We get it. The work week is BUUUUUSY. You don’t have time to read every interview, every article, and every blog post people send your way. That’s why we’re offering up the Sunday morning Longer Reads section. Here’s your chance to catch up on some of more interesting items you might have missed.
In boingboing: Filmmaker, writer, and trans activist Andrea James writes about LGBT reactionaries throwing drag queens under the bus for “transphobic language” and the growing rift between the drag, gay, and trans communities.
Trans icon Calpernia Addams passionately sounds off on the same subject in the Huffington Post.
In The Atlantic: Scientists create Mars-like community in Hawaii to see if astronauts will get SPACE MADNESS when we begin colonizing it in the ’30s.
A fascinating tribute to the lasting legacy of DJ Frankie Knuckles, the Godfather of House music in The LA Times.
Moby reminisces about Klaus Nomi, the ’80s club scene, and the ’90s rave drugs in Vulture.
Just how risky is oral sex? Find out here. (The answer might surprise you)
The Daily Star says the comedian Jonathan Ross is starting his hunt for Britain’s Next Drag Superstar…
Noah is just the latest film to earn the wrath of the Christian right. Read about five other blasphemous movies in Salon.
Then read: The 10 Weirdest Things the Christian Right Thinks Will Turn Your Kids Gay.
From Slate‘s advice column: “Dear Prudence: My twin brother had a one-night stand with a girl, gave her my name and number as joke, then she and I started dating. We’re engaged now, should I tell her the truth?”
Gen X catastrophe in the making: How the coming inheritance boom is going to DESTROY THE NATION.
Slate asks: How do we instill journalistic ethics into our robot reporters?
The New York Times decrees that mankind is inherently spiteful, but you know what? That’s a GOOD thing!
A fun Q & A with Cyndi Lauper in The Guardian.
BBC News: A French couple has gathered a thousand on-line fan tributes to Pharrell’s “Happy”
So the Black Death wasn’t really the Bubonic plague after all? Read the new theories in Slate.
Swoonworthy rates the top ten hunks of Game of Thrones. (Grey Worm should have scored higher, just sayin’)
PREVIOUSLY:
Always tackling the most important stories of the day, HuffPo has 19 Very Real Struggles of Women with Big Butts.
The much buzzed-about New York Post article: “L’Wren Scott’s Suicide Reveals Tragic Side of City’s Glitzy Scene.”
Slate uses music theory to explain the genius of Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” (Maybe next year they’ll tackle why “Happy” is so goddamn annoying).
Nile Rogers writes about Studio 54, Grace Jones, and the Disco backlash in New York magazine.
From Salon: Why Entertainment Weekly‘s decision to start paying writers with “prestige” rather than, you know, actual money is terrible for both writers and readers (and does not bode well for the future of pop culture).
Also in Salon: Why Gwyneth Paltrow’s utterly obnoxious “conscious uncoupling” letter proves she’s the last, great star, “worthy of the legacy of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.”
Mental Floss investigates: Is the Five-Second Rule real?
The New York Times says millennials in the work place are shallow, callow, unmotivated, and undependable… just like every generation since the middle ages.
Also in the Times: Exploring the Salton Sea, the Sunken City and other modern ruins of Southern California.
Lead singer of cult metal band GWAR David Brockie aka Oderus Urungus found dead at 50. Read about it in Rolling Stone and Daily Mail.
PREV IOUSLY:
Nickelback, Smash Mouth, Goo Goo Dolls: Salon has the 15 most hated bands of the last 30 years. (But no fun.? No Mumford & Sons? I demand a recount!)
The must-have coffee table book of 2014 about the mob hit men of Murder Inc. will cost you exactly $4,200. But YOWZA, what a book! Read about it in the New York Times.
Washington Post has a fascinating obituary of the villanous Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps.
And HuffPo has the LGBT reaction to his death.
Arkansas school doubles down on decision to ban gay student’s coming out story in yearbook.
For all you hardcore Benson fans out there (you know who you are), Salon has the answer to how the series was supposed to end.
For when you absolutely need purple pleather harem pants on the run: Fashion trucks are about to become ALL THE RAGE.
Coming soon to the Great White Way: James Franco and Chris O’Dowdare reimagine Of Mice & Men as a bromantic comedy
Absolutely riveting video (if you’re into this sort of thing): Alexander Wang, Prabal Garung and Eddie Borgo analyze the concept of style at the SCADstyle 2014 conference. At Style.com
Liza Minnelli talks to the LA Times about Ellen, that blue streak, and her new show.
