Photo Credit Shannon May If someone had told me 10 years ago that I would one day announce in The New York Times how old I was when I lost my virginity, I would have died of embarrassment. By the time I was in my 20s, there were only two valid explanations for being a virgin: 1. You were extremely…

Believe it or not, 2013 is the thirty-year anniversary of Phish, Vermont's pied-pipers of Wookie stoner trash. Yesterday I was poking around on the Internet and I came across an article that Katie Bain wrote for the LA Weekly in defense of jam bands . In the piece, she defines these musicians as…

Images by Paul Raffaele Streaming is the future of music. It’s a controversial subject, but it’s a foregone conclusion. Many people, particularly artists, say that digital streaming promotes a view of music as a cheap commodity, while its advocates see it as a rebirth for an industry that’s often…

The vinyl resurgence first went from a trickle to a stream – could it yet become a flood? In January 2015 the British Phonographic Company reported record vinyl sales, reaching levels unheard of for over two decades. The only issue is, these record-breaking figures only account for 2% of total…

Revelers take in the Robot Heart art-car sound system at the 2014 Burning Man festival. Ellie Pritts Noise complaints are not an issue you would expect to associate with Burning Man, the week-long, outsider arts festival that takes place in Nevada's remote Black Rock Desert. But that is exactly what…

Nigel Parry Over Skype. Johnson in L.A., Raab in Cleveland. Man, you're gorgeous. Awww. That smile speaks a universal human language. Do you ever think about how huge you are right now? I just came back from the gym, and I'm driving down Sunset and I see a massive billboard that says San Andreas,…

Share Game Info Platform 360, PS3, Win, PS4, Xbox One Publisher Konami Developer Kojima Productions Release Date Sep 1, 2015 It's fitting that one of the recurring themes of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is about the loss of a part of your being. Phantom limb pain is the sensation that flesh…

Game Info Platform Wii U Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo EAD Group No. 4 Release Date Sep 11, 2015 In a perfect world, every video game franchise would have its own Super Mario Maker . By giving the keys to the Mushroom Kingdom to players in such an approachable way, Super Mario Maker does…

Following his acclaimed documentaries “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” and “Sinatra,” Alex Gibney will achieve a rare non-fiction hat trick this September when Magnolia Pictures releases “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine.” A critical exploration of the iconic Apple CEO and…

D ajabón is divided from the Haitian city of Ouanaminthe by a bridge that spans the trickle of the Río Masacre. In 1937, Dajabón was the site of the largest number of killings of Haitians, but there is no memorial or museum of any kind, unless you count the Hotel Masacre in the middle of town, which…

There’s a cutscene, late in Metal Gear Solid V , that’s ostensibly serious but contains a musical interlude so awkward it sent me into giggle fits. A dozen missions later, there’s a harrowing sequence that ranks among the best video game scenes I’ve ever played. If you don’t know how to reconcile…

Lessons for creatives from the world’s fastest growing companies “The most basic concern of any strategy is to increase our ability to survive on our own terms in a threatening and confusing world” — Chet Richards As someone with fresh eyes (i.e. limited experience) playing in the entertainment…

You’re never going to get to the end of your Netflix or Spotify queue. And that’s okay. Recently, many critics have taken to complaining about the fact that there is just too much content floating around out there. Some of the complaints, like those lodged on a recent Grantland podcast , are smart…

The hardest thing to do as an artist is to identify and monetize an audience that will allow you to create full time “The hard part isn’t solving problems, but deciding what problems to solve.” Paul Graham All creative industries are a game of hits. As a creator in any arena, it’s often feast or…

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is finally getting serious about pushing into our living rooms. That ambition will be underlined at an Apple event in San Francisco on Wednesday, when the company plans to unveil an upgraded Apple TV, a device similar to a set-top box that brings video and music from the…

Ten or so years ago, you said that food in this country was like what sex was in the ’70s: our last decadent act. Are we out of the ’70s yet? I think we’ve moved into the ’80s. The decadence is being replaced by a potentially appropriate austerity. The orgy of the unfamiliar and new has given way to…

Vladimir Rys/Bongarts / Getty Images In the middle of 1989, suburban soccer dad Chuck Blazer had just lost his job, had no income, and was struggling with debt. But he did have a few things going for him: He was audacious, with a keen eye for opportunity; he was a splendid salesman; and he knew a…

Jump to navigationJump to search The Principality of Hutt River , often referred to by its former name, the Hutt River Province , is a micronation in Australia. The principality claims to be an independent sovereign state founded on 21 April 1970. The territory is located 517 km (354 mi) north of…

The Republican Party and its acolytes in the news media are trying to demonize the protest movement that has sprung up in response to the all-too-common police killings of unarmed African-Americans across the country. The intent of the campaign — evident in comments by politicians like Gov. Nikki…

LL Cool J in 1990. By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images. August of 1990 was unseasonably warm. The hottest month in one of New York City’s hottest years in history, ever , it was a fitting climate for the release of one of hip-hop’s greatest albums. LL Cool J, née James Todd Smith, began releasing albums in…

“ DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK!! I’VE BEEN HERE FOR YEARS!!! ” Despite his protest in the opening lines of the title song to Mama Said Knock You Out , a triumphant return is exactly what that album was for LL Cool J when it was released 25 years ago on August 27, 1990. For many, LL had burst onto the…

The Awl Be less stupid. The Awl Be less stupid.

