O n the morning of August 13th, Afghan-American actress and filmmaker Fereshta Kazemi was in her production office in Kabul, working on the trailer for her upcoming film, when she saw “Kandahar” trending on Twitter. The Taliban had just taken Afghanistan‘s second-largest city, she learned; two more cities would fall …
Read More »The Spirit of Neil Peart
N eil Peart made it only 10 months into his hard-won retirement before he started to feel like something was wrong. Words were, for once, the problem. Peart, one-third of the Toronto band Rush, was one of the world’s most worshipped drummers, unleashing his unearthly skills upon rotating drum kits …
Read More »Keith Richards on His New Box Set, the Next Stones LP and Who Really Inspired 'You Don't Move Me'
It’s late September, and Keith Richards is back at work after a six-month pause. He boasts that his temperature clocked in at 97.8 degrees (“I’m chilling,” he says) when he arrived at Manhattan’s Germano Studios to resume work on the Rolling Stones‘ next album. “I realized coming into the studio …
Read More »Meet the People We're Counting on for a Covid-19 Vaccine
T his spring, doing rounds in the Covid-19 units at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, Dr. Kirsten Lyke saw more than 130 patients each day. Some were under observation after developing symptoms like shortness of breath, dry cough, and fever. Others were on ventilators. Many initially tested …
Read More »'Six Feet Under': The Oral History of HBO's Beloved Drama
This story was originally published August 20th, 2015. It’s easy to imagine that, 15 years from now, television audiences will take for granted the existence of groundbreaking series like Orange Is the New Black and Transparent. But it’s impossible to look at the currently lush television landscape without acknowledging the …
Read More »Trent Reznor on 'Watchmen' Soundtrack, Nine Inch Nails' 'Pretty Hate Machine' Turning 30
When the Oscar-winning composing duo — and Nine Inch Nails bandmates — Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross learned that the beloved comic book Watchmen was going to be expanded into a TV series, they wanted in. Reznor was already a fan of the graphic novel, but moreover he liked the …
Read More »Why Can't California Solve Its Housing Crisis?
Listen to an audio version of this story below: When the shimmering, state-of-the-art, $1.3 billion Levi’s Stadium opened its doors in Santa Clara, it was hailed as the pinnacle of technological innovation. Concessions delivered to your seat at the touch of a button! Bluetooth beacons to navigate you with pinpoint …
Read More »Charles Manson: How a Twisted Beatles Obsession Inspired Family Murders
Charles Manson had an easy explanation for why he ordered the deaths of the family of Leno LaBianca and residents at Sharon Tate’s house at the hands of his “Family”: “It’s the Beatles, the music they’re putting out,” he told the district attorney who sent him to death row. “These …
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