Wandering a Detroit reduced to “crackhouses and churches” with “outlaw biker Jesus” Pastor Steve.

In the days following Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, more than 100 cities experienced significant civil disturbance. In New York, everyone expected riots. What happened next.

The sole survivor of a 1966 shipwreck tells his tale.

A visit to a Maine museum devoted to Bigfoot and other mythical creatures.

On meterologic obsession, making weather, and very powerful storms.

After offending Richard Marx, the author meets him to hash things out.

A young boy with ringworm is sequestered in a children's hospital. Part of The Morning News' "Reading Roulette" series, featuring contemporary Russian writing.

"The sociology in our ward was as follows. Lousy Letuch ruled the roost, a bruiser whose surname was Letuchev, pretty violent and not serving a prison sentence only through some administrative error or because he was underage. His elder brothers, he related proudly, had all done a spell inside. He had a sidekick, a small—even smaller than me—but very strong lad of 11 called Vovan, who did all the dirty work for his boss; sorted out the parcels, beat up the contentious, and generally kept order."

Writing a “stunt memoir” in the waterpark capital of the world.

On working in an artists’ colony.

On the legal history of LSD in America and a researcher who never gave up on the drug’s promise.

A woman makes a companion from spoiled soup in this weird tale from the "Queen of Russian horror," Anna Starobinets.

"I moved, but a week later I'd already started fretting. After all, I did have a responsibility. I was constantly wondering how it was getting on there without me. Completely alone. In the plastic bags."

The author interviews her mother about life as a secretary at Playboy in 1960s New York City.

An ode to professional basketball players and why pro ball is the best ball of all.

On fashion, gender, a finding oneself in a pair of drop-crotch pants.

A survey of the 20th century’s greatest horror writer’s afterlife of influence.

An investigation into the myth of actress Frances Farmer’s lobotomy.

Dreaming of the perfect apartment.

Should anyone ever choose to remake and bastardize Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I propose an opening sequence re-imagined to reflect more contemporary preoccupations. The revised opening scene should be filmed against the backdrop of an early evening in Brooklyn. The throngs of suits coming home from their nine to five grinds in Manhattan would be emerging from the subway stairwells like ants from an anthill, rushing off down various streets towards their various homes and families and dinners. All except for the would-be protagonist who, as the crowd rushes past her, makes her way to the closed-for-the-night real-estate storefront opposite the subway station. Somewhere, “Moon River” might still be playing, as if it had never stopped. Disheveled, lugging her purse and gym bag, she pauses for a number of minutes to read listings she has already read, and which she committed to memory weeks ago: a studio on Pineapple Street; a loft on Gold Street; a townhouse on Argyle Street; a two-bedroom coop on First Place; a one-bedroom condo on Carlton Avenue; a brownstone on Henry Street. It’s fall and the leaves blow in eddies on the sidewalk. She gets cold and turns away from the window to walk off down the street just as dusk begins to arrive in earnest. The occasional “For Sale” sign swings on its hinges, and the story of the day ends only to begin again in the morning.

When I tell people what we are doing, they want to hear about the room where you produce. I tell them that there is a lot of paperwork. That they take your picture and look at your license. Then they walk you back to the room. You are handed a list of instructions and some stickers and a plastic cup. The cup has a forest-green lid. In the room is a VCR. I like to write down the names of the videos so I can share them with my wife and friends: Ass Angels #4, Original Black Queens of Porn (Afro-Centrix #113), and Chock Full of Asians. The latter features a woman with enlarged breasts so swollen they look luminous, like the sense apparatus of a recently discovered deep-sea fish.

In eight malls spread across three continents, kids get to try out grown-up jobs in corporate-sponsored theme parks. Welcome to KidZania—coming soon to the U.S.

Thoughts on the current era of online anonymity.

A story of gambling addiction, in seven parts.

“But the journalism itself is not free. It can’t be free. And if it is free, it’s not going to be very good.”