How a Gun-Loving West Texas Girl Learned to Fear Assault Weapons
A writer’s evolving relationship with guns.
Listening to Beck
A profile of Beck on the eve of his new album and nearly 20 years after the release of “Loser.”
How Mitt Romney Lost the Election
A postmortem.
Interview with a Ginza Hostess
An interview with a woman who works in one of the exclusive hostess bars in Tokyo’s Ginza district, where an elite clientele pay heavily for champagne, whiskey, and conversation, and client-hostess relationships can span decades.
Let's Call It Failure
On the future of Britain’s finances.
Liner Notes: Roky Erickson's 'True Love Cast Out All Evil'
Grammy-winning liner notes describing the rise, fall, and rebirth of Roky Erickson, who founded the psychedelic rock pioneers The Thirteenth Floor Elevators before a charge stemming from a single marijuana joint landed him in a Texas mental hospital.
Sponsored
Sponsor: The Atavist
In 1948, a young Australian named Ben Carlin set out to do the impossible: circumnavigate the globe, by land and sea, in a single vehicle. With a U.S. Army-built amphibious jeep christened Half-Safe, Carlin and his wife Elinore set off across the Atlantic with dreams of fame and fortune. What happened next is one of the most bizarre adventures of the 20th century. In Half-Safe, a new release from The Atavist, author James Nestor endeavors to uncover Carlin's fate and finds a gripping story of love, danger, and extraordinary perseverance spanning three oceans and five continents.
Read Half-Safe in The Atavist's app or on the web.
David Pinchbeck and the New Psychedelic Elite
How the pop psychedelic author helped jumpstart the modern apocalypse movement after an alleged visit from “Quetzal-coatl, a mystical bird-serpent in Mayan myths.”
Mississippi Drift
An ill-fated trip down the river with a group of anarchists.
Let Us Prey: Big Trouble at First Baptist Church
On the culture of misogyny and abuse at one of the nation’s largest megachurches.
Who’s Afraid Of Nichols & May?
Their partnership lasted a mere four years, but transformed comedy forever. Mike Nichols and Elaine may give their first joint interview since breaking up 51 years ago.
Death on the Rails
An investigation into pedestrian deaths on railroad tracks.
Jerry Seinfeld Intends to Die Standing Up
“I read an article a few years ago that said when you practice a sport a lot, you literally become a broadband: the nerve pathway in your brain contains a lot more information. As soon as you stop practicing, the pathway begins shrinking back down. Reading that changed my life. I used to wonder, Why am I doing these sets, getting on a stage? Don’t I know how to do this already? The answer is no. You must keep doing it. The broadband starts to narrow the moment you stop.”
Dream Map to a Mind Seized
A mother on her autistic child’s progression and regression.
Restless Genes
How the compulsion to explore is coded in the human genome.
Eli Sanders is an associate editor at The Stranger and the winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing.
"There was one particular moment in the trial, which I described, where ... there was just not any human ability to be detached from what was happening in front of you, what was being shared. It was so painful, you could not help but cry, and there was no reason to deny that that moment had happened."
Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode!
The Doctor, the CIA, and the Blood of Bin Laden
The disappearance of the mysterious “Pakistani asset” that helped the CIA zero in on Bin Laden.
Joy
On joy, pleasure and Ecstacy.
Straight Man's Burden
A Ugandan bill that would threaten homosexuals with imprisonment, or in some cases death, has its roots in the shadowy American evangelical group known as The Family.
Death in the Pot
A history of food poisoning.
Rape Case Unfolds on Web and Splits City
A rape case in which most of the evidence lies in the archives of Twitter and Instagram divides a football-crazed town of 18,400.
Quiet Doctor, Lavish Insider: A Parallel Life
A nationally respected neurologist feeds secrets to Wall Street.
Utopian for Beginners
An amateur linguist loses control of his creation.
The Next Jeremy Lin?
On high school basketball star Chris Tang and the pressures of being the “Great Yellow Hope.”
Trigger
The life and times of Willie Nelson’s guitar.
