M itski has been having nightmares. The 31-year-old musician has always suffered from performance-anxiety dreams, but lately they’ve gotten more terrifying, more elaborate. During one in particular, her cat was stuck in a tree, and she was late to soundcheck. When she finally arrived at the venue, she found out …
Read More »Musicians on Musicians: Elton John & Lana Del Rey
L ana Del Rey is sitting across from Elton John in the kitchen of his Beverly Hills home, where she’s about to talk with her musical hero. But there’s a problem. “Wait a minute, my notes!” she says. “I have 13 pages! Where is my purse?” Elton calls for his …
Read More »City Pop: Why Does the Soundtrack to Tokyo's Tech Boom Still Resonate?
Andy Cabic was exploring the stacks in a Tower Records in Japan when he had an epiphany. The musician, who fronts the folk-rock band Vetiver, was on tour with Devendra Banhart in the mid-2000s when he walked into the store and found displays highlighting Japanese artists from the Seventies and …
Read More »New Law Forces Sex-Trafficking Victims to Streets, Dark Web
Senate Bill 1693, commonly referred to as SESTA/FOSTA, is a new federal law aimed at curbing sex trafficking by holding online platforms accountable for the content their users post. And since the legal definition of sex trafficking is consistently conflated with consensual adult sex work, several websites that advertised in-person …
Read More »An Open Letter to Gina Haspel From Someone Who Was Physically Tortured
Dear Ms. Haspel, I understand you are now against torture, after supporting it before. Great. As a torture victim, I’m very happy to hear this news. I hope you won’t take it the wrong way, however, if I say that I doubt the sincerity of your change of heart. Let’s …
Read More »Death of the American Trucker
When Donald Trump sidles up to a semi truck, he’s usually selling policy only a plutocrat could love. Campaigning to repeal the Affordable Care Act in March, Trump pinned an iTrucks button to his lapel and honked the horn of a Mack truck outside the White House. “Obamacare,” he said, …
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