It was the podcast that reopened a cold case and kicked off the true crime boom its reporter and star talks the price of fame getting spoofed on SNL and the complicated legacy of her series Sat 24 Aug 2024 12.55 CESTLast modified on Wed 2 Apr 2025 18.37 CESTShareWhen Sarah Koenig made her first podcast with fellow producer Julie Snyder Both were staffers at the long-running US radio show This American Life and had spent a year working on a project about the death of a Baltimore high-school student We were trying to make a radio show but then Julie suggested making it as a podcast The idea was that the pressure would be off Newsflash: it didn’t flop. Serial becoming the medium’s first blockbuster hit and the first to win a Peabody award Koenig was blissfully unaware that their experiment had gone viral which is insane but that was the energy we wanted” And so she had her head down “just making the next episode and then the next episode Serial’s runaway success was “just so strange I like to perform and I get a high from that Dock star … Sarah Koenig with her microphone at the court in Baltimore as the judge overturns Adnan Syed's conviction Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/ReutersWhen I speak to Koenig she is on holiday visiting her mother in Long Island In a slouchy shirt and wearing her trademark horn-rimmed specs quizzical tones is quite the Proustian rush Koenig and her family – she is married with two adult children – live in Baltimore though her office is in NYC’s New York Times Building the New York Times bought Serial Productions for a reported $25m since when Koenig has overseen the production of multiple podcasts some of them her own (Serials 1-4) and some the work of fellow reporters (Nice White Parents then rapidly deflate as scores of podcasts failed to recoup their investment and creators were laid off the US detention centre for suspected terrorists she noticed “good friends and family – like What are you working on now?’ They haven’t clocked it We can speculate about the topic and the quality of it but I think it’s also just the [pod] universe is completely different We are in a sea of podcasts.” While attending audio conferences and events she has also observed “a lot of worry and long faces and people who have just lost their jobs … And it’s not just the crappy shows that are falling under It’s really popular and high-quality ones losing funding There’s been another change since the first Serial. In 2022, Adnan Syed, the subject of that series, had his conviction overturned and was released after 23 years of incarceration While that decision was based on new evidence it was Serial that raised the profile of the case and cast doubt on the original conviction running through the chain of events that led to his release and describing the atmosphere in the courtroom because I didn’t know it was going to happen and I’d stopped reporting on [the case] long ago And I didn’t consider it my mission to stick with it until the bitter end and were taking photographs of me while I was trying to do my job And the courtroom was a three-minute bike ride from my house so I felt like it was all in my back yard.” Is she in touch with Syed but if one of us wanted to speak to the other then we could.” Audio has always felt to me like a place where you get to explain the nuance of whatever story you’re tellingKoenig’s instinct for a story is a result of a long career as a print reporter Her first job in journalism was as a copy clerk at the Chicago Tribune in the early 1990s: “It’s the only job I ever just walked out of like: ‘I guess she’s gone.’” After that came a detour into acting as part of a comedy improv troupe in New York “several of whom are very successful in theatre now and other work was just for paying the bills.” But then she got a summer job working at a local newspaper and ended up staying for a year and a half New Hampshire’s Concord Monitor newspaper and the Baltimore Sun Getting a job on This American Life in the mid-2000s was a breath of fresh air as it meant she could finally take her time with stories “Audio has always felt to me like a place where you get to explain the nuance of whatever story you’re telling … Our mission was not a news mission it was narrative storytelling.” That ethos has been carried through into Serial Productions where “it is very much about what interests the people in the room” they were told to keep doing what they were doing – “which means that we are choosing our stories I don’t know that we would have joined any other company under different circumstances We wouldn’t have sold ourselves in that way.” Free weekly newsletterThe only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns Read moreWhat Koenig emphatically does not feel responsible for was the explosion of crime podcasts that Serial inspired many of them dragging the genre into the mud with shoddy and salacious reporting: “I mean But I feel like we held ourselves to a high standard That there are people out in the world who will make shitty things and exploit people and be sloppy and she has thought a lot about what might have happened had she been younger But I felt as if I had perspective the whole time It’s gonna go away.’” And it really has gone away as if to say ‘I’m still here’ – “But mostly I don’t care 10 Years of Serial: An Evening With Sarah Koenig part of the International Women’s Podcast festival ShareSaveCommentBusinessSportsMoneyThe Brewers’ Bad Luck Continues As Jared Koenig Lands On The ILByAndrew Wagner Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights WISCONSIN - JUNE 24: Jared Koenig #47 of the Milwaukee Brewers throws a pitch during a .. More game against the Texas Rangers at American Family Field on June 24 In what's become an all-too-familiar pattern this season the Milwaukee Brewers will once again be without one of their most reliable and productive pitchers for at least the immediate future Left-handed reliever Jared Koenig was placed on the 15-day injured list Saturday morning with tightness in his left forearm Koenig needed one pitch to get out of the jam then came back in the eighth and struck out the side before handing the ball to closer Trevor Megill for the ninth Murphy noted that Koenig's performance was even more impressive because the 30-year-old "wasn't feeling his best," without elaborating a slight yet noticeable drop in Koenig's fastball velocity "You could tell in warmups he didn’t seem quite right but then he’d pop a 95 (MPH),” Murphy said Koenig said the issue had been nagging him for a bit but more so during his warmup routines than in actual game action and that for now the injury isn't considered to be serious — though there won't be a definitive answer until after he undergoes an MRI examination on Monday "It was on the getting-better side then it just kind of flared up again (after pitching Friday; it started tightening up," said Koenig Try to be (available) for later in the season than fighting through it now." Koenig has been one of the most effective options in Milwaukee's bullpen this season 1.66 ERA and 1.00 WHIP in 29 appearances to go along with 36 strikeouts over 38 innings is Koenig’s work when coming into games with runners on base He’s inherited 22 runners this season but only four of those have gone on to score Koenig has also been one the Brewers' most versatile options Murphy has sent Koenig out as an opener when opposing teams stack the top of their lineups with left-handers and he's delivered every time allowing just three hits and a walk with six strikeouts in those outings he’s been the unsung (member) of the pitching staff," Murphy said "Just the inherited runners alone is enough to make you go ‘whoa.’ It pains me." Koenig becomes the 11th different Brewers pitcher to land on the injured list this season "We’ve had so many injuries," Murphy said "This one hurts as bad as any of them Milwaukee selected the contract of left-hander Rob Zastryzny from Triple-A Nashville where he went 4-0 with a 3.18 ERA and two saves in 28 appearances this season Zastryzny will become the 32nd different pitcher and 50th different player to appear in a game for the Brewers this season when he takes the mound for the first time there doesn’t seem to be a lot of daylight between Rick Stream and Andrew Koenig: The two Republican contenders for the 15th District Senate seat won House seats through intense door-knocking campaigns They’ve both served four terms in the Missouri House And they can point to big accomplishments during their legislative careers But the two men who are trying to succeed state Sen feel they bring different leadership styles and priorities to the table Koenig contends he’s the more conservative candidate in this district that includes parts of central and southern St Stream says his experience handling the state’s budget and high-profile educational issues makes him the right choice Two Democrats are also running for the seat in the GOP-leaning district They hope to chip away at the Republicans’ daunting super-majority in the Missouri Senate a prospect that could require a big infusion of cash and a little bit of luck Stream is a Navy veteran who was a budget and project manager for the Department of Defense Before he defeated a Democratic incumbent House member in 2006 Stream was a member of the Kirkwood School Board “It was very tough,” said Stream in 2013 about his first House race That’s how you win state representative races Stream eventually climbed the ranks to chair the budget committee He said that was where he learned how to work with people of differing ideologies and priorities Stream also handled big-ticket legislation including a bill that altered the state’s school transfer law When term limits meant he could not run for re-election in 2014 but did much better than other GOP contenders in the heavily Democratic county he received endorsements from a number of African-American elected leaders who typically endorse Democratic candidates “I have a long history in the African-American community and in the legislature and I think that was what drove a lot of the support in the African-American community for me,” Stream said Koenig had a more direct pathway to the Missouri House After running track for and graduating from Lindenwood University Koenig ran for a state House seat in 2008 in western St Koenig defeated (now state Rep.) Shamed Dogan and Chris Howard He attributed his victory to knocking on a lot of doors and working hard “When you have that personal touch and you talk to somebody one-on-one there’s a good chance they’re going to support you,” Koenig said Koenig has handled several major pieces of legislation he was the House sponsor of the first income tax cut in decades he sponsored legislation aimed at making it harder for cities to use tax-increment financing was part of a broader focus of clamping down on what he calls “corporate welfare.” “I think conservatives and some liberals can agree on this issue that corporate welfare is bad,” Koenig said “Now where we disagree is I believe that we should have low taxes I want to cut the corporate welfare so we can cut taxes ‘We want to cut the corporate welfare so we can have more government spending.’” Koenig and Stream have somewhat similar positions on issues They’re both casting themselves as socially and economically conservative Right to work would bar unions and employers from requiring employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment Koenig (who’s received financial support from right to work proponents like TAMKO President David Humphreys) strongly supports such a law While Stream purposely didn’t vote on the measure when he was in the House he said he would vote for it if it comes up in the Senate Koenig contends Stream is less conservative than he he points to Stream's vote to place a sales tax hike for transportation on the ballot And what you’ll find is he voted for one of the largest tax increases in the history of the state,” Koenig said “You’ll also find that he’s voted for