This week, Detroit’s new emergency manager released his first report on the city’s dire affairs. But residents have long been accustomed to life in what’s essentially a failed state. A native author meets the motorcycle men working hard to save Detroit, one fiend at a time.
TMN Weekender
Inlandia
We had a lot of fun at TMN putting together our New York Elsewhere feature, trying to work out which neighborhoods in other cities corresponded to neighborhoods we knew, loved, and sometimes hated in New York.
But there were no perfect matches, of course. While it’s easy to think of the United States as either New York (urban) or Los Angeles (sprawl) with nothing but Mayberry in between, the truth is that there’s a lot of character to be found between the coasts of these United States. Exhibit No. 1: the Mark Binelli profile of Detroit that ran this week, Crack Rock City.
So this weekend, enjoy TMN’s tales from inland America, ready to read here on TMN or in an e-book you can export to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, etc. Continue Reading
The Global Desk
Everything in This City Must
After six months in Leipzig, a German reporter asks the novelist what he’ll miss. But it’s back here in the United States where more dangerous questions take shape, none easily answered with good beer.
Gallery
Anacostia
Portraits of community, recreation, and environmental abuse along the riverbanks of Washington, DC’s, Anacostia neighborhood.
Spoofs & Satire
It’s Complicated
Though mothers may gnash their teeth at forgotten flowers and missing brunches, the poets still sing of the worst Mother’s Day ever: that of Oedipus and his bride.
Exploring the Language of the Stars
How Amanda Bynes and the Teens Saved the Human Race
It seems weird now to think that there was a time when the internet was extremely worried about Amanda Bynes. But the internet was different—we were different—before she joined Twitter. Before she began to show us who we really are.
We were still used to who Amanda had been. We did not understand who she was becoming. We expected her to be that skinny little girl with the impossibly loud voice we remembered from All That and What I Like About You. The budding comedian, the next Lucille Ball, so fearless in front of the camera. Continue Reading
Spoofs & Satire
Art of the Steal
Western museums aren’t exactly known for possessing sterling records when it comes to acquiring the treasures of foreign countries. So when the Met is pressured to return its valuables, a mea culpa seems due.
Excerpts
South by Midwest
Flash fiction—prairie-style—from novelists Jonathan Lethem and Aimee Bender, plus an interview with Jeff Martin, editor of the new collection Imaginary Oklahoma.
Gallery
Point of Deliverance
Pictures from the edges of the Northern Gaeltacht, Irish-speaking area of County Mayo in northwest Ireland and one of the last true wilderness areas in Western Europe.
Personal History
The Case of the Hungry Stranger
Epistolary relationships leave behind plenty of evidence. But a man is always more complicated than his paper trail—especially when he’s your father, who walked out one day.
TMN Weekender
The Great Equalizer
There are few subjects about which Americans talk so much—and listen so little—than guns.
The talk I get—it’s human nature to have strong opinions about deadly things—it’s the not listening that seems to be the problem. Which is one of the reasons I love Nicole Pasulka’s How to Hunt: Nicole not only listens, but does.
As divisive as guns are in this country, they are probably the most American of symbols besides Coca-Cola and the flag. When you’re done with Nicole’s story, check out these four, ready to read here on TMN or in an e-book you can export to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, etc. Continue Reading
Chord and Discord
Six Strings
Growing up in Ohio, far from the homeland of her parents, a girl puzzles over her identity, until the strings of a sitar create a connection.
Personal Essays
The Real Me
The internet is an unrelenting enabler of our flaws and an unforgiving archive of them—so should you google your new love interest, or hold off? And what if they google you first?
Exit Strategy
New York Elsewhere
New Yorkers don’t fade away—they just move. But to where? From Miami to Austin to Berlin, detailed maps of nearly every other significant city’s neighborhoods show ex-pats exactly where to emigrate.
Gallery
India at Rest
India’s prevailing image is one of noisy animation—development, overcrowding, and horrible traffic. In comparison, night-scapes of urban India capture the life, or lack thereof, that darkness conceals.
TMN Weekender
Cutthroat Island
Delicious incongruity aside, the scene served as another reminder of the age: Nobody with any alternative—even skis—took the subway then, especially at night.
Manhattan, it is harder and harder to remember, used to be a really rough place. But as rough as it was in the late ’60s, there is no doubt it had improved considerably in the 350 years since it was first settled by the Dutch. A few years ago, TMN’s Tobias Seamon brought Manhattan and the Hudson Valley’s violent past in a series of pieces commemorating the days when New York was the Wild West—ready to read here on TMN or in an e-book you can export to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, etc. Continue Reading
Naming Today
Like a Lead Balloon
As anyone who’s struggled to start a band, get shows, record music, and become a certified rock star knows, coming up with a name is half the challenge. A linguistic take on how we name bands today.
Gallery
Somebody Call Someone
New paintings that question how much we truly influence our fate, and whether or not life is just a string of accidents.
Profiles
The Gales of November
On. Nov. 28, 1966, the SS Daniel J. Morrell capsized during a storm, taking 28 of its 29 crewman to the bottom of Lake Huron. The sole survivor of a Great Lakes shipwreck tells his tale.