In many ways, the world we inhabit today isn’t so dramatically different from the one that existed in 1994. The roads were full of Americans SUVs and Japanese sedans; Congress was mired in partisan dysfunction. Americans vaguely roused their enthusiasm for soccer as their team surpassed expectations…

odd Wilson didn’t know these guys. But he didn’t usually handle the setups for the drug deals; it was an associate who typically made the connections — someone who had dated an Italian girl with an older sister who was tapped into Boston’s druggy Euro scene. Wilson and his partner, Larry Jenkins,…

CITY BY THE FROTH In the U.S. alone, nearly 100 tech start-ups are currently considered unicorns. Photo Illustration by Sean McCabe. One Thursday morning in early June, the ballroom of the Rosewood Sand Hill hotel, in Menlo Park, was closed for a private presentation. The grand banquet hall appeared…

On Sunday, August 23, Tyler, the Creator, was riding through France on the nicest tour bus he’d ever rented—a giant TV screen, a circle couch, extra beds—and heading towards the end of what was meant to be a month-long tour of Europe, reveling in the amenities his hard work had afforded him. The…

ILLUSTRATION BY KRIS MUKAI [audio url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/221754909"] M E : I need you to buckle up back there, buddy. M Y NEPHEW : Why? M E : I just do. M Y NEPHEW : Why? M E : Because I want you to be safe. M Y NEPHEW : Why? M E : Because I care about you. M Y NEPHEW : Why? M E :…

America’s debate over how to fund sports stadiums hits critical mass in Cleveland, Ohio Downtown Cleveland, a cold Thursday morning. We’re all watching these workers sort of mindlessly pull themselves up and down the facade of a federal building in this midwestern city. We’re waiting. A wind lifts…

Harriet Cleveland’s troubles began with traffic tickets. When she couldn’t pay her fines, she was sentenced to two years’ probation with Judicial Correction Services, which added its own fees. Her debts soon mounted. Photograph by Jessica Dimmock / VII On a cold November afternoon, Harriet…

Jay Kirk | Harper’s | March 2002 | 29 minutes (7,333 words) This essay by Jay Kirk first appeared in the March 2002 issue of Harper’s, where it was edited by John Jeremiah Sullivan. Our thanks to Kirk for allowing us to reprint it here. *** For a year I worked in an office where I spoke to dying…

How Billy Mitchell became a video-game superstar and achieved Pac-Man bliss B illy Mitchell, the most knowledgeable and masterful Pac-Man player ever to drop a quarter in a machine, is a hard man to find. When I asked one of his best friends, Walter Day, the best way to get in touch with him, Day…

Kickstarter genius Lawrence Shepherd and an unnamed woman. Photo courtesy of Lawrence Shepherd Did you recently waste money on an ironic Kickstarter campaign to make potato salad ? Well, first, Paypal used the money you apparently can't wait to get rid of. Secondly, fuck irony. There are people out…

Roby So (left) and Carlos Cervantes in Pomona, Calif. Credit Damon Casarez for The New York Times T wo men were sitting in a parked car, waiting to pick someone up. Carlos Cervantes was in the driver’s seat. He was 30, with glassy green eyes — quiet by nature, but with a loaded, restrained intensity…

Credit Basil Childers for The New York Times By CHIOS, Greece — The rickety raft made of empty oil drums and a wooden tabletop rolled and pitched with the waves while tied to the side of the Dona Liberta, a 370-foot cargo ship anchored far from land in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa. “Go down!”…

Spiny grass and scraggly pines creep amid the arts-and-crafts buildings of the Asilomar Conference Grounds, 100 acres of dune where California's Monterey Peninsula hammerheads into the Pacific. It's a rugged landscape, designed to inspire people to contemplate their evolving place on Earth. So it…

SONGKHLA, Thailand — Lang Long’s ordeal began in the back of a truck. After watching his younger siblings go hungry because their family’s rice patch in Cambodia could not provide for everyone, he accepted a trafficker’s offer to travel across the Thai border for a construction job. It was his…

Mothers Of ISIS Recruits Fight Their Own Battles Back Home Julia Ioffe In Calgary , between the soccer practices and the hours at her accounting job and the potlucks with the neighbors, Christianne Boudreau spent every spare minute watching Islamic State videos, her nose pressed up against the…

Ivory Mae bought the house in 1961, for thirty-two hundred dollars. She was nineteen, mother to three, and already widowed. To her, the area was the country. Illustration by Richard McGuire In early spring, before the Jane magnolia tree bloomed, I set off to close the distance between the me of now…