a lot of the corporate welfare And those are the two things that I’m definitely against.” When asked, during his 2014 race for county executive, about voting for the transportation tax Stream said it was important for Missourians to vote on a mechanism to fund transportation infrastructure improvements He added: “I don’t have a problem letting the people decide if they want to raise their own taxes.” Stream said that he is “consistent” when it comes to the issues “And I explain to people who I am and how I’ve governed how I voted and what I want to do,” Stream said And I think those issues are issues that will resonate with most people no matter whether it’s a Republican district or a middle-of-the-road district.” Democrats Mark Boyko and Steve Eagleton are engaged in a much quieter Democratic primary Boyko is an attorney representing people suing under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act,  ERISA He received his law degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a master's in law from New York University supports abortion rights and strongly backed expanding Medicaid under the auspices of the Affordable Care Act And he says he was encouraged to run for office from state Rep a Kirkwood Democrat who won Stream’s House seat after several unsuccessful tries "This is not the first time that someone's going to spend a million dollars trying to prevent me from doing what I think is right," Boyko said "And hopefully it's not the last time in my life that that happens either." Eagleton is an attorney who ran unsuccessfully for the 15th District seat in 2008 losing narrowly to fellow Democrat James Trout He’s positioning himself as a more moderate-to-conservative Democrat: For instance a position that’s basically unheard of among Missouri Democrats He also said he’s opposed to restricting firearms “I’m a very moderate Democrat,” Eagleton said Neither Democratic candidate has raised as much money as their Republican counterparts Eagleton hadn’t even filed a fundraising committee This week, Adnan Syed was released from prison, nearly eight years after the debut of Serial, the This American Life-spawned podcast about his conviction for the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee. On Slate’s podcast about internet culture, ICYMI, Rachelle Hampton, Daisy Rosario, and Rebecca Lavoie—host of Crime Writers On…—discussed Syed’s release and the legacy of Serial Though the groundbreaking podcast drew attention to Syed’s case it also cast doubt on his innocence using disproven evidence and for years never posted a correction or update What role did Serial play in this remarkable development This transcript has been edited for length and clarity Daisy Rosario: I want to acknowledge Rabia Chaudry, whom Rebecca has worked with and become friends with, she’s one of the hosts of Undisclosed.* But more than that anybody who listened to Serial knows who Rabia is because Rabia is the person who brought Sarah Koenig the story And one of the things that I’ve been seeing online a lot are people—and this has been going on for years—people telling Rabia that she should feel so grateful Rebecca Lavoie: Imagine a situation where you know And you have a bunch of evidence that he didn’t do it and you bring it to a reporter and that reporter rightly says I’m going to reinvestigate it and try to do my own thing.” And that reporter does that “Finally something is going to happen.” But eight years later But Sarah said that the pings put Adnan Syed at the burial site But Sarah said that Adnan went to Kathy Not Kathy’s house that day.” Rosario: This is something that Rabia tweeted on Sept. 16: “People keep telling me we wouldn’t be here without Serial but here’s the best analogy I can come up with about it Imagine you ask someone to help renovate your house The story about the fire brings thousands to your aid that rebuild the house to some extent deliberately and has never apologized or made amends But I am grateful to the thousands that responded to the fire to help rebuild this house.” I have a haircut tonight and if in two chairs down from me some lady asked the woman cutting her hair says What should I listen to?” The person in the chair next to them will say Rachelle Hampton: One of the things I remember most from the immediate aftermath of Serial is the way it became fodder for party chatter Do you think Jay did it?” We are almost discussing it the way we talked about Game of Thrones There’s something specific about the way that Serial presented the case that made that kind of discussion feel okay Lavoie: I think it’s because these are all high school kids The story was framed around high school gossip A lot of high school gossip was used as potential evidence in the storytelling about whether or not Adnan was lying lit something on fire in us that brought to life our innate high school gossip There are many of This American Life episodes that I love But you think about using those same techniques here and it really did in retrospect cause some harm I think we can also agree that an investigation especially when we’re taking their police at their word Lavoie: Because it’s going to send you places that are probably not the right places to go It was a cool experiment if you think about it but it also put a tremendous amount of pressure on the team to come up with some sort of conclusion I think the Dana Chivvis monologue about luck is incredibly harmful I cannot believe that was left in the podcast I actually couldn’t believe it at the time He either did it or he had the unluckiest day ever.” So yeah that’s another example of something that just doesn’t fit And the idea of not taking police at their word: There have always been people that have been pushing for that Especially families of victims in poorer communities where they’re not necessarily getting the respect and the treatment that they deserve as citizens Lavoie: I was talking to somebody about this the other day and they were like Lavoie: Baltimore was still Baltimore in 2014 and 2015 I still just can’t believe that in a piece of reporting done at any point after the year 1980 something that someone would characterize Baltimore detectives as basically good guys but think that it has a lot to do with the demographic makeups of the Serial team and of This American Life which was based in Chicago for the longest time Chicago and New York are some of the most diverse cities in the United States and having an almost entirely white team in those cities is It comes through in a lot of the reporting is made up of the kind of people that don’t have TVs and that aren’t really on Twitter I really do think there’s an intentional horse-blinders approach I don’t think it’s an intentional slight—literally they just are unaware that these issues are around the world That it would actually feel good for a lot of people to hear “We got that wrong.” And that’s something that would have been so easy for them to write 2022: This piece originally misspelled Rabia Chaudry’s last name Mother's Day Sale—shop gifts of faith & inspiration! A doctor with crippling arthritis helps his patients learn to live with pain but he shuffled into my office like a man twice his age He gripped the back of a chair and lowered himself into it “I don’t know what to do,” he said He had already been to see me several times I had taken a detailed psychological and medical history I had even asked about his faith—he was a deacon at his church Many patients tell me faith is an irreplaceable source of consolation Robert confessed to a very different kind of anguish “I’m going to tell it to you straight “I’ve been praying hard about this pain I don’t know why God would do this to me I had been an ambitious young doctor at Duke University My wife Charmin and I planned to have a baby I was strong in my faith too—I felt a powerful calling to bring the love of God to the sick applied for research grants and began a wide-ranging study of depression I felt like an energetic vessel for God’s healing work I noticed that my right knee and ankle were sore at the end of a hectic day at the hospital chalking it up to an old high school wrestling injury After a day writing notes and prescriptions Surely you will keep me healthy enough to do it I went to the garage to change the oil in our car and my right hand slipped and smacked against a bolt but discovered I could barely move my hand I slid out and sat up and looked at myself Clutching a stack of blank prescription orders too embarrassed to ask someone to fill them out for me I found I could tap the keys with my left hand I brought a typewriter from home and lugged it under my arm on my rounds “I’m afraid not,” I told her I had been diagnosed with psoriatic inflammatory arthritis My immune system was attacking my tendons and joints Any part of my body I used repetitively—legs Part of me was relieved to have a diagnosis—no more mystery pain But then I saw the fear in Charmin’s eyes I knew she was already mourning our walks together But it wasn’t just the pain keeping me awake Is it all going to get swallowed up in some disease I got up and limped to the sofa in the living room I lay on it and found the soft cushions eased the ache God didn’t snap his fingers and make the pain go away Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do learn to follow God with the pain—and then help others do the same The wheelchair I use to scoot through airports on my way to speaking engagements The voice-activated computer that takes down dictated papers I’m sure we can find a way for you to live with your pain adapt to it instead of letting it take over.” What if I’m stuck with this pain forever?” reaching out and resting my hand on Robert’s shoulder But let me tell you what I’ve discovered from years treating patients Sometimes God heals our bodies; sometimes he doesn’t He showed me how to live with pain and how to help others That’s drawn me closer to him than a healthy body ever could that God works through our weakness as well as our strength I realized I had learned that lesson only through my own illness Then I bowed my head and said a simple prayer of my own shares how her faith sees her through—in good times and bad musician and author Naomi Judd recalls how faith led her to a successful career and helped her cope with a hepatitis C diagnosis Get More Inspiration Delivered to Your Inbox I’ve loved Guideposts since I was a college girl in the 90s 📊 Florida State rises in new baseball Power 10 When the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team gathered for the start of its eight-week summer session in June there were three new players on the roster But that number may as well have been four because one of the veterans had undergone a makeover of sorts teammates noticed in practices and pickup games that he was constantly in attack mode Sophomore forward Ethan Happ noticed it when the two would go out to eat and Koenig was choosing to order healthier meals "This Bronson right here," senior forward Vitto Brown said over the summer as Koenig gets ready to start his final season with the Badgers there's every reason to believe he'll go out with a bang I don't really get tired anymore," Koenig said "I'm playing the best ball of my life and I'm going to keep that going There are multiple factors that led to Koenig 2.0 Badgers coach Greg Gard and others speculated a sense of urgency had emerged within Koenig because he knew his time at UW was running out — the sand slowly disappearing from the top of the hourglass "I feel like he's got it in his head like this is his last year was Koenig could feel his dream of playing in the NBA slipping away Koenig could have taken advantage of a new rule that gave underclassmen more time to make an informed decision if they chose to enter the draft pool without hiring an agent didn't even bother going through the process RELATED: Five things to watch in the Big Ten native did everything he could to go out and get ready for a season he hopes will propel to the NBA "I was in