I'm the chief digital writer for the Columbia Journalism Review
From Alta magazine: "After moving to Los Angeles, Dee Ann found her guru: the famous writer Carlos Castaneda. She joined his cult and became a witch—as his female followers called themselves—or a chacmool, a word from ancient Mexico for revered statues depicting guardians of the gods. As
From Historic Flix: "Mauro Prosperi, a former police officer from Italy, is a seasoned ultramarathon runner. His hobby saw him enter the Marathon des Sables in 1994, an annual six-day ultramarathon that takes participants through over 150 miles of scorching Moroccan desert. For their whole week in the desert,
From Literary Hub: "It was a fine early summer afternoon in England, and the port at Chelsea was just slipping out of sight when Benjamin Franklin—at the urging of his fellow passengers—kicked off his buckled shoes and tossed aside his heavy jacket. John Wygate, a fellow printer
From Hackaday: "The Brennan Monorail was a train from the early 1900’s that seemed to defy the laws of physics. Not only did it keep itself perfectly balanced on a single rail, but it mysteriously leaned into corners without any driver input. This was a real invention – and
From Vice: "One day last spring, near an old rural cemetery in southern Brazil, a black man named Marcelo Gomes held up the corners of a Confederate flag to pose for a cell-phone photo. After the picture was taken, Gomes said he saw no problem with a black man
From WBUR: "hat’s most shocking about Jeremy Pauley isn’t his tattooed eyeball or the metal spikes protruding from his scalp. It’s his openness about trading in human remains. Standing in the doorway of his rural Pennsylvania home, dressed all in black, he greets an unannounced reporter
From the New York Times: "After six weekends of deliberating, a group of Austrian citizens decided how to divvy up the riches of the heiress Marlene Engelhorn, who is donating the bulk of her inheritance to charity in an attempt to challenge a system that allowed her to accumulate
From The Guardian: "Jordan Hatmaker knew something was wrong as soon as she tried to open her parachute. “You’re meant to look up to check: is it there? Is it square? And is it stable?” she says. It was none of those things. This was the second time
From JSTOR Daily: "Behind a plate-glass window, framed by grand Doric columns, repose three bodies. Except for their leather loincloths, they are naked. From a pipe above each bed, a trickle of cold water runs down their faces. Their eyes are closed. They bear the marks of their deaths:
From How Stuff Works: "Politicians are under a lot of scrutiny in the 21st century: a public servant can't even accept millions of dollars in bribes without getting trouble. But let's reflect back on a time in American history when a new governor could show
From All That's Interesting: "The great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller, aspiring explorer and ethnographer Michael Rockefeller had no interest in managing his family’s empire upon graduating from Harvard in 1960. Instead, he set out for the remote wilds of Dutch New Guinea to collect art made
From the Wall Street Journal: "The young Argentine couple in the pastel-colored house lived a seemingly ordinary suburban life, driving around this sleepy European capital in a white Kia Ceed sedan, always paying their taxes on time and never so much as getting a parking ticket. Maria Rosa Mayer