Dispatches

The REAL LEAD Saloon

Peter Koch

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October 10, 2025

“My first stop would be Eddie’s Club and without fail I would find Dave sitting exactly where I saw him last, perched at the west-end of the bar beside the telephone where he watched it all play out...” —Peter Koch

Conflict of Interests

Henry Staley

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October 9, 2025

"To think Napoleon Hill or Robert Kiyosaki has anything to teach these people about courage or mental fortitude diminishes the integrity of their struggle." —Henry Staley

Chemical Peel

Henry Staley

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July 9, 2025

“Even Angelenos' preferred defense mechanism, selective amnesia, can be seen as a precondition for regeneration." —Henry Staley

To Georgia and Back

David Stromberg

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March 4, 2025

"The trip to Georgia showed me that some of us survive wars—not just physically but also spiritually—by preserving culture."—David Stromberg

A Love Letter to a Roundabout

Kitya Mark

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February 22, 2025

"A football hits Mary Wollstonecraft firmly on her side. Inscribed below: 'I do not wish women to have power over men but over themselves.'"—Kitya Mark

Dear J

Christopher Fudurich

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February 7, 2025

"Motion sensor east hall. Glass break guest room. Patio door open, west hallway motion sensor, panel overheat. Then silence."—Christopher Fudurich

Wilded

Victoria Nelson

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December 2, 2024

“As climate change and conservation alter animal habitat, critters once slaughtered are finding their way back into human habitat."—Victoria Nelson

Scenes from the Revolution at Stanford

Andrew Moss

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November 22, 2024

“At Stanford, everybody went Maoist in the fall of ‘68... My first day I found the SDS recruiting table at registration and signed up." —Andrew Moss

Golden State

Rose McMackin

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October 29, 2024

“I’ve never stopped thinking of those depictions as a map back home to a moment when the future seemed uncomplicatedly good." —Rose McMackin

Orson Welles Meets a Deadline

Steve Wasserman

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September 7, 2024

"I got on the horn and heard, in his inimitable voice, 'Mr. Wasserman, this is Orson Welles.'"—Steve Wasserman

Dispatches at the DNC

Sky O’Brien

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Marius Sosnowski

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August 29, 2024

Marius Sosnowski & Sky O'Brien's coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Mezcal, Mushrooms, & Cowboy Hats

Jeff Hewitt

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August 14, 2024

"André 3000 has long understood the importance of presentation, of style, of toying with signifiers and recycling them for his own ends."—Jeff Hewitt

Cowboy Take Me Away

Jacqui Devanay

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July 9, 2024

"Warhol's works have an uncanny ability to project the viewer, and their preconceptions about the West, back at themselves."—Jacqui Devanay

Mornings in Mazatlán

Marius Sosnowski

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April 16, 2024

"Bodies in furious motion here awaiting four minutes in which we yearn to be overcome, rapt in attention, heads upturned for the infinite"—Marius Sosnowski

The Enemy Within

David Stromberg

,

January 19, 2024

"Bibi, who is a master of manipulation, will hang everyone out to dry before taking responsibility for what has happened to our people."—David Stromberg

My Dad Is Not Jimmy Buffett

Jeff Hewitt

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December 21, 2023

"Losing a way of life will always be painful. Once lost, the people and places that defined it are gone. All we can do is remember them."—Jeff Hewitt

In Plain Sight

Marius Sosnowski

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October 14, 2023

"Through the use of color and shape and his eye for light, Biberman endowed the built environment with a sense of mystery"—Marius Sosnowski

A London Adolescence

Andrew Moss

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September 1, 2023

"I was at the rally for the first Aldermaston March in 1958—the first march against nuclear weapons in England..."—Andrew Moss

Lamentations

David Stromberg

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August 25, 2023

"She seemed to be suggesting that by having to fight for something that feels so basic, we had somehow lost it already."—David Stromberg

My Old Men

Philippe Aronson

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July 13, 2023

—Philippe Aronson. "It dawned on me that I now had a perfect excuse to contact some of the writers from that time I was interested in—the alte kackers!"

Between Madness and Reason

G.V. Rindborg

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October 22, 2022

“I was no longer sure I could trust my senses or my memory. The country seemed corrupted by a latent sadomasochistic impulse." —G.V. Rindborg

The Art of War

Sky O’Brien

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May 10, 2022

"If Monet hadn’t been so ambitious—Clear Morning with Willows is 42 feet long—I might have found God." —by Sky O'Brien

Art & Soul

Vero Jacome

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May 2, 2022

"Art escapes concreteness, it eludes definition and so its essence and worth are intractably subjective, its value uncompromisingly opaque."

White Sheets

G.V. Rindborg

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March 11, 2022

"In Mensagem, Pessoa acutely captures this longing... 'The sea with an end can be Greek or Roman: the endless sea is Portuguese.'"

Drowned Cathedrals

Cole Hersey

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October 8, 2021

“These landscapes seem destined to return to what they were before central California was transformed into, what conservationists might call, drowned cathedrals.” —Cole Hersey.

Redentore

Julian Harake

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September 1, 2021

“Hours later, lying in bed half-drunk, I...thought: ‘the intimacy of architecture has been surmounted by sociability.'" —Julian Harake

Invisible Greeks

Henry Staley

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August 11, 2021

“'The flat has an incredible view over Athens with absolutely no neighbours in sight.'” Athens has a short-term rental problem.

Something In the Air

Jesse Tisch

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July 21, 2021

What will resume, when life resumes? Will the new normal resemble the old normal? Who, if anyone, decides?

Vax Populi

Greg Roque

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July 19, 2021

A case of the Dodger Stadium blues: a history of medical malpractice and Chavez Ravine, a couple ties that bind.

Lost, Damned, & Confused

Sky O’Brien

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July 18, 2021

A dispatch from the South West forests outside of Perth, in Western Australia.

Locust Class

Chris Grunder

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June 21, 2021

A generation of migratory, extractive, and remorseless urban professionals. What do they mean for the future of cities?

We're Not Done Yet

Sky O’Brien

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May 12, 2021

“A nonconformist to the end, the New York Times reported that Ferlinghetti died of lung disease, not the virus. He was 101 years old. The lawyers had taken their time." —Sky O'Brien

Nov Shmoz Ka Pop

Philippe Aronson

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January 12, 2021

On the Road in the Time of Covid

Marius Sosnowski

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December 12, 2020

"Pilgrims, all of us, now and then would continue to traverse this land unsatisfied, in a frenzied chase of something that flickers indistinct and unfixed"—Marius Sosnowski

Vigil in Perth

Sky O’Brien

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November 10, 2020

Thoughts & Prayers

Greg Roque

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November 10, 2020

Intersections

Devyani Joshi

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October 20, 2020