Category Longform
In the Halls of the Ancients: The Imagined Washington, DC, of Franklin Webster Smith
At the turn of the twentieth century, he had a bold dream of making Washington a museum of world history. Egyptian temples, Assyrian palaces, and the Taj Mahal would complete a landscape out of Rome and Greece. His scheme attracted educators and socialites, senators and major newspapers. Then it all came crashing down.
The Time the US Senate Debated Crabcakes
Senator Beall hurried back from the Senate dining room to the floor where the Democrats were filibustering. Beall, a Republican, tugged at Senator Hill’s sleeve. “Mr. President,” he thundered, “I rise to defend the fair name of the great Free State of Maryland against an insult.” The insult wasn’t the filibuster. The insult was lunch.
Back When We Ate Roses
In Victorian America, flower-scented butters were all the rage with morning mocha and afternoon tea.
Knotts Island: North Carolina’s Forgotten Child
The story of a place stuck in North Carolina, accessible by land only from Virginia, the child of an imaginary line drawn 400 years ago and the community that grew up there.
When Adams Morgan Had a Five-and-Dime
Adams Morgan, a diverse neighborhood of bars and row houses in Northwest Washington, D.C., has always had a complicated history with alcohol, entertainment, and development. When a moratorium on new liquor licenses was due to sunset in 2013, the neighborhood was forced to reflect on its past and figure out its future.
Telling Time in Paradise
Time may be linear or time may be cyclical, but, for many in Nova Scotia, time is divided into six-month increments.
Slouching Towards Beverly
“L.A. is good for façades.” The view from a reality star’s restaurant in Beverly Hills.
The Taco Time at the End of the Earth
To Brigham Young, Utah was “the place.” But why? A surreal journey to an island in the Great Salt Lake and across the salt flats of western Utah to a casino town in the middle of nowhere brings answers but raises new questions.
Eating Green Curry in the Delaware of Europe
“So far as I can tell, there are only two reasons you visit the pint-sized principality, one condescending but honest (the novelty), the other more surreptitious (tax evasion).” A whirlwind trip through Liechtenstein — a tiny Alpine kingdom with an outsized influence — in words and photos,
A Tale of Two Portlands
Flannel shirts and hipster chic unite them both, but there’s a continent between them. TL;DR: Maine > Oregon.
New Mexico: Revisiting the Land of Enchantment
Traveling again through an unforgettably beautiful land of clouds, mesas, chiles, and quiet.
Why I Hate Boats (It’s All Nova Scotia’s Fault)
The lasting effects of a particularly rough ride in a high-speed catamaran across the Gulf of Maine.
You Can’t Go Home Again – And Sometimes That’s a Good Thing
The changing face of a Southern city rediscovering itself.
Duck Pie 