Longreads

The Evolution of Sarah Polley

As an actor, director, writer and producer, she’s often examined women on the verge of reconfiguration. Her latest project, an adaptation of Alias Grace, is one she’s been thinking about for decades.

The Monsters Next Door

On the television lives of two spooky primetime families, the Addams and the Munsters.

All The Ways An Era Ends

Fascinated by Lou Reed's New York, I moved to St. Mark's Place two decades too late, and the sickness I got there followed me for years.

The Man Behind Meat Loaf

Songwriter Jim Steinman found his muse in the performer—and, forty years ago, they released their iconic, operatic rock album, Bat Out of Hell.

The Last Days of the Leather Fortress

For a decade, the BDSM site Kink.com has filmed scenes for its more than 50,000 members in a hundred-year-old armory in downtown San Francisco. This year, the final erotic frames were shot on the premises.

Selling China by the Sleeve Dance

Beneath the ubiquitous posters for the Shen Yun ballet is a battle between dissidents and the state over the soul of a nation, both at home and across the diaspora.

Green To Me

Like anything I love, I mistrust the color green down to the fingernail-edges of all the feelings it engenders in me.

On Falling in Love with David

Is it possible to decolonize and police a thing as subconscious and primal as desire?

The Legion Lonely

Over the past few decades, loneliness has reached almost epidemic levels, with men uniquely suffering its effects. How and why has isolation become such a threat?

What I Learned at Personal Branding School

What does it take to evolve from human being to human brand? If you're enrolled in the right free online introductory-level course, about five weeks.