An interview with the novelist.

On the chaotic letters of journalist and Dr. Strangelove screenwriter Terry Southern.

“I made a pact with myself when I was 15 that if I was going to live this life, I'm only going to do it on my terms, and I'm only going to do it if I'm putting my middle finger up at society the whole time. So any time I've had yearnings to go, "Aw, gee, I wish I could be invited to the Emmys," I say, Ru, Ru, remember the pact you made. You never wanted to be a part of that bullshit. In fact, I'd rather have an enema than have an Emmy.”

A profile of Garry Shandling.

The revival of a landmark 1921 musical opens a door on the deep and twisted roots of black performance in America.

Philip Johnson was a promising musical prodigy. Then he stole a teacher’s prized Stradivarius.

If you don’t get sick, was it really a vacation?

“It is a story that seems almost impossible to believe: a group of female convicts, few of whom had ever played a musical instrument or taken voice lessons, forming a country and western band and becoming, at least in Texas, the Dixie Chicks of their day.”

How a burst blood vessel transformed the mind of a deliberate, controlled chiropractor into that of an utterly unfiltered, massively prolific artist.

Searching for meaning at Baldwin’s soon-to-be-demolished home in France.

“It’s odd, the older I get, the more I remember.”

The idea was to shoot a Neiman Marcus fur catalog in the Andes mountains, not get stranded on them.

At 76, Atlanta’s Beverly “Guitar” Watkins still lives for the blues.

An essay on Beyoncé and her fans.

As an “angry young man,” Ghost World author Daniel Clowes insulted Stan Lee and Art Spiegelman in a graphic novel’s satirical alternate reality. It was born from a nagging self-doubt that, despite the cartoonist’s current recognition and status, lingers.

“There are critics who see their job as to be on the side of the artist, or in a state of imaginative sympathy or alliance with the artist. I think it's important for a critic to be populist in the sense that we’re on the side of the public. I think one of the reasons is, frankly, capitalism. Whether you’re talking about restaurants or you’re talking about movies, you’re talking about large-scale commercial enterprises that are trying to sell themselves and market themselves and publicize themselves. A critic is, in a way, offering consumer advice.”

A profile of the editor behind Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, Jay Z’s Decoded, and more.

How an art shipper took advantage of the market’s opaque rules and shadowy deal-making to rip off a Russian oligarch.

On the road with Quarterbacks, a young band at the bottom of the music industry.

According to the trades and his pitch to investors, Ryan Kavanaugh had found film business formula that couldn’t lose. It could. Unraveling a Tinseltown Ponzi scheme.

On the talent, ego, and late father of Bryant Gumbel.

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.

An essay on depression, art, and growing up.

How a hanger-on at the fringe of San Francisco’s rock scene built the Rolling Stone empire.

On George Plimpton and the founders of The Paris Review.