The Electric Typewriter
Great articles and essays by the world's best journalists and writers.by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Now and then one of them would rub my arm and smile warmly at me, gestures that I took to mean, “Words aren’t necessary to express the mutual understanding of familial connection that we now possess,” but that when I think about it now, would have been identical to those signaling, “You, simpleton.”
by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Before the weirdness claimed his legacy, Michael Jackson understood his talent — and what he was willing to do for it — better than we ever have.
by John Jeremiah Sullivan
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The greatest threat to civilization in the next half century is not nuclear arms or global warming or a super-resistant virus that will wipe us out by the millions. John Jeremiah Sullivan contemplates the coming battle between man and beast.
by John Jeremiah Sullivan
When John Jeremiah Sullivan and his wife leveraged everything they had to buy a big brick neo-Colonial in Wilmington, North Carolina (the Hollywood of the South!), their realtor made an irresistible proposal: By allowing a popular teen TV show to film at the house a few days a month, they could pretty much get the mortgage covered. What came next was a journey into a pop-cultural hall of mirrors.
by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Even the name is legend. Bunny Wailer. He grew up in the same house as Bob Marley, and together with Peter Tosh, they created not just The Wailers but a new template for sound.
by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Rock music used to be a safe haven for degenerates and rebels. Until it found Jesus.
by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Where do you go after you leave the cast of The Real World? To a universe where your only job is to be young and famous and keep the party jumpin’. Or to a tiny hell of endless exploitation.
by John Jeremiah Sullivan
On the morning of April 21, 1995, my elder brother, Worth (short for Elsworth), put his mouth to a microphone in a garage in Lexington, Kentucky, and was - in the strict sense of having been “shocked to death” - electrocuted.
by John Jeremiah Sullivan
“Do you Disney?” One goes to Disneyland and has a great time there, probably — I’ve never been — but one Disneys at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. There’s an implication of surrender to something enormous.
