Bitcoin partying at an Orlando hotel with worshippers of the blockchain.

Against all odds, it really was a refuge of competence, normalcy and transcendent play. But the outside world has a way of sneaking in.

On theme parks in America.

How he made big and early bets on new technologies—and won.

How Rupert Murdoch’s empire of influence remade the world.

How the hospitality world rents space for physicians to train.

A journey to Disney World with kids and weed.

He left China at 10 and would never see his mother again. He lived in extreme poverty once he arrived in America. He found his calling in art, became the creative force behind one of Disney’s iconic films, but didn’t get recognition for his brilliance until late in his life, when in addition to painting and illustrating he began to make fantastical kites.

Behind the character Ursula in The Little Mermaid was a legendary drag queen from Baltimore named Divine.

Going “Full Mickey” at Disneyland.

Meet Ben Sherwood, the new head of the Disney/ABC Television Group.

Visiting Disney World during times of loss and sorrow.

How Owen came to communicate again.

A trip to Disneyland in the mid-1960s.

Previously posted on Longform.org on January 25th, 2012.

To this day, no one (outside of the movie's own crew) knows how the Muppets rode bicycles in The Great Muppet Caper, the classic Henson movie from 1981. In that scene, Kermit stands up on one frog-leg on the seat of his bicycle to impress Miss Piggy, and then the whole gang joins them on their bikes, doing circles and figure eights, singing “Couldn’t We Ride?” It's a wonderful piece of filmmaking, and still a complete delight to watch because the effect relied on the ingenuity and bravado of the puppeteers and crew, not CGI wizardry. Contrast the joy and ebullience of this scene to the elegant chiaroscuro slickness of the post-Henson Muppet Christmas Carol in which we see old fogies Statler and Waldorf, as the Marley brothers, floating in mid air. No viewer is impressed; no one really thinks about it at all. And that's because when a then 29-year-old Brian Henson directed that film, he threw the rules out the window. Statler and Waldorf “float” because Goelz and Nelson, the men working the old guys, were standing behind them during filming and then were removed in post production. It’s an elegant fix—a cutting of the Gordian knot—but it is a complete break with an aesthetic 35 years in the making.

A profile of John Lasseter, chief creative officer at Pixar.

On internships at Disney World, where “labor is meant to have an almost invisible quality.”