An interview on craft:

Writing The Subs in three nights was really a fantastic athletic feat as well as mental, you shoulda seen me after I was done...I was pale as a sheet and had lost fifteen pounds and looked strange in the mirror.

A profile of silent film comedian Buster Keaton:

The story of his life seems in its twists and dives borrowed from his movies, survival demanding a pure lack of sentiment.

The circus Roger Ailes created at Fox News made his network $900 million last year. But it may have lost him something more important: the next election.

On the strange ethics of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy:

What matters instead is the division of the world into good and evil, a division that begins with splitting sex into positive and negative experiences, then ripples out from that in fascinating ways.

TM The only other time I saw you was in Bleecker Bob’s in the ‘70s. You walked in eating pizza and wearing aviator glasses and Bleecker Bob showed you an Ian Dury picture sleeve and you said, “I don’t listen to music by people I don’t wanna fuck.” PS (laughter) Yeah, that was me.

The rise and fall of “Rock Around the Clock” singer Bill Haley.

Joyce Hatto, unknown to even the most ardent classical music collectors until late in her life, released a string of incredible performances of great works, distributed by her husband’s mail-order CD business. But how was it possible for her to record difficult works at such a dizzying rate? And if wasn’t her playing, who was it?

“Winning” in Hollywood means not just power, money, and complimentary smoked-salmon pizza, but also that everyone around you fails just as you are peaking.

Louis C.K. has a deal unlike anyone else’s on TV: his network, FX, has no approval rights and offers no notes. He is also the show’s lone writer, editor, director, and star. A profile.

Ah yes, you should also know that most of your colleagues are some of the biggest neurotics in the country, so you might as well get used right now to the way they're gonna be writing you five and ten page single spaced inflammatory letters reviling you for knocking some group that they have proved is the next Stones.

When I hear music as a fan, I see fields. I see landscapes. I close my eyes and see an entire universe that that music and the voice, or the narrative, create. A music video-and any other kind of visual reference-is created by someone else. For me, as a music fan, visuals kind of steal away the purity of the song.

A profile of Hole lead singer Courtney Love.

The discovery of 30,000-year old, perfectly preserved cave paintings in southern France offer a glimpse into a world that 21st-century humans can never hope to understand. The article that inspired Werner Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.”

In the past the only people who wrote autobiographies or memoirs were very important, those who had a crucial role in the history of their own country—Napoleon, Goethe—or were witness to major events or people who had singular, adventurous lives. Otherwise, it is ridiculous to write your autobiography.

A profile of Larry Garrison, the man who “gets paid to bring tabloid stories to TV news programs.”

A profile of Werner Herzog.

An essay on music and family, sparked by the author’s realization that his speakers sucked.

A profile of Steve Carell, whose last appearance as Michael Scott in The Office airs tonight.

An interview with Heart guitarist and film composer Nancy Wilson.

On the producer Timbaland, then best known for collaborations with Missy Elliott, Aaliyah, and Ginuwine.

The birth of the Beastie Boys—an oral history on the 25th anniversary of Licensed to Ill.

A personal essay about family through the lens of mashed potatoes.

An interview with David Simon, creator of The Wire.

On Sebastian Junger’s War and the documentary Restrepo by Tim Hetherington, who was killed in Libya yesterday.

Time is speeding up. And to what end? Maybe we were told that two thousand years ago.

On the shortcomings of both reality and fiction.