Articles Written By Leah Finnegan
TMN Editor Leah Finnegan is from Illinois by way of Texas. She splits her time between New York City and her website.
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America, America, Burning Bright
Deplorable, Lousy, Godawful, and Required
People complain that politics are worse than ever. It happens to be true. But history contains as many examples of the contentious, weird, and wacky as the present—and those absurdities are actually vital to our democracy.
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Portraits by Other Means
Misogyny Soup
Aristotle There is no doubt that Aristotle’s texts are misogynist; he thought that women were inferior to men and he said so explicitly. For example, to cite Cynthia...
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Portraits by Other Means
To Sleep, Perchance to Lose Consciousness
Salvador Dalí Salvador Dalí wrote about this technique that he called “Slumber with a key.” He featured it as one of his 50 secrets of magic craftsmanship....
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Portraits by Other Means
Mind the Law
John Henry Browne “Attorney John Henry Browne,” read a headline on the cover of Pacific, a Seattle news magazine. “He shoots from the hip to defend the...
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Portraits by Other Means
Work, Work, Work, Die
Ron Akana, longest-serving flight attendant Yes, Mr. Akana has worked as a flight attendant for 63 years, clocking some 20 million miles along the way, the equivalent of circling the globe about 800...
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Portraits by Other Means
Get Me Out of Here
Centennial, Wyo. ...I liked Centennial, with its funky main drag, its ancient police car parked near the highway to deter speeders and, when I first arrived, its five bars to...
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Portraits by Other Means
Myers-Briggsing Our Leaders
Newt Gingrich As often as not, Mr. Gingrich grasps the extended hand and offers a noncommittal greeting, the same as saying “Nice to see you” at a cocktail...
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Portraits by Other Means
Pity the Progeny
Alina Fernandez Both [Fidel] Castro and Fernandez’ mother, a socialite, were married to other people when they fell in love through their exchange of letters while Castro was in...
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Portraits by Other Means
Don’t Look at Me (Look at Me)
Marcel Proust By 1919, Proust rarely left his soundproofed Paris apartment, complete with a bedroom encased in walls of cork to keep out noise. He worked in a sunless writing studio...
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Portraits by Other Means
Comeback Kings and Queens
Sinead O’Connor Outside Sinead O’Connor’s whitewashed home here, on a windswept beachfront overlooking the misty Irish Sea, there are two talismans. One, a knee-high...
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Portraits by Other Means
Till Death Do Us Part
Marcus Garvey Garvey had a stroke in January of 1940, and he becomes incapacitated. George Padmore, who was a columnist for The Chicago Defender, had heard a rumor that Garvey had...
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Portraits by Other Means
Our Domiciles, Ourselves
Pope Benedict XVI Until 2005, under John Paul II, the papal apartment was run by Polish nuns. The memores aren’t nuns, do not wear religious garments, are laypeople and...