Where I Go: The ‘Meandering, Beautiful, Dangerous’ Angeles Crest Highway

This Pacific Crest Trail Gateway Is Southern California’s Most Accessible Scenic Byway—When It’s Open, That Is

The Angeles Crest Highway winds thousands of feet above the Los Angeles basin, a meandering, beautiful, and dangerous road that leads to the hiking trails of the Angeles National Forest and historic treasures like the Mount Wilson Observatory and Newcomb’s Ranch (the rustic 1939 roadhouse built on the road’s only privately own land). With its western terminus not far from the La Cañada-Flintridge Target, that puts it just 20 minutes from the heart of downtown L.A., making it, arguably, the most accessible scenic byway in Southern California.

When it’s open, that …

by Laura Randall | October 6, 2021

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The Mural So Controversial Nixon Tried to Remove It

75 Years Later, ‘War and Peace’ Survives, But Its Ideals Have Not

by Gray Brechin | October 4, 2021

As multiple crises pile atop one another in the young 21st century, a tripartite mural at a former San Francisco post office lobby rebukes us with its dated optimism.

“War and …

The Red Brick Bungalow Where Hardcore Made a Home

In a D.C. Suburb, the Dischord House Became the Unlikely Epicenter for Reagan-Era Punk

By Shayna Maskell | September 30, 2021

Walking through the leafy Arlington, Virginia, neighborhood of Lyon Park, you might not even notice the bungalow-style house with its fading red paint and overgrown lawn, a relic from the …

Hello (Bonjour) From Your Friendly TV Translator

I Hope You Enjoy My Subtitles and Dubs—Then Forget I Exist

by David Buchanan | September 29, 2021

If you don’t notice my work, it means I’m doing my job properly.

I’m an audiovisual translator, which means that I—and others like me—help you understand the languages spoken on screen: …

Angelic Choir of the First Baptist Church of Nutley

The 1960s Gospel Hit That Defined a Genre and an Era

Recorded in the Wake of the Birmingham Bombing, the Faith-Fueled Power of ‘Peace Be Still’ Endures Today

by Robert M. Marovich | September 27, 2021

“Peace Be Still,” a six-minute-long hymn, swept gospel radio in 1963.

Recorded just four days after the devastating bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, it became an …

The Oculus Generation Is a Metaphor for Our Moment

How Can We Share a Planet if We Don’t Live in the Same Universe?

by Oliver Mayer | September 23, 2021

Three years ago, my wife and I moved from a spacious apartment. What we couldn’t fit into our new digs, we gave away. A colleague’s son, planning his own future …

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