Last week on Instagram, Sharath Jois, a grandson of Pattabhi Jois, the hugely influential founder of Ashtanga yoga, which has millions of followers worldwide, finally responded to several years’ worth of claims of sexual misconduct against his grandfather, who died in 2009, at the age of ninety-three. Since 2010, more than a dozen former students […]
Listen with: iTunes WNYC Stitcher TuneIn Since 1969, when an estimated six hundred million people around the world watched two astronauts walk on the surface of the moon, a significant number of people have doubted that the event ever took place. A major line of conspiracy theory insists that the footage was faked (and directed […]
When Alex Honnold, the celebrated climber and the star of the documentary “Free Solo,” took to the wall at my local rock-climbing gym, Brooklyn Boulders Somerville, in Massachusetts, I was in a room nearby with a dozen or so others, attending a workshop called “Time, Money & Joy.” When the workshop ended, the room filled […]
Voting for the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has closed, and the ballots of the only people enfranchised in the process—a hundred and sixty thousand or so Conservative Party members—are being tallied. (The voters are technically selecting a party leader, but, according to the U.K.’s parliamentary system, that person will become Prime Minister, […]
In recent months, the members of the U.S. women’s soccer team have captured the country’s imagination with their performance at this year’s World Cup and their resolute stance on pay equality. The players’ exhilarating feats, and the accomplishments of other female stars, have sparked a national debate about gender and parity in athletics. This week, […]
The success of Extinction Rebellion, a British campaign of civil disobedience aimed at addressing the climate crisis, has been something to behold. In April, the group, which was formally launched only last October, blocked Waterloo Bridge, which spans the Thames, for more than a week. Across London, activists glued themselves to buildings, climbed on trains, […]
Fifty years ago this summer, I spent a long, sometimes lonely six weeks in Belfast, meeting my Irish family. It marked the first real summer of the Troubles; it was also the summer that the United States, having been urged on by a President of Irish descent, put a man on the moon. While in […]
Who is “her,” in the context of a Donald Trump rally? About twenty minutes into a campaign appearance on Wednesday night, in Greenville, North Carolina, Trump told the crowd of eight thousand people that “the leading voices of the Democratic Party are left-wing extremists” who “see our nation as a force of evil.” He tossed […]
On July 4, 1982, a car with diplomatic plates carrying senior Iranian envoys was stopped outside of Beirut by members of a right-wing Christian militia. Among the four passengers was Ahmad Motevaselian, the military attaché at Iran’s Embassy in Lebanon and a well-known hero of Iran’s war with Iraq. He had also overseen the deployment […]
Documentary portraiture often veers toward celebrity journalism, as a celebration and a tribute. It’s not surprising—a filmmaker’s choice of subject also involves the subject’s willing participation. Yet at its best that transactional element is built into the film, when the mutual affinity results in a participant’s frankness and a filmmaker’s insights and, furthermore, becomes one […]