the gym every single day this summer," Koenig said "10 times more than all the other summers combined." but I never would have put money on it," Brown said Koenig is the first to admit he had help — plenty of it UW strength and conditioning coach Erik Helland has been universally praised by coaches and players since joining the program prior to the 2013-14 season but there are restrictions on the amount of time he can spend with the players Koenig didn't want to waste a single second of his offseason It was there he hooked up with Corey Calliet a personal trainer who helped actor Michael B Jordan prepare for his role in the movie "Creed." Not only did Calliet oversee a rigorous series of basketball-centric workouts every day he got Koenig started on a diet plan that Koenig continues to use to this day RELATED: Big Ten basketball preview who sustained a knee injury during a loss at Northwestern last season and said he "got fat and out of shape and relied too much on my shot," felt like a new player after only a short time under Calliet's watch "My hops are back for the first time since high school a 29-year-old basketball skills trainer who has worked with NBA players Kawhi Leonard and Tony Snell though Parks was aware of Koenig from his high school day and was at the Final Four in 2014 when the Badgers lost a heartbreaker to Kentucky in a national semifinal Parks' greatest strength might be his ability to motivate and he didn't sugarcoat anything with Koenig even though the two barely knew each other before they started working out together at the UCLA Men's Gym basketball courts RELATED: 2017 Bob Cousy Award watch list Before Koenig started his work with Calliet it was Parks who offered this brutally honest assessment: "I told him You're not going to get where you want to get by doing what you've done in the past.'" bringing up a junior season that fell below Koenig's individual expectations There was plenty of blame to go around when diagnosing UW's offensive struggles at times last season but Koenig's inconsistency was at least part of the issue: He shot a combined 29.7 percent from the field in the Badgers' 13 losses compared to 45.6 percent in the team's 22 wins "Too many games in single figures," Parks said — and there were 11 to be exact "That's because when you just rely on your jump shot Parks told Koenig he had to become tougher when it came to winning 50/50 balls He challenged Koenig to improve his defensive skills so he could hassle the opposing point guard he took Parks' unfiltered feedback in stride "Just the kind of guy I needed in my life years ago The bond between the two grew so tight over the summer that Koenig who is part Native American and part Caucasian invited Parks back to Wisconsin to attend a Ho-Chunk Pow-Wow in Black River Falls over Labor Day weekend Later in September, Parks accompanied Koenig and Koenig's older brother Miles on their 750-mile journey to Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota where thousands of Native Americans were protesting construction of an oil pipeline Both trips not only helped Parks get to know Koenig better it gave him a chance to see the impact Koenig is having on the Native American community Parks watched as a mother walked up to Koenig and thanked him "He looks at you and he says maybe I can do this "I've seen a big change in my son's grades after watching you in the NCAA tourney," the parent said "Seeing you hit that shot (against Xavier) he's been a different kid because he realizes if he wants to play ball Koenig's role as a key piece of UW's run to back-to-back Final Fours during his first two seasons on campus raised his profile to embrace being a role model to Native American kids That was a somewhat daunting task for Koenig at first but the North Dakota trip was another sign he's put his arms around being a leader to those who look up to him "I hope to show that it is possible for a Native American to accomplish whatever goal they have," he said 'It's 5 million people on your back supporting you All the negative stuff going on right now for Native Americans you're something positive that they can grab onto.' " who started recruiting Koenig when he was a freshman at La Crosse Aquinas High School has pointed out on more than one occasion during the preseason that Koenig has grown into a mature leader Even Koenig admits he's come a long way in that regard "I was an awkward teenager — socially awkward and I didn't know who I was," Koenig said though he's not afraid to push Koenig's buttons on occasion When Parks picked up a Lindy's College Basketball preview magazine over the summer and noticed Koenig wasn't included in a ranking of the top 25 point guards in the nation he took a picture of the list and attached it in a text message to Koenig Parks also teased Koenig that he'd probably return to his bad eating and sleeping habits once the summer ended and school began "but I would throw that at him to keep him off-balance." The progress Koenig made during his time in Los Angeles was evident from the moment he stepped back on the UW campus I've never been more proud of a kid," Parks said hit a game-winner to go to the Sweet 16.' It was none of that And that's what happens with seniors when they get to the end of the road He realized that he could have done some things different This article was written by Jim Polzin from The Wisconsin State Journal and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network Tennis commentator Robbie Koenig has questioned a decision made by Jannik Sinner’s coach Simone Vagnozzi that he feels has proven to be “costly.” The former ATP player pointed out that Vagnozzi urged Sinner to continue playing at the Madrid Open despite the Italian expressing he was in pain Sinner had been struggling with a hip injury during his campaign at the Madrid Open and ultimately withdrew from the event ahead of his quarter-final match with Felix Auger-Aliassime The world No 2 was then forced to pull out of the ongoing Italian Open with the same injury, and the 22-year-old has also cast doubt over his French Open participation Alongside fellow coach Darren Cahill Vagnozzi has played a key role in Sinner’s evolution as a player since joining his team in 2022 Sinner has won five titles and lost only four matches while he also inspired Italy to the Davis Cup crown He secured his maiden Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January a former world No 28 and five-time ATP titlist in doubles shared his thoughts on the management of Sinner’s injury man I love watching him compete,” wrote the South African “One thing I’ll never understand though is a player asking his team if he should continue… JS clearly in discomfort in Madrid Simone urging him to carry on after Jannik said “it hurts” (groin area) ….could prove to be a costly decision. Only the player knows how bad their injury feels. I had a bad feeling at the time that this could come back to bite, Jannik. To miss Rome and (perhaps) RG, would confirm it was the wrong decision to keep playing in Madrid, IMO. #GetWellSoon — Rob Koenig (@RobKoenigTennis) May 16, 2024 “Could prove to be a costly decision Only the player knows how bad their injury feels I had a bad feeling at the time that this could come back to bite “To miss Rome and (perhaps) RG (Roland Garros) would confirm it was the wrong decision to keep playing in Madrid Koenig added in another tweet: “I’m not confusing niggles with pain… you’re right most players play with discomfort somewhere You don’t see him saying “it hurts” every other week © Planet Sport Limited 2025 • All Rights Reserved Stephanie Koenig stars as “Gwen Sanders,” Evan’s best friend and fellow teacher at Morrison-Hensley High She’s especially supportive of her long-term boyfriend who recently lost his job and begun hand-digging a pool in their yard While everyone else sees this as a cry for help Principal Grant Moretti is Morrison-Hensley High’s level-headed leader Markie is the gym teacher and athletic director at Morrison-Hensley High Rick works as a Guidance Counselor at Morrison-Hensley High though it’s often unclear just how helpful he is Subscribe to BuzzFeed Daily NewsletterCaret DownThe Problem With "Serial" And The Model Minority MythIt needs a "bad" minority to balance the scales (Spoilers for anyone who hasn't listened to Episode 8.) Koenig's description is both an explanation of her year-long fascination with the case and a promise to listeners that we won't be disappointed by the slow unfolding of the story Hae's Pakistani-American ex-boyfriend who was convicted of her murder but Koenig runs with it anyway: Adnan is "not a Moor exactly but that doesn't mean you're making any sense But in the latest episode of Serial, "The Deal with Jay," my reaction to Koenig and her all-white production team's attempts to portray non-white subjects tipped from discomfort to distress The episode provides the series' first in-depth discussion of Jay a black friend of Adnan's on whose testimony the entire case rests The problem of Jay's inconsistent but damning testimony has been teased since the beginning of the podcast — Adnan is only innocent if Jay is lying Koenig's treatment of Jay provides the ugly counterpoint to her portrayal of Adnan and Hae it becomes clear that Koenig is deploying another classic racial trope — that of the "model minority." Both Hae and Adnan received the model minority treatment from Serial from the beginning Hae is introduced to us as "smart and beautiful and cheerful and a great athlete" as well as that most Asian of Asian stereotypes — "responsible." Adnan fills the role as well to provide our first portrait of Adnan: "He was an honor roll student Everybody knew Adnan to be somebody who was going to do something really big." Koenig largely confirms Chaudry's description with the caveats that he was paid to be an EMT Adnan's ability to fill the role of the model minority is the impetus behind Koenig's entire involvement with the case and that doesn't mesh with the idea of a violent killer She describes his "giant brown eyes like a dairy cow" and asks "Could someone who looks like that really strangle his girlfriend?" She says "He just doesn't seem like a murderer." After six months of investigation and phone conversations with Adnan she responds to his question about why she is so interested in his case by saying championing Asian-Americans (including South Asians like Adnan) has been a useful way to denigrate black Americans and deny the continuing existence and impact of racism that proves racism is over and black people are responsible for their own failure to thrive It's an insidious and dismayingly persistent narrative one that remains a linchpin of ongoing anti-black racism among whites and non-black people of color Koenig's frame for Adnan's case fits this dynamic all too easily and her inability to treat race with nuance and insight leads her to paint Jay as the model minority's counterpart: the threatening and untrustworthy black man Seven months after the investigation begins Koenig visits Jay's house to seek an interview executive producer Julie Snyder (also a white woman) says that Jay was "very polite" and "sweet" but that "you could kind of see him about to hit something understandable way." Koenig's discussion of Jay is in some ways a mirror image of that of Adnan and Hae: Every positive detail is surprising while the potentially negative details are assumed for Christ's sake," she says with bemused exasperation (Hae also played the stereotypically white sport.) Koenig quotes sources describing Jay as "quote unquote shady that you wouldn't want to push him," and a suggestion that his "thuggish vibe was a pose something Jay put on to seem tough." Perhaps the greatest mark against Jay is phrased in a prison metaphor — not one that Koenig came up with but one that she chooses to use nonetheless: "Jay wasn't in the magnet program at Woodlawn not mine — like general population at a prison," Koenig says Koenig even suggests that the state and Adnan's jury