Fact
nonfiction: essays + travel + more
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New Babylon: dispatches from Iraq | posted March 10, 2006
Reports from the battlefield in Iraq.
by Neil Shea

Paradise City | Fall 05
Grab your AK and head for New Orleans

There’s a whole side to this story you haven’t heard. I don’t mind letting you in on a little trade secret.
by Chris Carroll

Get Out of the Country! | Fall 05
Sweden: doppelganger travel

I felt as if my boyfriend and I were opting for the safest destination imaginable. I feared it would be like Wisconsin, only illegible.
by John Eklund

Mr. Gehry's Neighborhood | Fall 05
Ugly, lazy architecture abounds in the Boston area. But in Cambridge, there is an example of this graceless trend reversed, of a heartening attempt at marrying landscape and architecture.
by Kara Tutunjian

Three Fierce Women | Fall 05
Laura Nyro, Angela Davis & Anita Brookner

Their lives, their words, their work, and how they each inspired John Eklund.

Letter from the Arctic | Fall 05
by Neil Shea

Lost in the Heartland
A notebook in five sections

A traveling book salesman explores the secret life of the Midwest. Here is what he saw, heard, found and feared.
by John Eklund

High Altitude Outhouse
Letter From Mt. Rainier

A big mountain guide explains alpine bathroom etiquette.
by Jon Shea

Unions: Dead & Gone
Wal-Mart and the race to the bottom

Wal-Mart employees collect an estimated $2.5 billion in welfare annually. The government has become the default caretaker where Wal-Mart is negligent.
by Tom Gilmore

The New Scapegoat
Wal-Mart is just giving us what we want

The good citizen in us will always want workers to be treated fairly. But if we can buy products at a third of the price at Wal-Mart, we’ll end up at that ugly, grey block of a store every time.
by Peter Wolfgang

Don't Point that Ad at Me
The business of books is bad for reading

I’m tired of being marketed to, and by tired I mean physically exhausted. Since the day I noticed a rack of “pre-faded” jeans at the Gap in 1988, authenticity has been under siege in every corner of the world. Books have always seemed like a safe refuge, but no longer.
by John Eklund

Frank Lloyd Wright and the toffee-colored concrete
Following a great man's ghost into the desert

Frank Lloyd Wright’s ghost plopped down heavily beside me on the concrete wall. The day was shaping up beautifully, but the phantom of America’s most famous architect was glum.
by Neil Shea

Fascism: Could it happen here?
Writer Chris Beck tracks the spread of fascism in the U.S.

We have, at present, Fascism Lite. Things will get worse.

Three Assholes: Pete Rose, Dubya & Me
Henry Miller once wrote, “Our heroes have killed themselves, or are killing themselves ...” Powerful Men like us have no control; we are overgrown babies.
by Seth McLaughlin

My neighbor, NASCAR
I asked my girlfriend's uncle why he likes racer Jeff Gordon so much. He said he thought the color scheme of Gordon's car was cool. I paused— and told him that was really gay.
by Shane Stornanti

Spy in the airport

What to do on a really long layover? Our writer gathers intelligence on brown skin, fake breasts, the war in Iraq and his own connection to Strom Thurmond.
by Devdas Kumar

Video Killed the Video Star
Exploring the decline of the music video, pop culture and MTV.

Duran Duran looked like they were having fun. Cyndi Lauper and Captain Lou Albano did a whole video about wanting to have fun. 50 Cent doesn’t know what fun is.
by Dan Tobin

Driving the Democratic Convention
Heading to Boston for the convention? Force the Left.

While Boston’s buildings are full of history and pithy colonial charm, the streets are laid out with the kind of care and planning you might expect from a retarded pilgrim wearing a blindfold.
by Jake Jamieson

Dreaming of Rocky Balboa
Ruminations on the state of boxing.

Several months ago I decided that I would write about how heavyweight boxing is in dire need of a white pugilist. I have changed course.
by Seth McLaughlin

Saddam Hussein on Homebrew & the Politics of Personality

You know, I used to have quite an elaborate home-brewing operation ... by Matthew Smolak

The Best Unpublished Newspaper Story

Protecting the public from errant sex toys.

Mercury on the brain

"There are about 150 substances known to be toxic to the human brain," says Dr. Philippe Grandjean. "Out of those substances we've looked at three." Startling new research on mercury reveals a fourth—and emphasizes that humans are adrift in a sea of chemicals.
by Neil Shea

Real Vikings wear Spandex
Thirteen days through Iceland, wetly: the diaries of a solo cyclist.

So far today I've been chased for miles by a deranged sheep dog and told `You have no life,' by a lady at the ESSO station …
by Christopher Langlois

Letter from Los Angeles
Is flower power yielding to buying power in Jim Morrison's city by the sea? An architect wonders ...
by Algis Kalvaitis

Filling Granite Rail
Murder, missing bodies and the mightiest construction project in the U.S. combine at an abandoned quarry on the edge of Boston.
by Neil Shea

Songs to soothe a dark heart
An interview with Handsome Family's Rennie Sparks in which she remarks on the wondrous autoharp, Leonard Cohen, China and the band's recent album.
by Tom Gilmore

Countdown to Democracy
Can the Dems win over the author, our own blue-collar everyman? Plus: Who is the Night Squealer?

All in all I have determined that John Kerry has the personality of a stick. by Shane Stornanti

To hunt or not to hunt?
As some countries sharpen their harpoons, the debate over whaling heats up with a new genetic twist.
by Neil Shea

Punk Matters
Remembering Joe Strummer, punk rock's leading man.
by Neil Shea