Things men want to hear in bed

No one in their right mind wants to be profiled by a good writer. It’s like playing Russian roulette with your character. Just as a mirror, photo, or honest sketch inevitably shows us things about ourselves that we don’t like, how much more telling is a portrait in words, the subtlest of tools, aiming not only at surface but at essence? And no matter how skilled and well-intentioned, the writer will fail. Getting the subject wrong is guaranteed, because the essence of anyone is evanescent, a mystery even to himself. The egotistical will be disappointed, the modest appalled. When I was a newspaper reporter, and much younger, I wrote plenty of bad ones. It is a standard assignment: profile the prominent figure passing through town. The challenge is usually perceived as an effort to wrangle access, an audience or an interview, and the forgettable story that typically follows consists of a faithful account of that brief encounter. This is still what passes for a profile in most … [Read more...] about American Icons

L egend says the diver drowned retrieving the pearl. Trapped in a giant Tridacna clam, his body was brought to the surface by his fellow tribesmen in Palawan, a province of the Philippines, in May 1934. When the clam was pried open, and the meat scraped out, the local chief beheld something marvelous: a massive pearl, its sheen like satin. In its surface, the chief discerned the face of the Prophet Muhammad. He named it the Pearl of Allah. At 14 pounds, one ounce, it was the largest pearl ever discovered. To hear more feature stories, see our full list or get the Audm iPhone app. A Filipino American, Wilburn Dowell Cobb, was visiting the island at the time and offered to buy the jewel. In a 1939 article that appeared in Natural History magazine, he recounted the chief’s refusal to sell: “A pearl with the image of Mohammed, the Prophet of Allah, is earned by devotion, by sacrifice, not bought with money.” But when the chief’s son fell ill with malaria, Cobb used … [Read more...] about Chasing the Pearl of Lao Tzu

Amidst all the turmoil, there was some good news this week: Robert Kelly got sentenced to 30 years for racketeering and sex trafficking . It was long overdue, to my mind. R. Kelly's preference for underage girls was the biggest open secret I knew growing up in Chicago. For far too long, he was defended by apologists of one form or another. I remember hearing DJs saying things like "Well, Kells likes 'em young" back in the 90s over Chicago airwaves. The docuseries "Surviving R. Kelly " explored how far parents and relatives were willing to go to make what he was doing to girls okay. And of course, we've all seen the Chappelle Show sketch and the Boondocks episode , cultural touchstones that made comedy out of the allegations and all but erased the victims. I remember thinking no one would post R. Kelly's $100,000 dollar bail back in 2019. They did. But R. Kelly didn't just have defenders. He had clones. They were hiding in plain sight in the hood. And their victims will not … [Read more...] about What about all the other R. Kellys? I knew many growing up | Opinion