were more likely to believe Jay's testimony because of his race: "Jay seems like the underdog Jay probably comes off as this nice young man and this white lady is yelling at him." The idea that Jay or any black person would be treated as more trustworthy by this country's criminal justice system by virtue of his blackness is just an astoundingly ignorant suggestion for anyone to make Whether or not black jury members were predisposed to believe him Jay had already run the gauntlet of the police and prosecutors in a system designed to criminalize him The fact that he made it through without being incarcerated is remarkable That Serial has stepped in to criminalize him in the state's stead is infuriating The intersection of black and non-black communities of color in the U.S It's a history that includes outbreaks of anger as well as moments of solidarity and mutual support I do think it's obvious that Adnan was convicted without sufficient evidence and I hope that Koenig's coverage of his case results in something closer to justice But Serial is as much about the construction of a narrative as it is about Hae and the narrative Koenig is building is a harmful one By flattening Hae and Adnan into stereotypical model minorities and by using Jay as their "thuggish" black foil Serial is feeding its listeners a steady dose of racist tropes it's best to avoid the vile stereotypes of The Merchant of Venice Everyone involved in this story deserves better An earlier version of this story indicated that "The Deal With Jay" was Episode 7; it is Episode 8 Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Peabody Awards and the masterminds at This American Life return the love “Chris and Phil take an unexpected approach to telling stories and that is so appealing to us,” said producer Julie Snyder “Developing a show with them is exciting because we feel like we speak the same language To the extent that setting brilliant minds to work on something that has been a pre-tested success will likely result in something watchable (It will certainly attract a big viewership.) All wildly popular cutural products must worry about complacency; a shift into a new medium may keep everyone involved scraggy and alert The podcast’s touches of mordant humor often go uncelebrated perhaps Miller and Lord will draw out surprising shades in Koenig’s narrative voice But to me, this latest twist speaks mostly to the property’s ever-burgeoning awareness of its own power, which sometimes expresses itself in odd ways. (See the crew’s haughty response to Maxim’s reporting about upcoming seasons.) Serial is already so perceptive about its own construction that a show offering behind-the-scenes glimpses of this process seems redundant And it is unclear what the TAL folks have to gain from transplanting this story—so perfectly suited to the intimate audio format—onto the screen There are plenty of cerebral detective dramas on Netflix; plenty of true crime documentaries on HBO; plenty of warm and winning protagonists If Serial would like to be “more” than a fascinating historic innovation in a relatively new and undersung form—if it wants to join the approximately 7.89 billion other narratives unspooling on TV screens across the planet—it could very well succeed Many listeners tuned in to the 12th and final episode of Serial yesterday looking for an answer to the podcast’s central mystery: Who killed Baltimore high school student Hae Min Lee I was listening to see if Sarah Koenig would finally ask a tough question she offered a plea: “I still want to know what you were doing that afternoon,” Koenig said on her final late-night prison call with Adnan Syed—the man the state of Maryland convicted of killing Lee and the subject Koenig had been conversing with for a year in an attempt to divine whether he really did it Koenig’s vowels stretched into a whimper: “I want to know who had your phone and I want to know what you were doing.” Syed’s response to this not-a-question was: “So you don’t really have—if you don’t mind me asking—you don’t really have no ending?” In reply When Serial first debuted, I hung on Koenig’s every umm. The set-up hit all of my personal pop-cultural indulgences—a true crime story with a narrative treatment and a strong female protagonist. And in the beginning, as Koenig sifted through trial records and hunted down dusty leads offered up by longtime Syed champion Rabia Chaudry the established trail of the case dried up and the direction of Serial leaned more and more on Koenig’s own detective skills Her investigative method took the form of searching conversations after Koenig discovered that Syed’s defense attorneys hadn’t interviewed a potential alibi witness she asked Chaudry how she had felt when she discovered the oversight like wha wha wha wha what?” (“I wasn’t floored,” Chaudry replied.) But as the weeks ticked on I wondered why Koenig’s soft approach wasn’t advancing to tougher questions as her sources warmed up Syed himself—told police that Syed had asked Lee for an after-school ride on the day of the murder as Koenig liked to contextualize such things “bad for Adnan,” because it placed him with the murder victim and also contradicted his own stated alibi—that he had stayed on campus all afternoon Koenig affronts her audience with questions about the turn: Why would he tell the first cop he’s expecting a ride and then once it’s clear Hae is missing change his story Maybe the girl’s thinking of a different day Or maybe Adnan misspoke when he talked to that first cop Or maybe he did ask Hae for a ride at some point that day I’m not a detective but I consider this a red flag What I don’t know is: Is this a teeny tiny red flag a great big flapping in the breeze red flag The ride situation came up again in Episodes 3 and 12—it was clearly one of those big flapping in the breeze red flags—but if Koenig ever posed these questions to Syed himself The hedge would prove to be a running theme Here’s one question Koenig posed to Adnan in Episode 6 concerning the fact that he never called Lee after she disappeared: “You know where are you?’ And I was wondering if you had—were in the group of like ‘where are you?’ ” After a long pause are you asking me a question?” Koenig sighed and said she turned back to her listeners to introduce “some stray things that Or if they mean much of anything.” The first item was an aggrieved letter that Lee had given to Syed shortly after their breakup But apparently you don’t respect me enough to accept my decision.” The note itself countered Syed’s narrative that his breakup with Lee was just peachy but there was more: In a search of Syed’s house police found the note with a fresh piece of commentary scrawled across the top: “I’m going to kill.” This time Koenig didn’t even pose questions to the audience she brushes it off: “Who knows about that one Seems like a detail you’d find in a cheesy detective novel.” But red herrings only work in stories where the true facts of the crime ultimately reveal themselves We now know that Koenig didn’t find a smoking gun in this case Or because the exchange didn’t make for good radio These are the dark thoughts that wormed into my brain as the series marched on Other Serial gawkers may have been consumed with the question of whether Syed was guilty of murder but I became more and more obsessed with what Koenig was trying to get away with when Koenig traveled to visit the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia to use its lawyers and law students as a sounding board for her own thoughts about the murder When Koenig returned to chart their progress four weeks later she asked Enright and her students: “Do you guys Koenig said she was “surprised” by their answers Of course a group of Innocence Project defense attorneys would decline to declare a potential client “guilty” on a podcast Asking them how confident they were in his innocence even if they sometimes come off as embarrassing—as most journalists’ interviews would (You can pry my interview tapes from my clammy But I have to think that Koenig’s interview tone was not just a brave reveal of her private demeanor and unlike the police interrogations Koenig aired on the podcast she crafted her own conversations knowing that she’d mine them for clips When she introduced herself to listeners as “not even a crime reporter” in Episode 1 she was demurring deliberately: Syed’s case came to her attention after Chaudry read Koenig’s reporting for the Baltimore Sun on Syed’s defense attorney in the case heightening the appeal for all the armchair detectives who would be following the case along with her taking breaks from arguing over Syed’s guilt or innocence to fawn over Koenig’s voice Wrote one poster: “Sarah Koenig is typically the last voice I hear at night wooing me to sleep with her quirky questions and inquisitiveness regarding this murder mystery Her voice is actually quite soothing to doze off to and tone of Sarah Koenig’s voice is one of my favorite things about Serial,” another wrote “Her voice is dynamic… real… creamy… easy to listen to.” As one Redditor characterized it: “her voice is as soothing as a mom wrapped in an angel wrapped in butter.” Compare Koenig’s dulcet tones to another prominent female voice aired on the podcast: that of Cristina Gutierrez Syed’s defense attorney in his initial trials who appeared in the podcast in the form of taped trial hearings One listener noted that Gutierrez’s agitated drawl recalled the voice of Nancy Grace—a most damning comparison for the NPR contingent “I’m an atheist but if you can convince me Hell is real and Cristina Gutierrez’s voice is piped in 24/7 I’ll see you [at] church in the morning,” one Redditor wrote Gutierrez “could just be a shitty attorney whose nail-on-chalkboard voice leads people to do heinous acts,” another argued One Redditor argued that Gutierrez’s voice is so grating that it is responsible for the conviction of a possibly innocent man: “The biggest factor in Adnan’s conviction become glaringly obvious as soon as I heard the defense attorney speak … I’ve never heard a less likable voice in my life.”  And it wasn’t just Gutierrez’s voice that put the podcast’s most dedicated listeners on edge Gutierrez phrased every statement in the form of a question And yet her construction—“Is it not?”