.

“Here, I see many barriers, many conflicts—between class, between race, between cultures, between ideologies, between jobs.”

“Like most cultural shifts in language, the rise of white, upper-middle class women who call themselves ‘mama’ seemed to happen slowly, and then all at once.” Elissa Strauss explores how the use of “mama” helped rebrand motherhood for the modern mother.

An interview with Caroll Spinney, who, at 81, has worked at “Sesame Street” as the puppeteer behind Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for 45 years.

An interview with Kate Bolick about the single women in history who helped her understand how she could live on her own terms.

Dolphin trainer Ashley Guidry loved her job and the animals she worked with—in particular, a dolphin calf named Chopper. But years of seeing how business was done behind the scenes at a small marine park made her come to the painful conclusion that she had to walk away from it all.

April 17 marks six years since we started this community—growing from just a few readers to over a million, with people now sharing stories in dozens of different languages from hundreds of publishers. Christian Jørgensen put together a really nice Storify timeline of how the Twitter hashtag #longreads first evolved. This community also has grown […]

The rise and fall of Pyramiden, a Russian mining town located in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

An interview with Mary Pilon about her new book, ‘The Monopolists,’ which uncovers the real story about how Monopoly became the game it is today.

“A really good idea might come to you at night and seem really wrong in the morning. So you’re always testing things.”

How Ta-Nehisi Coates built the best comment section on the internet—and why it can’t last.

Art, commerce, and the battle for the soul of My Little Pony.

“I feel like the creative mind is very fast in some ways and completely blind as a bat in other ways.”

“Once, when the pain came, I grabbed for a knife, my fist tight around it, contemplating digging out my right eye. I was twenty-one.”