Why Ruth Bader Ginsburg must NEVER EVER retire from the Supreme Court in Slate.
Of Hippos and Kings: Archeologist and anthropologist Eric H Cline has a new book called 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, and it sounds remarkably like today.. Read the review in the New Yorker.
PREVIOUSLY
Air & Space magazine magazine has a fascinating article about a 727 airline that vanished from Angola in 2003.
Daily Mail claims that the pilot of missing Flight MH370 was a political fanatic. This comes as police are investigating the possibility that he hijacked his own aircraft in a bizarre political protest.
OK, so we all think Flight 727 was hijacked, but just in case that gets disproven, New York magazine has other theories ranging from mechanical failure to alien abduction.
Kitty Genovese, whose 1964 rape and murder was witnessed by 37 bystanders who DID NOTHING, became a symbol about the unravelling of society, racial fears, and the lack of care exhibited by city dwellers for their neighbors. Now Off the Grid reports that Kitty was a lesbian. Did that have something to do with her neighbors’ responses (or lack thereof)?
The New York Times writes about the growing transgender presence in pop culture, talking to icons-in-the-making Laverne Cox, Janet Mock and wowlebrity Zachary Drucker.
Has the tv-star-to-movie-star career trajectory become outmoded? Vulture thinks so.
Why Mel Gibson deserves a second chance: Deadline pleads his case.
Salon has an expose on how to behave at an orgy.
10 famous geniuses and their drugs of choice, also at Salon.
One man’s mission to name an island after Busta Rhymes in Slate.
LAST WEEK’S LONGER READS:
What the hell happend to Jay McInerney? Slate examines the ’80s literary superstar’s unrealized potential.
Finally, someone details the difference between Death Metal and Black Metal.
The Independent examines the culture of rape in men’s prisons.
Semen allergies, broken penises, and spontaneous orgasms: Salon has six weird consequences of sex they don’t teach you in sex ed.
The New York Times Style section has a breathless investigation into the return of the monocle as the fashion accessory du jour for hipsters.
Slate has a bit of fun with Beyond the Monocle: Five Ideas for Future New York Times Hipster Trend Pieces including ruffs, powdered wigs, and plague doctor masks. Which, of course, I was wearing before they were cool.
The Guardian has grim news for authors: Not even award-winning best-selling authors are making money in publishing anymore.
Nightclubbing 101: An oral history of New York’s Pyramid Club as told by the trailblazing drag queens and performance artists who performed there.
Is belly dancing racist? Salon decrees it so.
The New Yorker has a humorous piece about 59-year-olds who look down their noses on 56-year-olds. Insolent pups!
PREVIOUS LONGER READS:
Sunday, March 2, 2014:
The inimitable Cindy Adams predicts tonight’s Oscars, as only Cindy can.
Who thanks who at the Oscars (No surprise: Meryl gets thanked more than God)
The Guardian has a piece imploring Academy voters not to give the Oscar to the documentary The Act of Killing (in which Indonesia’s political mass-murderers restage their slaughters).
The brilliant Douglas Rushkoff writes in Politico: “How Technology Killed the Future”
Slate has the 19 most common questions a trans person is asked.
The Atlantic has a fascinating interview with trans activist and memoirist Janet Mock.
New York magazine asserts the latest sartorial rage among hipsters is Normcore: the dad-brand non-style you might have once associated with Jerry Seinfeld.
Riveting stuff: Furniture shopping habits of the rich and famous at Salon.
Gawker profiles the adorable 101-year-old man who’s running for Congress, and really ought to win.
Fascinating article in The Economist about the controversial heroin treatment used in Switzerland and the Netherlands which sets up safe sites where users can inject while monitored by health-care staff and – in some cases – provides heroin itself free.
An investigation at Slate into the impenetrable time signature of The Terminator‘s musical score. Honestly, I wouldn’t mention it if I didn’t think it was REALLY INTERESTING.
W has a piece on venerable downtown fashion designer Andre Walker’s comeback. I still kick myself EVERY DAY for not buying some of those cookie-cutter outfits back in 1985 when I had the chance. STUPID JAMES!
The New Yorker translates what Ted Nugent was really trying to say when he called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel.”
Slate covers an exhibit at the National Museum of Australia showcasing convict love tokens – coins that had been smoothed over and then engraved with messages that prisoners gave to their sweethearts before leaving for penal colonies in Australia in the 18th and 19th century.
And finally, the Daily Beast has an update on Michael Alig and his post-prison plans.
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