Dreaming of Osama
Usually when we heard from Osama bin Laden it was on audio tapes broadcast on Al Jazeera — but he also appeared in bedrooms all over the world, haunting our dreams. This piece, Dreaming of Osama, was...
View ArticlePhilippe Petit, Man On Wire
ListenIt had all the glamour, conspiracy, and danger of a classic heist movie, but it was real — and the hero was wearing slippers.Long before 9/11, Philippe Petit’s unauthorized walk on a tightrope...
View ArticleAmerican Icons: This Land is Your Land
This is the national anthem we actually know the words to. Americans sing it at school and summer camp; Bruce Springsteen sang it at President Obama's inauguration. Yet Woody Guthrie's song was once...
View ArticleSuicide Forest
Aokigahara is the forest at the foot of Mount Fuji. It’s mythologized in Japanese literature as a sacred place for people to end their lives — and every year close to a hundred suicides are committed...
View ArticleA Final Visit with Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger was a giant, and barely a singer-songwriter has touched a guitar who doesn't owe him a musical debt. He died this week, at age 94.In 2010, Kurt Andersen went to Seeger's home — a house he...
View Article360 Extra: Philippe Petit, Man on Wire
On the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we wanted to revisit Kurt’s conversation with an artist who had a special relationship with the World Trade Center site.It had all the glamour,...
View ArticleThe End of “The Road”
Visions of a post-apocalyptic future are a mainstay of science fiction. Novelist Cormac McCarthy is known for his super-violent Westerns written in Biblical language — he’s not the kind of writer you’d...
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American Icons: This Land is Your Land
“This Land is Your Land” is the national anthem we actually know the words to. Americans sing it at school and summer camp; Bruce Springsteen and the late Pete Seeger sang it at President Obama’s first...
View ArticleSharon Jones's Soul Revival
Sharon Jones burst onto the music scene about 10 years ago — she was backed by The Dap-Kings, a straight-out-of-the-1960s funk band with a fantastic horn section. And at just 5 feet tall, Sharon had...
View ArticleValeria Luiselli on Reënacting the Border
Valeria Luiselli first travelled to the U.S.–Mexico border in 2014, when the current immigration crisis began to heat up. Under the Trump Presidency, the border has become the dead center of American...
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