—raised hackles across the subreddit Gutierrez’s persistent questioning was a source of derision so happy to chat—played the good cop to Gutierrez’s bad one Perhaps some listeners were correct in suggesting that Gutierrez’s screeching played a part in Syed’s conviction real jurors surely have many of the same biases as some of the people on Reddit do it’s not easy to strike just the right tone: You can’t always find the truth while giving the people what they want Koenig revealed that after a year of talking with Syed I think he didn’t do it.” But she still lacked the facts to prove it I feel like shaking everyone by the shoulders like an aggravated cop.” I wish Koenig had indulged that feeling when she actually had her sources on the line It might have made us like her a little less We’ve already shared the news that Star Trek‘s Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov) will be joining The 7th Rule podcast to recap seasons 2 and 3 of The Original Series We talked to him about joining the podcast the scene he wanted to see (and filmed) in Star Trek Generations Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity When asked when the last time he saw the show was “I have absolutely no idea when that was I think I’ve seen a couple of episodes of different iterations of Star Trek While he may not remember watching the episodes Koenig keenly remembers what getting the job meant to him when he joined the cast for the second season in 1967: “My very first thought about being on Star Trek was I’m getting a weekly salary all of those good things which I thoroughly believe in were not foremost on my mind and the income was very—as small as it was it was a joke—but that was the time.That’s the way things were then But so I was very pleased to have an income.” He described what it was like meeting his new castmates: “I was very pleased to have a place to go every week and everybody was friendly—almost everybody was friendly And I wore a wig for six weeks because my hair was very short—I had made my own film And so I went to Max Factor and I tried a bunch of wigs So she made a joke about a bird’s nest Bill sort of gave me one of those (a slight nod) and I got to see what we were doing and what we were saying I felt that I was part of something reasonably important.” and DeSalle (Michael Barrier) in “Catspaw,” the first episode of Star Trek Koenig filmed—in the first of a few different wigs While talking about life on set during the making of the series itself Koenig had an interesting view on co-star William Shatner’s manner of dealing with his castmates: Shatner’s attitude was reminiscent of the attitude of the times If you were one of the three stars—and this was not Star Trek alone this was most television series—you got billing at the top of the show And the attitude is: These are the people you have to pay attention to These are the people who you have to acquiesce to That’s the way the castes were set up And so Bill was really only reflecting what was going on all around him.” But he admitted he was occasionally bothered by it: “I’m sure there were situations that were not that way and you had somebody who was a little bit more aware a little bit more sensitive to his fellow actors BUT… it wasn’t as if he was being evil It wasn’t anything other than what most people were doing so I wasn’t really expecting a great deal more than that it bothered me a little bit; once in a while and then Bill would step to the right five feet But I don’t feel the same malice that he does.” Koenig also recalled a difficult moment from the TOS movie era: That was the only really bad moment that I’ve had in the whole history of watching Star Trek or being involved in Star Trek they discovered me and Paul [Winfield] and then we got on the transporter And I was standing behind Bill on the transporter ‘Move a little bit this way.’ He didn’t want me so much in the shot ‘I’m just doing what you would do That’s  neurotic!’ And then he did a double take to look at me twice as if looking at me twice is going to somehow cow me So I went home and I had a severe gut pain for the rest of the evening Transporter scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan When it comes to William Shatner as an actor He also has some strong feelings about the character of Kirk being killed off in Star Trek: Generations: And you’ll forgive me for this harangue I thought it was a travesty the way they killed Captain Kirk you’re dead.; He should have died heroically You’re looking for somebody who imbues the character And Bill Shatner brought that to the part every time I’m tired of hearing—I go off and I apologize I’m tired of hearing about bad acting He even brought up the oft-imitated line that’s generated a million memes from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: “And when people say “Khaaaaan,” who has the guts to do that Who has the guts to thoroughly throw themselves into the part and expose themselves like that I certainly do appreciate his work and I’m grateful that he was there Because I’m not sure we would have come back for the movies Leonard had an extraordinary appeal to the audience And certainly he was to be commended as well for the work that he did But you gotta have that leading man of some kind But you’ve got the personification of the good guy that you want to root for in Mr and I’m grateful that he was there.” and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) in their choke collars in Star Trek‘s “The Gamesters of Triskelion” When talking about the third season of the series the actor brought up “Spectre of the Gun.” Roddenberry and NBC execs wanted the third season to feature more Chekov which is why he had a more substantial role in the episode He explained how the original plan was to shoot on location but budget restrictions kept them in the studio: “‘Spectre of the  Gun,’ which was shot in the third season was written in the second season and the intention was to shoot it in the second season Now that is a better reflection of Chekov’s participation in Star Trek than what we saw most of the time in the third season we still thought we had a show and that was going to go on and on We were short on cash… and that’s also one of the reasons why there’s that old adage ‘necessity is the mother of invention.’ We ended up making a very interesting show because we had to put it off and restructured the budget so that we can make it work Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Sylvia (Bonnie Beecher) in Star Trek’s “Spectre of the Gun” When asked if he had any idea people the Star Trek franchise would still be going strong over 50 years later Didn’t everybody?” Koenig actually foresaw the end of the series before the third (and final) season even aired He talked about knowing the writing was on the wall when the show’s time slot was changed: We went on a magazine shoot for Kids magazine it was either Teen or 16 or Fave or something … But while we were there we were being changed: Our showtime in the third season was not going to be eight o’clock Monday night It was going to be 10 o’clock Friday night I was still astride my horse—and I knew that that was it And I knew that I would not have the same audience that I would at eight o’clock on Monday They had brought me aboard for the very obvious reason of appealing to very young people literally eight to about fourteen years old or they’re out at a party or at a date or something and that the third season of Star Trek would be the end.” and George Takei on horseback (as they found out Star Trek  had been moved to a terrible timeslot) Between 1979 and 1991 Koenig and The Original Series cast made six movies together and then it came time to hand the torch to the Star Trek: The Next Generation He recalled the shifting plans for the TOS cast for 1994’s Star Trek: Generations: “The initial plan was to use all seven of us: George They didn’t see any point of going on and doing Generations when it wouldn’t add to their characters although I didn’t have that much character to add to to begin with so I probably could have used the exposure I felt that this was not the way to sign out in a in a role that is obviously designed for the purpose of bringing in Next Generation fans who would might not otherwise be Next Generation fans but for their allegiance to the original cast and I saw nothing there that I thought would contribute to an understanding of my character But I have some pride in myself and I have some pride in what I do and I just didn’t feel that we were bringing anything that had a great deal of merit ‘What would change your mind?’ And I said I’ll tell you what’ll change my mind You let me come up with a scene that will not undermine the story that will not in any way subvert what you have going with Generations a moment where you get some insight into who he is We were there in an expository fashion—George Nichelle and I most specifically—and most of the time But in an expository fashion means we were there to advance the story to tell you what’s going in the plot there is a crazy-looking ship out there—no what do you think it is?” And then he goes on and he tells him how he feels and you get a sense of what that thing means in our lives personally so you can identify with him… but we’re just the tool to help expedite that When Kirk gets blown out of the ship in the beginning of the film there is a moment when you go back and look at it and we say something on the order of… I don’t know what we say when we say something And the reason I don’t know what we say is that we didn’t say what I had written when we talk about the loss of our captain… there’s no more Captain Kirk and I’m not sure I’m proud of this but I had suffered a devastating loss in my life at this point and I was able to bring that to that moment when Kirk gets blown out of the ship And the only time in my life that I’ve ever brought forth tears was during the exchange between Scotty and Chekov The writer took down what I had to say… and we memorized it I should have known that! I mean—[sings] “Hello, Hollywood, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.” Everybody talks about Hollywood I think  even at that tender age—50 [laughs] But that was the only reason why I did the film was because I thought at last I got to say something about how the character should be played it’s not going to turn the plot upside down you’re not going to have to bring in other actors you’re not going to have to have dialogue that explains why I’m saying this it’s generated from human compassion.” Koenig will start joining The 7th Rule with co-hosts Cirroc Lofton and Ryan T Husk to review seasons 2 and 3 of The Original Series in December and episodes will start coming out in early 2024 He says he’s looking forward to recording and talking about the episodes and expects to be “learning something every day” because of it and adds that he thinks it will be a fun experience Watch The 7th Rule on YouTube Listen to The 7th Rule podcast Contribute to the Indiegogo campaign Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com Interesting that uses “malice” to describe Takei’s beef with Shatner I’ll have to listen to the interview but I find it interesting that he really doesn’t have too much to say about Nimoy but I’ve heard he could be pretty remote Dude was super in character and found it difficult to turn off At least once he ended up crying uncontrollably in his trailer because of this Leonard Nimoy says in his autobiographies that he felt it was crucial that he stay in character as Spock for the entire day because he didn’t want to be fumbling around and he deserves the acclaim he’s gotten for it a while back Koenig did an interview with the Inglourious Treksperts podcast where he mentioned he and Takei had an issue and don’t talk anymore Takei has been coming across as very petty You’d think George would be old and wise enough by now to know that when it seems like all you ever get is bad roommates bad bosses…maybe they aren’t the problem… ‘takers’ sense it and take advantage so that can lead to victimization and a righteous sense of being messed over It seems like Walter had much of the same perception and experience with Shatner that George did I was just comparing the reactions (and of course there are differences in what they experienced I’m sure on multiple levels so it’s not a 1-1 comparison) I just appreciated Walter’s reflection that basically was like ‘look – we’re not buddies he got the job done and that’s what we were there for’ vs going out of his way to react in kind As someone who’s sympathetic to Takei’s politics I thought he was dead wrong on the way BEYOND — a film I don’t even much care for — handled the subject of Sulu’s sexuality The character on TOS was pretty much neutered by his lack of development and George’s claim that he always played the character as heterosexual in his own mind strikes me as a very odd thing for a gay actor to say as it begs the question: if he had thought of Sulu as queer Not really sure why that’s an odd thing to say They only made Sulu gay because Takei is gay The decision became nothing to do with Takei’s craft anymore once he made it clear his Sulu was heterosexual and that informed his acting decisions Determining how a character interacts with other characters in terms of sexual attraction is a big part of an actor’s process And it’s not hard to imagine how Takei would have changed how he reacted to certain characters both subtly and in a way that would change whole scenes if he was both of the mind that Sulu was gay or bi and was empowered to act on that assertion It could be seen as reductive to respond to his opinion by saying he didn’t have much of a character anyway so that’s all the more reason