Illustration by Gary Taxali January 1st—Ha! That feels fun to write. I’m excited. I’ve been thinking about doing this for so long—I went through my notes and it turns out I came up with this idea all the way back on Day After Day After Very Cloudy Day. January 2nd—I’m still so excited about this…

James Deen won’t stop apologizing. From the moment he emerges from the garage of his sprawling, gray house and shakes my hand, he’s sorry. He’s sorry about the construction workers patching a hole in his roof. He’s sorry about the porn visible on his computer. He’s sorry about his television—he had…

For most of the history of television, the barrier to syndication—and to profitability—has been 100 episodes. The shows that have made it to that mark are an unusual group. Many were big hits. Some found small cult audiences. Still others just hung on as best they could and never posted numbers…

serious trigger warning for verbal abuse, psychological abuse, emotional manipulation, sexual assault, rape, and rape apologia. I’d never seen so many fireflies in one place before. It was early summer in Virginia, and I was sitting, sheltered under a gazebo, watching golden lights flicker on the…

Independent game developer Chris Hecker has been spying on people at parties. His goal isn't to be creepy: Hecker's been observing human behavior and interaction in crowds as he develops his multiplayer espionage game SpyParty . His observations have led him to make notable changes to how the game…

The story of the biggest club in hip-hop history, as told by the people who lived it. The year was 1993. Jessica Rosenblum , NYC party promoter and arbiter of downtown cool, was looking for a permanent home for her Sunday night rap party, Mecca. It would be a venue for Funkmaster Flex , the DJ she…

Photograph in public domain, this copy from Naval Aviation Museum Doesn’t look like much, does it? But, depending upon your definition, this photograph, a team effort by 9 men, is the most honored picture in U. S. History. If you want to find out about it, read on. It’s an interesting tale about how…

Orson Welles, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, March 1, 1937. Photo by Carl Van Vechten/Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons Wednesday marks the 75 th anniversary of Orson Welles’ electrifying War of the Worlds broadcast, in which the Mercury Theatre on the Air enacted a Martian invasion of…

Trailers were initially little more than crudely spliced collections of film stills, sold to early theater exhibitors to be tacked onto the end of features. Hence the name “trailers”: These brief sneak previews trailed after the main attraction, and were designed to get the hoi polloi’s asses back…

This morning's New York Times Magazine blows the lid off of an Apple conspiracy more outrageous than a dozen Foxconns. Cracking the Apple Trap , it's called in the print edition. Why Apple Wants to Bust Your iPhone, online. But in our hearts, let it be known only as Uhh... Seriously? Time to sigh…

Enlarge / A censored version of one of the leaked images, which shows a pre-existing shower scene from a much more revealing angle. When nude images of Jodie Holmes, actress Ellen Page's character from Beyond: Two Souls , began appearing on the Internet a few weeks ago (courtesy of a repositioned…

The best film ever made about hip-hop is also the first: Wild Style . Released in 1983, Wild Style covered all four elements of hip-hop—graffiti, MCing, breakdancing, DJing—in the culture’s earliest days. It’s not a documentary, but at time it feels like one. The setting is hip-hop’s nursery, the…

John Maynard Keynes was twitted with changing his mind. He replied, “When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?” My favorite example of a change of mind was Norman Mailer at The Village Voice . Norman took on the role of drama critic, weighing in on the New York premiere of…

I hear that in San Francisco the term “Glassholes” is already current, but in New York I am a conquering hero. Photograph by Emiliano Granado On a weekday afternoon in late June, a nondescript forty-year-old man in beige shorts, a blue Penguin sports shirt, and what appears to be a pair of…

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Mandy Patinkin in Charlotte, N.C., on the soundstage for “Homeland.” Graeme Mitchell for The New York Times It was the fifth take, or maybe the seventh or maybe the ninth. Down in the bowels of Langley, or at least in its reasonable facsimile in Charlotte , N.C., where Showtime’s “Homeland” is shot,…

Movie theater popcorn is a concession stand staple whose scent has spawned marketing ploys and copycat recipes , but movie theaters haven't always been saturated with the tempting smell of salt and butter. The history of popcorn is vast, and it intersects with movies in the relatively recent past–a…

When I have described the well-considered, coherent political and economic strategies of the conservative white South, as I have done here , here and here , I am sometimes been accused of being a “conspiracy theorist.” But one need not believe that white-hooded Dragons and Wizards are secretly…

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Good morning! I am a leaf blower! You’ve probably heard me. Right now, for example. Sure, put that pillow over your head. That should help. Still here. I woke you up this morning to clear the air—air filled with particles that always get in your eye, even when you’re, like, fifty feet away and you…

Cus had us modify the affirmations for our own situation. So he had me saying, “The best fighter in the world. Nobody can beat me. The best fighter in the world. Nobody can beat me,” over and over again all day. I loved doing that; I loved hearing myself talk about myself. I was this useless,…

Over the next two weeks we'll bringing you our pick of the games of the generation - and today we're starting off with Portal, Valve's exceptionally smart puzzler that was the surprise highlight of The Orange Box when it launched in October 2007. Few would dispute that, when it comes to video games,…

The British filmmaker had been wanting to tell a story of someone who had been free and was then abducted, and in doing so, to tap into a collective fear as old as the Grimms’ fairy tales of Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel. Fernando Morales/The Globe and Mail The "Hollywood version" of…

About 20 or so years ago, things were so bad between Prime Minister Pete Nice and MC Serch that the two trailblazing rappers went years without speaking and, despite all their work together, were content to pretend the other didn't exist. After the ugly and abrupt 1991 demise of 3rd Bass, Serch, a…

The American action movies of the 1980s and ’90s could be cheesy, reactionary, and dumb, but at the same time, they could possess a brawny, brutal grace. Take Die Hard , for instance. The movie’s fun has a lot to do with form; John McTiernan’s use of camera movement, wide-angle lenses, and…

edit 10/06/2013: read a sort-of followup to this blog HERE when you’re done with this and all of the amazing discussion in the comments section Sinéad O’Connor wrote a letter to Miley Cyrus, you can read it here: bit.ly/SOColMC (or HERE on The Guardian if her site’s down from heavy traffic) This is…

The Millennium Bridge. Andrew Testa for The New York Times How do you make a new city your own? How do you turn it from a place you know as a tourist into a place you call home? How do you transform yourself from traveler to resident? The things we notice when we visit cities are rarely the things…

The new action movie Escape Plan stars Sylvester Stallone as a security expert who finds himself incarcerated in a high-tech, futuristic prison. To escape, he joins forces with another aging inmate, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. For even the biggest die-hard fan of Rambo and Predator , the image…