The Strawberry Girls
Life as a pageant queen in Plant City, Florida.
Best Articles
Playboy Interview: Steven Jobs
Steve Jobs, age 29.
"It’s often the same with any new, revolutionary thing. People get stuck as they get older. Our minds are sort of electrochemical computers. Your thoughts construct patterns like scaffolding in your mind. You are really etching chemical patterns. In most cases, people get stuck in those patterns, just like grooves in a record, and they never get out of them. It’s a rare person who etches grooves that are other than a specific way of looking at things, a specific way of questioning things. It’s rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing. Of course, there are some people who are innately curious, forever little kids in their awe of life, but they’re rare."
How Homeownership Became the Engine of American Inequality
“A 15-story public housing tower and a mortgaged suburban home are both government-subsidized, but only one looks (and feels) that way. It is only by recognizing this fact that we can begin to understand why there is so much poverty in the United States today.”
Director's Cut: The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved
The first piece of gonzo journalism, annotated.
The Toughest Coach There Ever Was
“Robert Victor Sullivan, whom you’ve surely never heard of, was the toughest coach of them all. He was so tough he had to have two tough nicknames, Bull and Cyclone, and his name was usually recorded this way: coach Bob “Bull” “Cyclone” Sullivan or coach Bob (Bull) (Cyclone) Sullivan. Also, at times he was known as Big Bob or Shotgun. He was the most unique of men, and yet he remains utterly representative of a time that has vanished, from the gridiron and from these United States.”
Alex Jones Will Never Stop Being Alex Jones
After decades at the fringe, conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones helped usher a president into office. Now, the only person standing in Jones’ way is Jones.
Where Oil Rigs Go to Die
The life cycle of a drilling platform.
Smash
The comeback of Marty Reisman, the most flamboyant figure in the history of table tennis, and the self-proclaimed greatest hardbat player ever.
The Marriage Cure
In an Oklahoma City neighborhood usually left off city maps, the federal government is implementing its $300 million anti-poverty plan: teaching poor Americans how to get married.
Hot Wheels
Kids are driving Florida’s Pinellas County’s car-theft epidemic. It’s a dangerous — sometimes deadly — game.
The Genesis of the Gang
On how a childhood spent in New York City’s tenements led a 15-year-old boy to be convicted of murder.
Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die
Bill Conradt, a well-known prosecutor, never arrived at the house in Murphy, Texas, where police and a crew from NBC’s To Catch a Predator were waiting. So the crew, along with a SWAT team, went to Conradt.
Excerpts from 'Bones in the Desert'
From the Translator’s Note:
Just over two weeks ago, on April 3, the renowned Mexican writer and investigative journalist Sergio González Rodríguez unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack at age 67. [His book] Bones in the Desert is a far-reaching investigation into the still-unsolved murders of hundreds of women and girls in the communities surrounding Mexico’s Ciudad Júarez, on the US border with El Paso, Texas. In the years since its publication in 2002, Bones in the Desert has left an indelible imprint on the modern literature of the Americas, both through its own merits and its foundational influence on Roberto Bolaño’s 2666. In crafting a fictionalized version of Ciudad Júarez, Bolaño collaborated directly with González Rodríguez, relying on him for substantial “technical help” in answering questions about the nature of the murders, and eventually including him as a character in the novel.
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The Twilight Zone
An excess of people and an excess of desert.
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No Longer a Girl
The hallmarks that would come to characterize the official narrative surrounding the serial murders were already being established.
Rapture of the Deep
Carried away by love—for risk and for each other—two of the world’s best freedivers went to the limits of their sport. Only one came back.
Tuesdays with Saddam
The diary of a Scranton, PA National Guardsmen tasked with guarding the highest profile prisoner in U.S history: a surprisingly amiable Saddam Hussein.
High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas
An oddball team of ship salvagers is tasked with uprighting a tipped two-football-field-long cargo ship before it sinks into the darkness of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
The Fighter
A U.S. Marine’s journey from the Afghan war to an Illinois prison.
New York Is Killing Me
A profile of Gil-Scott Heron.
What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?
Ted Williams grows old.
Can You Say..."Hero"?
A profile of Mister Rogers.
Why Cops Shoot
From 2009 to 2014, police in Florida shot 827 people. Many of these incidents were avoidable and unnecessary.
Crimetown, U.S.A.
The city that fell in love with the mob.
A Thousand Pounds of Dynamite
In 1980, a bankrupt gambler came up with a plan to get his money back. He built an incredibly complex bomb, one that was impossible to defuse and that only he knew how to move, and snuck it into a Lake Tahoe casino with an extortion note demanding $3 million. Part of the plan worked. Part of it did not.
The Paranoid Style in American Politics
“American politics has often been an arena for angry minds.”
The Curious Case of Sidd Finch
A profile of a previously unknown rookie pitcher for the Mets who dropped out of Harvard, made a spiritual quest to Tibet, and somewhere along the line figured out how to throw a baseball much, much faster than anyone else on Earth.