to weigh his contribution and acting decisions more heavily but he’s certainly not always in the wrong either It’s perfectly ok for him to be petty to his grave about some things like Shatner while being on firm footing when speaking out on political causes or even his objections to how Star Trek Beyond traded on his sexuality I don’t think Beyond traded on his sexuality at all (gay Trek fan here) I think Takei could have handled that much They decided to make Sulu gay because Takei is famously gay They approached him and asked if he would be okay with that and he respectfully said no as his acting decisions that informed his version of Sulu were often predicated on Sulu being heterosexual He suggested they make a new character gay so as not to conflict with his artistic decisions regarding the character They considered his POV… then did it anyway leading Simon Pegg to have to explain the convoluted reasons why the Kelvin incident magically caused Sulu’s sexuality to change If Takei wasn’t such a high profile out personality They were simultaneously good-intentioned and grossly commercial Just curious: Outside of a sort-of-fantasy woman in a TAS episode and hitting on Uhura twice once when crazy and once when Mirror- and of course a daughter- did original Sulu ever have any romantic or sexual events he picks up a date at the end of Shore Leave iirc (one of McCoy’s ‘companions’) it’s the deleted scene in TMP when he’s enamored by Ilia and then TFF when he and Chekov are fascinated by the Klingon first officer but Hollywood had long been guilty of overlooking Asian men as romantic prospects When John Cho was cast in the short-lived “Selfie” in 2014 that was the first time an Asian American male had ever been made a romantic lead in a TV series there was never a conversation about Sulu being gay until Takei came out and he maintained that was not his intention when playing him and no one connected to TOS ever hinted at it So for Pegg and co to override that in the name of honoring him is actually using his personal life for brownie points while also bringing up all sorts of questions both in terms of story mechanics and the weight of an actor’s opinion on what makes their character who they are Koenig sounds like he has a healthy attitude towards Shatner and that is probably a great way to look at life in general to be fair sometimes it is not always the actor’s fault why the director didn’t reshoot the scene when Shatner refers to Uhura as “Ujira” really makes him look terrible I always get a laugh when seeing that episode Koenig said in world of st that show hada bad director but that doesn’t explain why the line wasn’t looped I think Bill Shatner in his earlier roles (including the first year of ST) could occasionally rise to the level of brilliance; even Harlan Ellison once said as much Somewhere along the way he prioritized stardom over pride in his craft (or at least perspective on it) and his performances became ripe for parody anyone who claims that even a latter-day Shatner can’t perform hasn’t seen Spock’s funeral in THE WRATH OF KHAN He’s very good in the first five or six episodes He wrote in one of his autobiographies that the pace of production eventually forced him to rely more on his own personality (and I would add schtick) rather than a carefully crafted performance I think he’s very good for considerably more than that most restrained performances.) But he did slack off eventually though I appreciate his candor in explaining why that happened the writing didn’t do him any favors either in S2 and especially S3 I part company with HE over his adulation of Shat in THE ANDERSONVILLE TRIAL but always find him to be the weak link in the show but the real surprise for me was Cameron Mitchell who manages a slow burn that just detonates when he at last gives Shatner’s prosecutor the go-ahead to question the witness on his own ethics based terms Scott’s take on the Shatner character (Scott directed this version) and I’ve always found Scott to be credible even in his most hammy performances (well STRANGELOVE’s Buck Turgidson is not exactly credible but that’s a special case.) Nicholas Mayer writes in his book “View From The Bridge” – that to get a great performance from Shatner he put Shatner though many many takes – so that Shatner tired his “personality” out and just performed as Kirk in a more real manner But it’s pretty obvious that kind of special handling wasn’t necessary with Shatner in the early stages of his career Shatner was a very well-regarded stage and screen actor before Star Trek I’ve seen the rough cut of generations once upon a time from a tenth generation VHS source and it wasn’t good I don’t blame the actors i blame the script All those deleted scenes were deleted for a reason But yeah limiting them to only 3 TOS cast members was insulting I liked Malcolm McDowell but the way Kirk was killed is ridiculous the time travel and nexus stuff makes no sense They kind of made Kirk a joke to elevate Picard Honestly Kirk’s last scene should have been second star to the right and straight on til morning Its such a missed opportunity because Shatner and Stewart had good chemistry together but the poor script didn’t warrant it You could argue Picard doesn’t really come out of that movie much better If you look at Picard’s action hero role in First Contact through the lens of how his character was handled in Generations you can’t help but think there’s a bit of an attempt to beef up his machismo In Generations Picard breaks down crying over a family loss is hilariously electrocuted by a force field This is not to say Stewart wasn’t wonderful and there’s something to be said for subverting what one might expect of a lead male’s role in an action film but I definitely came out of that movie as a kid thinking Kirk got all the action and Picard just fiddled with some buttons and talked about his feelings a lot and the income was very—as small as it was.” I’m glad someone is telling it like it is and admitting it’s just a job I’m sick of everyone pretending that Trek has to mean some deep philosphical thing to everyone and that everyone must always be in awe of it’s deep dive into the human condition nonsense Or at least saying the reason they took the gig was because of all those other issues when the fact is they took it for the job I’m guessing the majority will admit they took it for the job first; especially since a lot of the actors admitted they saw very little of the show and never considered themselves fans of it before they got the role including most leads in the old shows like Stewart Even the newer leads like Chris Pine sounds like he’s never watched an episode to this day lol It was mostly just a vehicle to make him a star and work with Abrams Frakes has outright stated he never saw a single episode of Star Trek until he got the job on TNG and he only auditioned for it because it sounded like it could be a hit with the name association But later said once the show aired and he saw how much the legacy and stories meant to the fanbase along with his discussions with Roddenberry that he saw how important the message itself was and became more influenced by it But he always stated working on Star Trek was the best job security in the world for him first and foremost and now 35 years later proved incredibly true for him lol the second banana who impressed precisely no one in TNG’s first season ended up getting more career mileage out of his association with the franchise than just about anyone Perhaps it was the beard; you just never know in this life I imagine Koenig would have better insight than I but I recall reading somewhere that Kelly was intending to do it but his failing health did not allow it The idea that originally it was going to be all of them sounds reasonable especially considering that Nimoy bowed out because he didn’t think there was anything significant for Spock in it Which would mean they would likely only have been in that opening bit Ideally they all should have been in it and all been in the entire film together Whittling it down to just Kirk & Picard for the final act only was just not the way to go The obvious story there would be those two & their crews needing to work together and overcoming the inevitable issues between them This would have been particularly relevant between the two Captains Who would both be thinking they were running this show and they both had valid reasons in thinking that They clash at first but ultimately learn more about each other learn to respect each other and how they each get things done and then solve the problem in the nick of time The only thing I felt that worked was Kirk’s final line “It was fun” was the perfect thing for him to say There was absolutely no need to have a TOS/TNG crossover movie The differences in the age of the cast and the 75+ year timeline gap TNG was already a success after 7 seasons and the brilliant finale they could have easily went straight into FIRST CONTACT and avoided the abomination that is Generations we may have got an additional / different movie if they had skipped the 7th How the writers of ALL GOOD THINGS & FIRST CONTACT wrote GENERATIONS I can never understand If they had to go through the process of realising what does not work in a Star Trek movie to realise what does then I am grateful but OMG it is awful I would put it on the same level as all “Nu-Trek” looks good/sounds good etc but really it is awful and not Star Trek If you look at the opening of my Cinefex article on GEN it starts with excerpts of ‘what not to do’ from the TNG writer’s guide — every single one of which is violated by the script of the movie They knew exactly what they were doing and yet they chose to do it anyway and Berman let it all stand (or for all I know encouraged it.) RDM stated on a number of occasions that he took full responsibility for the GENERATIONS script feeling that in retrospect neither he nor Braga were at that point in their lives equipped to write about such weighty issues as human mortality Perversely (and like your defense of THE FINAL FRONTIER) as opposed to so many I’ve never considered GENERATIONS to be an utter disaster on every level For all its flaws and scientific illiteracy (even for Trek) I think it’s possessed of an impressive set- piece or two They were also given a laundry list from the studio on what the film should include and had to make it all work I get you; I find GEN (and I used to find INS) to be watchable in a Roger Moore/Bond kind of way; hating that it existed while still finding enough stuff to be sufficiently entertained Part of my problem with nearly all of the first 10 movies had to do with the usually incompetent/inferior projection when seeing them theatrically; except for one particular theater that did an awesome job showing TFF and another 2nd run theater showing TMP (rarity of rarities screens that actually employed union projectionists instead of ticket-takers and popcorn poppers) I never was able to see any of these things in what I would consider to be decent viewing conditions which became evident during cable viewings and then especially clear on laserdisc I was never even able to see any legs of anybody during the ship scenes because it all just murked black from the waist down It was like most theaters in Silicon Valley must have operating at 3 instead of 15 for the foot-candles or lumens or whatever the standard was supposed to be for theatrical projection There may have been no need but a crossover feature was still not an abhorrent idea One of the reasons it failed was it was marketed to make viewers think Kirk and Picard were going to be on screen together the bulk of the movie When it just turned out to be bookends for Kirk that was a huge letdown for the audience Those writers weren’t infallible either This film didn’t work well but then neither did the spectacularly overrated All Good Things The novel FEDERATION should have been the sorta-crossover movie and it would have well and truly handed the torch and