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.

John Demjanjuk has had a huge year. Twenty years after being sentenced to die, he finally climbed to the pinnacle of the Wiesenthal Center's list of Nazi war criminals this April, shortly after the Germans filed the arrest warrant that allowed the OSI to put him on the jet to Munich.

A profile of Hole lead singer Courtney Love.

Doc moves quickly. He takes off his windbreaker, tosses his leather bag on the counter and unzips it. He pulls out a slate-blue polyester vest, V-necked, with six buttons. He raises his arms and jumps into it and then says, with an air of deep satisfaction, "Aah." Doc is proud of his bulletproof vest.

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 Maine’s two U.S. senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

Nearly 10,000,000 men were killed in the conflict, 65 million participated, and now we are left with two.

A bank robber tells the story of a successful heist.

In June, 1942, a German submarine dropped four young Nazi agents off on a Florida beach. Their mission was to blow up bridges, factories, and Jewish-owned department stores. Among them was Herbert Haupt, the 22-year-old son of a German-American family in Chicago.

The social rituals of the pansexual, bi-queer, metroflexible New York teen.

A profile of Werner Herzog.

Over the course of a year, Luke Dittrich will be walking the entire 1,933 miles of the Mexico-US border “from the beach to Gulf” with a stroller. The first in a series.

On the “world’s largest social network that you probably haven’t yet heard of” and its enigmatic founder.

An oral history of the Playboy Clubs.

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

An interview with David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Early last year, 10 churches were torched in East Texas. The culprits? Two Baptist teens having a crisis of faith.

The rise, fall and stubborn survival of a teenage Internet celebrity who discovered that the real world can be a very scary place.

An investigation into the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in Alaska Native villages.

In 1967, Stanley Ann Dunham took her 6-year-old son, Barry, on an adventure to Indonesia. An excerpt from A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother.

We ate in our own restaurants, stayed in our own hotels, and hired our own guides. We moved through a parallel Paris—and a parallel Rome, Milan, and so on.

The reporter takes a whirlwind guided bus tour of a Europe with a group of Chinese tourists.

On what you do when you can do whatever what you want.

A review/interview/profile:

Let's settle on the bald facts: Eminem has secured his place in the rap pantheon.