Volume 21 Issue 1
Between Beirut and a Hard Place
Thirty-four years ago, on April 18, 1980, I was with a United Nations Peacekeeping patrol that was abducted in south Lebanon. The kidnappers released me after a couple hours, but they tortured and killed two Irish UN peacekeepers who had accompanied me...
Tropic of El Jefe
We had come to Cuba as lovers and newlyweds to discern the truth of the often repeated and reported claim that Fidel Castro is the world’s greatest lover. How many Cuban cigars did we buy, trying to discover the secrets of Castro’s love life? We...
First They Came for the Electric Bikes…
A 2002 federal law had classified two-wheeled machines with pedals and small electric motors that couldn’t go faster than 20 MPH as ordinary bicycles, but then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s government made any motorized vehicle that couldn’t be registered...
Can Anyone Fix the German Prostitution Industry?
In 2002, Parliament passed a set of laws designed to improve the lives of Germany's prostitutes. As a result, the country became a magnet for hookers and johns, and it’s been reported that there are approximately 400,000 prostitutes servicing an...
The Make-A-Kush Foundation
We went down to Portland, Oregon to sample something called Absolute Amber, a potent concentrate concocted by soaking a batch of medical marijuana in butane and isopropyl alcohol, boiling those liquids away, then freezing and double-filtering the oily...
Busboy - An Excerpt from 'The Splendid Things We Planned' by Blake Bailey
Blake Bailey’s memoir, The Splendid Things We Planned, will be published in March. Just as the subjects of his award-winning biographies—Richard Yates, John Cheever, and Charles Jackson—were always writing about themselves, we’re pretty sure...
Strange Amusements
Photos from the 2013 International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Convention.
Dimebag’s Last Christmas
I don’t know if you’ve ever met any of your untouchable, godlike, rock ’n’ roll heroes. I have, many times, and it usually sucks. I’ve been disillusioned over and over, but in 2003, when I met Pantera’s guitarist, Dimebag Darrell, things went...
Music Reviews
The highlight of January's releases is a fantastic compilation of fucking serious deathrock, and the lowlight is Harlequin Dream by Boy & Bear, an album that's as disgustingly twee as it sounds.
Employees of the Month
When filmmaker Aeyliya Husain was granted the opportunity to film Pakistan’s top military academy’s lone female platoon, she wasted no time putting on her fatigues and flying from her home in Toronto to Abbottabad.