if they just fixed some of the Cochrane stuff to keep the balance more between E and E-D era stuff with a truly terrific ramming scene instead of the ludicrous one in NEM I still think THE FINAL REFLECTION would make an awesome standalone movie and that’s coming from somebody who is not a fan of Klingons — but who loves that novel which is kind of ‘K’hornblower in space’ but with just the right mix of political and social I’m pretty hazy on the details of FEDERATION after so many years but remember liking it a great deal when it came out back in that long-ago era of my life when I had time for ST novels In fact I liked just about anything the Reeves-Stevensons wrote which is why their Vulcan arc on “Enterprise” was such a monumental disappointment to me but my wife got it for 99cents on her kindle with PRIME DIRECTIVE so have been reading them during her infusions Along with STITCH IN TIME and FINAL REFLECTION The R-S folk kind of occupy the Diane Duane niche for me where at first I thought they could all do no wrong … then Duane did THE ROMULAN WAY and SPOCK’S WORLD and an utterly dismal mirror crossover book that made me realize nobody hits it out of the park every time I take it they wrote the eps that have the crew walking through a desert in the preview which seemed way too good to be ENT eps and what passed for a finale when I read Duane’s THE WOUNDED SKY I thought it was the best damned Trek novel ever full of wit and imagination that was both true to the show in spirit yet managed to add up to something unique and stylistically her own but started to tune out once she got into all the Romulan culture stuff that I didn’t find particularly compelling not to mention I was gravitating away from Trek fiction at that point anyhow a lot to dislike in the Vulcan arc on “Enterprise,” including a terribly miscast Robert Foxworth and Joanna Cassidy (I’ll say it again: Vulcans are hard!) But my main issue was the implication that Spock’s ancestors had lost their way and that they needed a savior in the guise of a human starship captain to set them straight I wish I knew somebody with your tastes back in the 80s … I couldn’t get anybody I knew to read TREK novels and that one was IT for me for quite awhile Just between that early crazy space battle and then the philosophical discussions on the rec deck and then that genuinely BIG (in all senses of the word) finish … even when WOUNDED SKY lays or generates an egg I could go nuts thinking of how terrific Cassidy could have been in any number of roles (even Janeway though am actually glad she ducked that phaser blast.) That set of eps sounds so awful I don’t think I’d watch them even as a ‘well there’s nothing else on’ option — not that such a saying is even valid in this day and age I think it was on TUBI … A tv movie called BLACK NOON from 71 a western version of THE WICKER MAN — done before that film was even written Roy Thinnes is pretty bad in the lead role but it does have that wonderfully cheesy ‘abc tv movie of the week’ ambience — meaning it is over in less than 75 minutes — that I’ve always been such a sucker for but there are some clever turns in the script I wonder why with all the censorship restrictions on tv 50-60 years back that they could do so much stuff about devils and the like (SATAN’S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY’S BABY SATAN’S TRIANGLE) … even so-called comedies like IT COULDN’T HAPPEN TO A NICER GUY with Joanna ‘Isis’ Cameron raping Paul Sorvino at gunpoint and then the serious issue films that usually featured Elizabeth Montgomery Early 70s was a time when you could get smart films at the theater AND on the tube even though the scale of the projects differed by magnitudes It just struck me that the emotional coda to THE WOUNDED SKY where the sympathetic spider-alien scientist who sacrifices herself is ‘reborn’ in the form of her offspring is a obvious homage to “Charlottes Web.” How did I ever miss that Nichol letting me read most of that book out loud to my class in second grade you’d figure the details would be burnished in memory I read a number of the Trek novels back in the 80’s I haven’t thought about them for ages and for the life of me I don’t recall which ones I liked better than others a number of them would have made for really rich feature films I recall thinking But honestly I was mostly fine with the features we got And books are nearly always better than films anyway So I never really complained about the stories used in the features Agree that Federation would have been a fantastic option It did come out not long after Generations so it has some Generations tie-ins the writers were originally writing / pitching that story as the torch-passing film I also wish Picard S1-3 had just been adapting the Cold Equations books Also fantastic and would have been much better and scratched all the itches But the reviews were overwhelmingly positive when it first aired and feelings amongst fans and critics have budged very little in the decades since I just checked the rating for it on IMDB and AGT still has a rating of 9.1 The episode is still just as incredibly popular as it was when it originally aired Reviewers opinions aren’t worth any more than anyone else’s I recall watching AGT on my first rewatch of TNG 6 or 7 years ago And what I recall from it remained the same It was a mediocre at best story where there was never any peril no characters grew in any way and Picard never figured anything out as Q had to hold his hand and spoon feed Picard what the audience already figured out way before that Feel free to love it but it is far below TNG at its best and no surprise Generations was written by the same people I would have merely repeated “Your opinion and that’s fine,” since you evidently have a problem with reading comprehension and is widely considered to be a huge part of its creative renaissance So if you consider “All Good Things” to be substandard his participation *should* come as a surprise irrespective of the fact that he also wrote GENERATIONS Looking at what you wrote it would appear you need to rethink who has the reading comprehension here If someone is capable of writing something as “substandard” as All Good Things it is not beyond comprehension they would be capable of writing other substandard works That does NOT preclude the ability to write decent episodes I am aware he was involved in some of the better TNG episodes You said “it isn’t surprising,” which implies (in regular human English) that since Moore was responsible for GENERATIONS that lack of quality of his work on “All Good Things” wasn’t an outlier Again — even allowing that I agreed with your opinion of the latter — that’s nonsense given the high regard in which his body of work on TNG is held As to “touchiness,” note that I went out of my way to state that your opinion on “All Good Things” — while very much an outlier itself — was nevertheless just as valid as mine or anyone else’s you just can’t resist the urge to pick a fight You don’t get to backtrack your foolish comment by turning what was obviously not an absolute into an absolute Lose the ‘holier than thou’ attitude You don’t get off the hook by saying “your opinion is valid.” And I never claimed anyone’s opinion was more valid than anyone else’s either He wrote a substandard ‘All Good Things’ and a slightly better but still sub standard Generations “In regular human English” that does NOT preclude him writing other good stuff You also don’t get to accuse others of doing what you do You were the one who made the personal jab You knew your response to mine was antagonistic personally I think it is one of the all time great episodes of Trek and still the strongest final episode to any of the TV shows I could listen / watch Walter Koenig talk about Star Trek and other things all day Does anyone remember in the 1990s there was a video cassette you could buy called A STAR’S TREK (was in the back of Sci-Fi magazines and my quarterly newsletter from the Star Trek fanclub!) I think it was Walter giving us a tour if his home on camera Does not seem to be on Youtube and I assume it has never been available on DVD I’m glad he got to do Bester on Babylon 5 Original storyline was going to be half the movie with the TOS cast then hand over to the TNG cast & all briefly come together at the end to solve the issue (black hole or something related to that!).But then the script was not good so they settled for cameos instead That REALLY sounds like a take on FEDERATION though I don’t think it had been published yet But I think that movie idea came out of writing a movie around the imagined poster image of the two Enterprises shooting at each other he’s such a sweet man and has a mature and healthy understanding of his relationship with Shatner (who I’m seeing next weekend in Ticonderoga and I’m really glad Walter got his part in Picard and I am sure he’s proud of his legacy I think I remember reading that JMS had Patrick McGoohan in mind for Bester and for the rich guy played by Efram Zimbalist Jr I think the way they wound up with Koenig for Bester was ideal (and much better than I expected — I easily picture him when enjoying the Bester novels when I came across them nearly two decades later) but I think EZ was a little off his game for B5 as that character just didn’t click for me at all Not sure if it would have been better with McG or not as he was pretty faded even by the time of THE PHANTOM and I don’t remember BRAVEHEART enough to say how well he fared there though he is ‘the guy’ as far as THE PRISONER (still my fave series along with THE WIRE and TWIN PEAKS) and COLUMBO go and really does a lot to keep ICE STATION ZEBRA buoyant despite its ponderous pacing such a cool Prisoner reference in S1 of B5 when Bester says / does the “be seeing you” salute My headcanon is that it is Secret Agent Drake in Ice Station Zebra and then he gets taken to the Village and becomes Number Six because I saw ZEBRA first-run in the theater exactly one month before I turned 8 (early b-day present) and I’m pretty sure I saw a couple of PRIS eps shortly thereafter (only remember freaking over the balloon it wasn’t till the late 70s when I actually got to see the show properly and in entirety on PBS.) Yeah it was great he got to play an ancestor of Chekhov in Picard Matalas confirmed he was originally suppose to appear in the scene but sadly lack of time and money killed that idea I just rewatched PIc S3 and liked it rather better this time but that Chekov tie-in (with dialogue cribbed from THE VOYAGE HOME as if Koenig wasn’t pandering enough) was just sad Did you find any way to adjust the brightness and sharpness and contrast to acceptable levels It would take a major re-grading of the footage to accomplish that I actually knew he was going to have a cameo months before the season aired One of those smaller leaks that never got much traction for some reason I didn’t realized some of the lines came from TVH And I’ve watched the finale 3 times lol The warning of Chekov to space travelers to avoid earth and save themselves is virtually identical to that spoken by the Federation President in TVH It could be a legal thing that this alert needs to be worded in this way during this kind of large scale emergency I’ve always meant to add this show into the podcast rotation but never found the time I’ll have to go back and start it up Will be nice to hear Aaron before his sad loss One wonders if we’ll ever get to see that scene Walter created – or is it lost forever in a cutting-room floor SWEEP up I’m assuming this is the scene https://youtu.be/CA2ueLsTiPw?si=hvnvCPgUsnO_a-2e First time I’ve ever seen the footage. An effective bit, well staged by Carson and Alonzo, and super effective work from Koenig (words I don’t think I’ve ever had reason to use before, except maybe on his role in the Ellison ep of the Hitchcock show and select Bester moments on B5. In THE GLASS TEAT Ellison referred to Kandel as “one of the more lunatic scriveners in Clown Town.” Given that “Mudd’s