Neal punctuated Jack’s riffing with his “yesses” and “that’s rights,” head bobbing on his neck like a novice prizefighter’s. After four years of New York nihilism and intellection, Neal – wiping Jack’s face with his handkerchief – Neal – who looked so much like Jack himself, an athlete like Jack – celebrated lover of women and sharer of Allen’s passionate dark soul – finally the long-lost brother who said, “Go ahead, everything you do is great” – “a Western kinsmen of the sun” – “a wild yea-saying over-burst of American joy.”

The life and myth of Neal Cassady, Beat companion and muse for Kesey, Wolfe, Kerouac, Ginsberg, The Grateful Dead and more.

“My dad looked at me and said, ‘I signed off on Bentsen’s son going into the Guard, and I signed off on Bush’s son going into the Guard.’”

The story behind the story that ended Dan Rather’s career.

A profile of the eccentric Gene Weingarten, the only person to twice win the Pulitzer for feature writing.

She survived an evil, gruesome attack. Her partner did not. An account of a victim, a widow, telling her story on the witness stand.

Update, 4/16/12: This piece was just awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing.

Jonathan Blow is both the video game industry’s most cynical critic and its most ambitious game developer. As he finishes his indescribable game-opus, a trip inside the head of a videogame auteur.

A profile of Colin Duffy: fifth-grader, suburban New Jersey resident, ruler of the backyard, player of video games, boy.

How group of misfits in Texas including Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings snubbed Nashville and brought the hippies and rednecks together. An oral history of outlaw country.

On the insanity of gun law in the U.S., where the ratio of firearms to citizens is approaching 1:1.

An early profile of Lena Dunham.

On a Victorian-era murder case, and the novel it inspired.