The Year That Was and Wasn’t
We asked some of our favorite journalists, writers, and thinkers: What were the most important events of 2020, and what were the least?
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A collection of 39 issues
The Year That Was and Wasn’t
The past year has been bad—but what made it bad, more or less? To find out, we asked a group of writers and thinkers: What were the most important events of 2016, and what were the least?
The Year That Was and Wasn’t
We asked writers and thinkers to tell us: What were the most important events of 2015—and what were the least?
Paper Citizen
America is a proud nation of immigrants—try telling that to everyone on the other side of the door. Life as a white-collar undocumented immigrant in New York.
Hit Job
An unusual DEA raid on one of LA’s most reputable medical marijuana dispensaries reveals the bewildering conflict between state and federal drug laws.
Union Square Sports Bar
An adventure of food and drink in San Francisco naturally expands to include Ornette Coleman, Mexican wedding cookies, and a pet monkey admiring the ocean.
The Long Thanatopsis
Over the next few decades, baby boomers will reinvent how America dies. That gives Generation X one last thing to roll its eyes about, as it follows a step behind.
The Unofficial Roger Ebert Reader on Addiction
When Roger Ebert died, America was deprived of one of its finest critics. We also lost one of our best writers on addiction.
The Year That Was and Wasn’t
We gathered writers and thinkers to consider everything that happened over the past 12 months and asked them: What were the most important events of 2013—and what were the least?
My Brief, Binding Road
Since the closing down of Silk Road, the number of drug dealers selling online has increased nearly 50 percent. A former customer waits in fear, wondering why he used his real name.
That’s All Folks
Every generation gets the fictional doomsday it desires. What we learned during our dystopian, end-of-the-world summer vacation at the movies.
The Complete Biography of North West
A baby is born to a celebrity couple. Meanwhile, many more babies are born to countless other non-famous couples. This is what happens next.
No One Is Innocent
Think baseball today is rotten from drugs and punks? A century ago, things weren’t much better. A brief history of baseball's dark traditions—cheating, substance abuse, obscenity, violence—and the colorful players who brought them to life.
Rumors of Tribes
At one school, the popular girls were called the “chicken patties,” but the jocks were just the “jocks.” How teenage crowds get named.
Chiraq, Drillinois
Originating on the South Side, drill music has attracted major labels to Chicago in search of young rappers—as gang violence turns the city into the murder capital. Each has everything to do with the other.
Crack Rock City
This week, Detroit’s new emergency manager released his first report on the city’s dire affairs. But residents have long been accustomed to life in what’s essentially a failed state. A native author meets the motorcycle men working hard to save Detroit, one fiend at a time.
Bad Land
America is full of guns—one gun for every citizen—and Americans often use them to shoot one another. It’s not enough anymore to say we love our guns. The question is: Why do we kill?
It’s All in Your Head
It begins as a dull ache, then the skull becomes hot and brittle, then the neck stiffens—and then there’s no escaping a migraine. A search for relief, temporary or otherwise.
MarketStrong
After resigning in disgrace from the charity he helped found and losing his sponsorship with Nike, Lance Armstrong now must cope with the leak of his new memoir—excerpted here.
The Heretic
For decades, the U.S. government banned medical studies of the effects of LSD. But for one longtime, elite researcher, the promise of mind-blowing revelations was just too tempting.
Our Future National Pastime
Predictions for the baseball season ahead from someone who hasn’t paid attention to sports statistics since the 1992 Orioles.
Smoke the Fire
Hank Williams III blew the doors off country music last fall when he released three ambitious, experimental albums all on the same day. A conversation about tradition, hardcore, and punishment.
The Devil’s Trumpet
History is an imperfect science—the truth often weaves within nuance and mystery. For those playing the role of historian, the trick is knowing what you’re looking for.
Cape Fear
A small portion of the Massachusetts coastline is home to America’s biggest witch-hunt, a history of savage wife mobs, the occasional 400 percent increase of unlucky pregnancies, and the world’s largest deposits of black crystals.
Shorty
When you were a toddler, doctors told your parents you had a "failure to thrive." Which means: You're small, and you're going to be short. Later, when medication helps you grow faster than you’ve ever grown before, the hardest part may be deciding when to stop.
Where the Choices Are Endless
After a childhood in the country, awaking as a freshman in a college town, where the inhabitants are willing and strange.
Hedgestrong
Accused of fraud and perjury, Lance Armstrong is under fire from federal prosecutors. But, well, Wall Street got off. Options for the cyclist from a banker’s point of view.
Fanboy
As America dreams of black ops teams, where do mutants belong? And can comics end wars? From Captain America to big blond Thor, Osama bin Laden, and beyond.
No Stone Unturned
The most colorful parts of Keith Richards’s long-awaited memoir have made headlines. But the guitarist’s deepest insights were left on his editor’s desk.
Just Criminalize It
California looks to legalize pot in November--and that, in many ways, would be a crime. An argument against political causes involving dreadlocked alien masks.
We Three Kings of HGH Are
For many sports fans, steroids ruined professional baseball. Luckily, Roger Clemens is pitching a cream-and-clear sitcom to cure their blues.
The Blame Game
Flipping through A-Rod’s catalog of the perps who caused him to take steroids.
Letters From Cousin Yuri
When Alex Rodriguez identified his cousin Yuri on Tuesday, the media had a new fall guy for A-Rod’s steroid problem.
The Year of the Grey Rabbit
In 1979, as the U.S. became embroiled in the events that would develop into the current political climate, one man set out in search of America. Today, he remembers who he—and the country—were.
The Third-Inning Blooper Reel
Contract disputes, managerial changes, players testifying on Capitol Hill about steroid use: With only a month until spring training, baseball didn’t get much of a rest this off-season.
Bret Easton Ellis
While the publishing world freaks out over false memoirs, who better to speak about truth in writing than an author with the same name as his protagonist?
Juiced
Can Congress get baseball to go cold turkey off steroids? And how many passionate pleas will it take? Our representative speaks, passionately and otherwise, rooting out those who seek enhancements of every kind.
Walking the Rx Red Carpet
Where do you get the scoop on the drug industry’s hot new products? Why, at the Rx spring show, that’s where! Our writer makes nice with the celebrated followers of pharmaceuticals.
Surrey With the Syringe on Top
In the cutthroat world of playwriting, where a good line means the difference between fame and famine, many authors fall victim to the lure of performance-enhancing drugs.