“In the recent history of American music, there’s no figure parallel to Lehrer in his effortless ascent to fame, his trajectory into the heart of the culture — and then his quiet, amiable, inexplicable departure.”

Finding peace and quiet in the high Canadian Arctic.

Previously: The Longform Guide to Silence.

The postscript of a viral hit.

How a serial killer and his teenage accomplice used listings for “the job of a lifetime” to lure their victims, all down-and-out single men, to the backwoods of Ohio.

Charlie Rowan was a small-time cage fighter who couldn’t catch a break. He owed money to impatient people and needed to start over. Late one night, he came up with a plan.

Bibek Dhong traveled from Nepal to Malaysia to test cameras for the new iPhone 5. When production ended abruptly, he and his coworkers found themselves stranded for two months without money, food or passports.

There’s a price you have to pay for fame, and people who don’t want to pay that price can get in trouble. I accepted the idea of celebrity because of a French expression: “You cannot have the butter and the money for the butter.”

The misconception? You do nice things for the people you like and bad things to the people you hate.

The truth? You grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate people you harm.

An essay drawn from the introduction of Davidson’s iconic book Subway, first published in 1986:

To prepare myself for the subway, I started a crash diet, a military fitness exercise program, and early every morning I jogged in the park. I knew I would need to train like an athlete to be physically able to carry my heavy camera equipment around in the subway for hours every day. Also, I thought that if anything was going to happen to me down there I wanted to be in good shape, or at least to believe that I was. Each morning I carefully packed my cameras, lenses, strobe light, filters, and accessories in a small, canvas camera bag. In my green safari jacket with its large pockets, I placed my police and subway passes, a few rolls of film, a subway map, a notebook, and a small, white, gold-trimmed wedding album containing pictures of people I’d already photographed in the subway. In my pants pocket I carried quarters for the people in the subway asking for money, change for the phone, and several tokens. I also carried a key case with additional identification and a few dollars tucked inside, a whistle, and a small Swiss Army knife that gave me a little added confidence. I had a clean handkerchief and a few Band-Aids in case I found myself bleeding.

“What are you doing here?” Loggins asked Janette. Janette thought this an odd question. “It’s Bike to Work Day,” she said. “Did you ride your bike to school?”“Bicycling isn’t allowed at Maple Avenue School,” said Loggins. Janette did a double take. “You’re kidding me,” she said. “Right?”

In 1952, Abe Feller, the U.N.’s first General Counsel, jumped to his death. More than 50 years later, his great nephew tries to figure out why.

Chris Earnshaw began taking photographs of Washington, D.C. more than 40 years ago. By the time he paid a visit to a museum to tout his work, he had in his possession—in plastic bags and filing drawers—3,000 Polaroids of a city long gone.

A war criminal’s life on the run.

On systemic corrpution in the upper house of British Parliament, where lawmakers have the freedom to work for any business—banks, oil companies, Facebook—willing to pay for their “expertise.”

On the border of Utah and Arizona, Mormon fundamentalists have long lived according to their own rules. When a former sect member and his family moved to the town where he’d grown up, they expected a homecoming. What they got was a war.

Founded in 1974, the Raëlian Movement teaches that life on Earth was scientifically created by a species of extraterrestrials. Raëlians claim to have cloned the first human being and extol sensuality and pleasure as a path to peace.

Trolls are frustrating, cruel and frightening creatures of the internet deep. But something surprising happens when one writer tries to deal with the worst of hers: He turns out to have a conscience.

A man in Puerto Rico stumbles on a brick of cocaine, and rather than sell it he decides to bury it. Others, hearing his story, cook up a plan to retrieve it.

The question for researchers isn’t “How smart are dolphins?” It’s “How are dolphins smart?”

When an accountant decided to call foul on Halliburton’s financial record-keeping, he thought he was doing the right thing. He spent 10 years fighting for the courts to agree.

In January 1966–the same month In Cold Blood was first published–Truman Capote sat down with George Plimpton to discuss the new art form he liked to call “creative journalism.”

A prominent sportswriter spent his life wanting to be a woman and, to great public attention, made the gender switch. But his change brought regret, and eventual suicide.

Last year, an Mossad hit squad traveled to Dubai to assassinate a Hamas leader. They completed their mission, but were later humiliated when a twenty-seven minute video of their movements was posted online. How their cover got blown.

What has Ted Haggard, who left the New Life megachurch after admitting he purchased crystal meth and sexual favors from a male escort, been doing in the four years since? Selling insurance door to door and then… founding a new church and returning to the pulpit.

The holdings of the Seattle Art Museum are historically male-dominated. When Matthew Offenbacher won a prize for his own art, he decided to use it to beef up their queer and female holdings.