Whirl
For 60 years, the weekly Evening Whirl attacked the drug lords, whoring preachers, and hypocritical bourgeoisie of St. Louis’ black community, sometimes in rhyming Iambic couplets.
Miscellaneous
Eyes Aloft
On the obsession with plane spotting.
ATLieNation
On Atlanta’s disappearing Afrofuture.
The Art of Waiting
Yearning for conception.
The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit
Meeting Christopher Thomas Knight, a.k.a. the North Pond Hermit, who lived alone in the Maine woods for nearly 30 years.
A Fatal Mistake
Why did the El Faro cargo ship sail directly into the path of Hurricane Joaquin, killing all 33 aboard?
John D. Rockefeller: A Character Study
A two-part write-around of the world’s only billionaire.
He was a silent boy — a silent young man. With years the habit of silence became the habit of concealment. It was not long after the Standard Oil Company was founded, before it was said in Cleveland that its offices were the most difficult in the town to enter, Mr. Rockefeller the most difficult man to see. If a stranger got in to see any one he was anxious. "Who is that man?" he asked an associate nervously one day, calling him away when the latter was chatting with a stranger. "An old friend, Mr. Rockefeller." "What does he want here? Be careful. Don't let him find out anything." "But he is my friend, Mr. Rockefeller. He does not want to know anything. He has come to see me." "You never can tell. Be very careful, very careful." This caution gradually developed into a Chinese wall of seclusion. This suspicion extended, not only to all outsiders but most insiders. Nobody in the Standard Oil Company was allowed to know any more than was necessary for him to know to do his business. Men who have been officers in the Standard Oil Company say that they have been told, when asking for information about the condition of the business, "You'd better not know. If you know nothing you can tell nothing."
Love in 2-D
Inside the thriving subculture of Japanese men who eschew sex and romance with real live people in favor of real relationships with 2-D characters printed on body pillows.
Hollywood’s Information Man
As editor-in-chief of Variety, Peter Bart was one of the most powerful people in the entertainment industry. This piece got him suspended.
The Ghost
A profile of Hank Williams III.
Inside the Cutthroat Rivalry Between Two of L.A.’s Elite Preschools
How two couples found a way to play the preschool system for profit.
'When You Find My Body': The Last Days of Gerry Largay
The 66-year-old became lost while hiking the Appalachian Trail. She survived for at least 16 days before crawling into her sleeping bag one last time, her journal sealed in a waterproof bag.
Playboy Interview: Vladimir Nabokov
The author on Lolita, his work habits, and what he expected from his literary afterlife.
Scenes From the Terrifying, Already Forgotten JFK Airport Shooting That Wasn’t
“There was no they.' There was not even a 'he,' no armed person turning on a crowd. But what happened at JFK last night was, in every respect but the violence, a mass shooting.”
Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself
Surveillance as daily life along the Texas border.
The Man Who Created Bigfoot
Fifty years ago, rodeo man Bob Gimlin was a Bigfoot skeptic. Then he and a friend caught the creature on tape.
Empire of Ice
Life on an oil rig in the Arctic.
Leaving the Witness
A lifelong Jehovah’s Witness moves to China to proselytize.
Miss Cat-geniality
“You are wondering what kind of people put their house pet in a cat show.”
Opium, Made Easy
It’s legal to buy poppy seeds in America and it’s legal to plant them—unless you’re familiar with the simple process of turning them into opium, that is. Then having poppies in your garden is a felony.
Thumb-Suckers Anonymous
“The patron saint of adult thumb-suckers is a 65-year-old Long Island salesman who looks strikingly like Hunter S. Thompson, down to the tinted aviator sunglasses and bald spot.”
A Jazz Age Autopsy
The lonesome death of Arnold Rothstein, notorious gambler, inspiration for the character Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby, alleged fixer of the 1910 World Series, opiate importation pioneer, mobster.
Think Gender Is a Performance? You Have Judith Butler to Thank For That
In 1990, Judith Butler published a groundbreaking book on queer theory. Today, “in a broad-stroke, vastly simplified version, the understanding of gender that Gender Trouble suggests is not only recognizable; it is pop.”
All LinkedIn with Nowhere to Go
The trouble with the all-but-obligatory networking site, “an Escher staircase masquerading as a career ladder.”
Body on the Moor
Why did a man travel 200 miles to die in a national park?
