A Few Brief Remarks
Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg was short: only three minutes long, following a moving, two-hour performance by famed orator Edward Everett. It also was nearly meaningless.
Personalities
A collection of 122 issues
Brief Interviews With Very Small Publishers
Magazine publishing is a dark art. But the world of niche publishing—people who create magazines for necrophiliacs or donkey hobbyists, or for those of us who like to ride really small trains—features its own requirements.
The Window Cleaner
Dirt is difficult to see on glass. That’s why so many people don't bother to hire a professional for the job—they just can’t see what’s wrong.
A Sudden and Awful Manner
In early New England, anyone who stood near an open door or window faced mortal danger. A conversation with a woman who hunts for gravestones with epitaphs describing death by lightning strike.
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.
The Works and Days of Elena Shvarts
A literary gumshoe visits St. Petersburg to track down the so-called “ninja of Russian verse,” Elena Shvarts, who died in 2010 leaving almost nothing behind.
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.
Night Vision
An unexpected pregnancy, tuna sandwiches consumed in darkness, and woman after woman of a certain age living by the ocean—eventually, all connections make sense when it comes to prescient grandparents.
Pause, Panic, Gringo
When your name prompts questions in several continents, how you answer—and whether or not you stick an accent above the “a”—says a lot about who you are.
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.