All Stories
How to spend a perfect day in Milwaukee
Milwaukee is a city I’ve always loved, but now I can appreciate it even more through adult eyes. I was born and raised here, moved to New York and eventually came home, where I put down roots with my then-girlfriend,…
The rock critic who changed the way I listen to music
“A great new sound reaches us, always, as a miraculous gift.” The rock critic Dave Marsh, now of blessed memory, wrote that about Albert Ayler in 1998, and out of the thousands of memorable words Marsh wrote about music, that…
Costco chicken bake meets weeknight galette
I love food court food. Not ironically, and not only in the nostalgic way one loves things that arrived alongside an adolescence spent under fluorescent lighting. I love the architecture of it: the trays, the paper cups, the strange little…
Mariska Hargitay and the quiet death of the award-show roast
The news that Mariska Hargitay will host this year’s Primetime Emmys didn’t inspire many posts in the usual social spaces, and there’s a good reason why. Despite last year’s ceremony boasting a four-year viewership high, the general audience doesn’t seem…
“GTA VI” leaks draw more scrutiny than Epstein files
A version of this essay first appeared in Crash Course, Salon’s free morning newsletter. Sign up for early access to articles like this, plus more of Salon’s bold journalism on how policies, movements and culture wars affect real people. On Aug. 31,…
“Chronovisor” makes literacy the key to another world
When people talk about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, no one ever seems to discuss what it would’ve been like from Christ’s point of view. Perhaps that’s because, if we stop clinging to the hope that it was all for…
The global appeal of the pastry dog
For five years, Sister Schubert’s fans asked, begged and eventually petitioned for the return of a frozen food composed of two things: a small smoked sausage and a soft Parker House roll. The company had discontinued its Sausage Wrap Rolls…
Measles death undercuts RFK Jr.’s doubts
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has acknowledged that measles caused the death of a Pennsylvania infant, days after reports revealed that he asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to remove two deaths in the state from its…
“Idiocracy” is still a worthless artifact 20 years later
Mike Judge has always had a soft spot for dimwits. Beavis and Butt-head might leave chaos and destruction in their muttering, giggling wake, but they rarely suffer lasting harm themselves. In another writer’s hands, the soft-handed seat-fillers of his slacker…
Stuffing deserves a life beyond Thanksgiving
Back when Twitter was still the kind of place where a stray observation could become communal property by lunchtime — before the app hardened quite so completely into a highly polarized, hyper-monetized digital town square populated by tech founders and…