The “insane playfulness, deliberate infantilism, nutty haikus, naked stripteases, free-form chants and literary war dances of the beats” and their leader.

On the enduring appeal, both amateur and academic, of man vs. dinosaur.

Scenes of grief, from the sister of comedian Harris Wittels.

The comic failings of a Kickstarter project that promised a “Netflix for vinyl.”

An oral history with former employees Sasha Frere-Jones, Alysia Abbott, Piotr Orlov, and Chris Wilcha.

Alanis Morissette, before the making of Jagged Little Pill.

A minute-by-minute account of what it takes to run a restaurant.

By the 1990s, the timeline of most superhero comics dipped back nearly 30 years, and beloved characters were saddled with impenetrable backstories and middle-age. Ultimate Marvel made Spider Man, X-Men, and the rest teens in the present day, rejuvenating the industry and setting the stage for Marvel’s string of hit films.

On the mysteries of the man behind Alice in Wonderland.

Faulkner, a small writing shed, and Salida, Colorado: a profile of novelist Kent Haruf.

A roundtable on sexism in Hollywood and comedy.

“What I do is not magical realism. I do realistic magic. Look, whenever someone does something new, people have to compare it with things they already know. So even if you innovate, you end up being connected to the past. When I began making movies people linked me to Fellini or Buñuel. Now new filmmakers are called ‘jodorowskian.’”

The detective work that led to the recovery of a trove of stolen Nazi art.

How packaged-food companies like Campbell and Hershey are responding to the backlash against pesticides, preservatives, high-fructose corn syrup, growth hormones, antibiotics, gluten, and genetically modified organisms.

On Arielle Holmes, a burgeoning actress who was, literally, plucked from the streets.

The culturally-bound mechanics of comedy.

“She has no theories, for example, to explain why she, of all people, felt unburdened by the unspoken rules marking certain subjects off limits for children, or why, for that matter, she has that particular gift, that ability to recall the emotional experiences of adolescence, the confusion, the longing, the rivalries — the memories, in other words, that most of us try to bury as quickly and deeply as we can.”

An oral history of Industrial Lights & Magic, which gave birth to Star Wars and countless films, as well as playing a hand in the creation of Photoshop and Pixar.

Maintaining the manual On Writing Well.

The ups and downs of a beloved British pop band.

On the Aran islands of Ireland.

A CD plant employee ushered in the modern era of music piracy by teaming up with a shadowy “Scene” crew on IRC chat.

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.

He went from a viral pop hit to an arrest for conspiracy to murder charges in just under six months. Was Bobby Shmurda “too real” for his label?

On the second-class status of women film directors.