Women” was written as a possible second Trek pilot he conceivably has a more important role in the history of the franchise than is commonly acknowledged. Goldstone didn’t think much of the show either, and the only reason he came back after the second pilot to do LITTLE GIRLS was somebody calling in a big favor as I recall. There are a series of interviews with Robert Butler on Youtube and they are fantastic. Yes, he admits to being perplexed by the popularity of Trek. I think he said he found it very “wordy” with the characters posing/posturing all the time. I see what he means. It helps to be 10 and not behind the camera. Well, I happen to like the wordiness. Not everything had to be a western, even in 1964. Lots of good stuff is wordy. Not everything had to be a Western, even in 1964. Great interview! It’s nice to hear more from Koenig lately and his honest critiques over TOS, Shatner, Generations, etc. I’ve always felt a little bad for him and the other cast members that wasn’t part of the big 3 because he obviously just wanted more to do and of course it would’ve just been nice to learn more about Chekhov in general. But he acknowledge that was just the time shows were made back then, but still. Really looking forward to his involvement in The 7th Rule. I agree with Koenig’s assessment of Shatner’s acting. The guy has Shakespearean theatre background and while his style might come off as cheesy for modern eyes I always thought that theatricality suited the Kirk character very well. Also on occasion Shatner knew to underplay the role as well as his reaction to the death of his son in Star Trek 3. He is an underrated actor. I’ve always felt Shatner was underrated. He’s not the greatest but given the right role he can really shine. He was fortunate to have two in his career that truly suited him. James Kirk & Denny Crane. I’m glad he earned an Emmy for Crane. Two Emmy’s, actually! One of his best performances was when Denny handles his final case, leaves the courtroom and when alone he deflates, all of his self doubt suddenly on display despite the bravado throughout the episode. My wife teared up with that scene. That’s right. He got the guest star Emmy playing Crane, too. If you look at some of Avery Brooks’ performances and Patrick Stewart’s, their theatrical training often rises to the surface. There were times when they could have pulled it back a bit but their performances were never at any time called out. Agreed and I personally think that in sci-fi you need to go a bit theatrical to play the roles. It’s much more suitable for this genre and makes the already fantastical premises that much more interesting. I am not a big fan of more subdued sci-fi acting of modern days. They need to emphasize the craziness or weirdness of the situations. Excellent interview, thanks much. I like how Koenig shows little to no malice towards his co-workers, and is candid about the business back then and his part in it. Sounds like a grounded, humble guy. Very nice. As for GEN, I have a love/dislike relationship with that film. The way they took out Kirk was unforgivable, but I still watch it annually. I’m always in it for the cooking scene with Kirk and Picard. I never get tired of it. Ha, me too! “Dill. Dill Weed.” There are a ton of scenes I love from that film, as well as the score. Sadly overall, it missed the mark though, killing Kirk in that weak, shameful way and leaving him on a strange planet under a pile of rocks… Interesting. Have you heard the Braga & Moore commentary about that on the disc? It seems more obvious now following this interview that Shatner was not necessarily the devil people like Takei made him out to be. Self focused and a little detached at times but not the way Takei often describes him. Good for Koenig to be more balanced in his opinions. I think Takei is quite self righteous and poisonous and has no right to condemn Shatner the way he does. Takei is a hypicrite. That makes a nice change from Takei’s constant whinging. Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. but police and shelter staff describe 'Staffordshire' and 'boxer' mixes I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A seven-month-old baby has died after being bitten in the head by the family's dog in southern Germany, police have said. The incident took place in Bad Koenig, some 30 miles southeast of Frankfurt in Hesse state. Police said they were yet to establish why the dog attacked the child. The dog has been taken to an animal shelter in nearby Michelstadt, according to Bild. The breed of the dog remains unclear. A police spokeswoman described the animal as a Staffordshire mix while shelter staff referred to a boxer mix, acting "very aggressively". A local news website, hessenschau.de, said the baby was bitten on Monday and taken to hospital, where its condition was stabilised, but that it later died on Monday night. The incident took place almost a week after two people were killed by a dog in northern Germany. A 52-year-old woman and her 27-year-old son were killed by a Staffordshire terrier they owned on April 3 in Hannover. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies "Serial" is one of those projects I’ve admired from a distance, catching up on episodes in my spare time while cowering at the prospect of the amount of thought I’d have to put into it to match the erudition of its most obsessive fans But here’s what struck me about "Serial," as we hit the closing chapter of one of the most unlikely media success stories of our age: It’s particularly shocking because it involves the worst possible crime your average investigation into financial misconduct at a mid-size company The crime is clearly defined (nobody disagrees on the definition of murder or that Hae-Min Lee was murdered) The number of actors is small--even if you cast the widest possible net the number of people involved is fewer than 10 The question of fact is highly limited in scope--can Adnan Syed account for his whereabouts in the two hours from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m And yet even this relatively simple question has produced reams and reams of speculation An extremely active subreddit with people throwing theories counterclaims at each other nearly constantly Long analytical think pieces from very smart people calling other very smart people gullible fools And this is something that happened only 15 years ago Even after an exhaustive investigation that went far deeper than the police did and being self-admittedly “obsessed” with this case Sarah Koenig can’t even construct one consistent timeline for the rest of the day minus those problematic missing two hours much less make a definitive statement of what Syed was doing in those two hours No witness’ story actually aligns with the story told by any other witness The two people at the center of this case--Syed and his accuser Jay--contradict themselves repeatedly when asked to account for the events of that day People have said that we’re so much more connected today that if this murder happened in 2014 rather than in 1999 it’d be solved very quickly Imagine if Hae-Min Lee had a Twitter account and we could read her last few tweets from before she died Imagine if Adnan Syed had had a smartphone with an active GPS that could be tracked Imagine if we could use the MAC address of Adnan’s smartphone to see if it’d automatically logged in to the public library’s Wi-Fi network when Asia McClain said she saw him there When I try to track my own movements for the past few days through my Twitter feed I find that I’m not able to do so because a combination of discretion and laziness means my feed isn’t actually a very accurate reflection of my moment-to-moment activity at all And even if someone were able to pull my GPS data my phone (which admittedly has been through an unusual degree of abuse) as of this morning still somehow thought I was in Manhattan Some fans have criticized the 12th and final episode of "Serial" for anticlimax showing a critical lack of self-awareness in doing so (If Koenig had found miraculous evidence exonerating Syed do you think Syed would’ve patiently waited in prison for Koenig to finish her podcast?) Koenig would be coming under tons of fire for cheating the audience--for not even having an ambiguous ending that hinges on a single defining question forcing us to choose between two possible narratives but having no ending at all and no clear narrative of what actually happened regardless of whom you believe And that’s the reality of the world: Stories don’t usually add up Every narrative has inconvenient evidence that appears to contradict it--every single one It’s not that eyewitness testimonies and memories can be “distorted” by bias it’s that every recollection of memory is basically our brains making up stories we tell to ourselves to explain the few scraps of information we actually perceive That’s the lesson of Kurosawa’s "Rashomon," to which "Serial" has often been compared which imitators of the “Rashomon Plot” tend to forget--in real life no omniscient narrator gives you the “real” story afterward It’s that feeling of just not knowing that we as viewers who demand “resolution” in stories As I alluded to up top the extremely uncomfortable thing about "Serial" is hearing people discuss horrible things that happened to real people--a young woman dead, a young man imprisoned, families and communities torn apart--as though they’d been made up by Vince Gilligan or Matthew Weiner for their entertainment. (Hae-Min Lee’s brother admitting in an interview once that I’d known people I was pretty sure were guilty of sexual assault but didn’t report it to the cops So I’m familiar with how much that kind of thing sucks even if on a much smaller level than when it’s a case of murder And I’m troubled by how quickly in this day and age Internet-based scrutiny crosses the line into dangerous intrusive actions in the real world like when a Redditor tracked down Jay and drove by his house--and Koenig ended up doing the same thing (which she admitted was a “dick move”) and confronting Jay without his consent to an interview But you know what’s suckier than all of those things "Serial" should destroy any blind faith you may have held that the U.S nearly everyone who’s watched Koenig’s investigation agrees that it revealed a deeply screwed-up trial with a huge number of improprieties by police and prosecution and a badly botched defense And there’s no particular reason to think this case is unique the outrage machine of social media is a dangerous tiger to ride Tamir Rice--the stories that are now dominating our headlines and our conversations--would likely have gone ignored by a legal system deeply biased in favor of law enforcement and a media that generally doesn’t seem to think of the deaths of young black men as “news.” Look at the other big news story this year that won’t go away prominent celebrities accused of sexual assault and rape and the quickness with which people seize on “inconsistencies” and “contradictions” in the stories of accusers in order to dismiss them where we got the same massive volume of contradicting anecdotes claims and counterclaims in a few days that Koenig generated after a year of reporting The inconvenient thing about murder is it leaves a corpse an obvious glaring piece of evidence that makes it impossible to walk away If not for the “outrage machine,” the legal system would’ve probably kept on doing what it typically does with issues of police brutality, with issues of “he-said-she-said” rape accusations against powerful men and with difficult cases in general--ignoring them the jury got the right answer anyway and Syed is guilty of murdering Lee It may well be that the worst detractors of the Rolling Stone UVA story are right and that no sexual assault of any kind happened to “Jackie” and her account was completely falsified (unlikely as that seems) It’s easy to see why people want “going to the authorities” to be a final why people put so much weight on verdicts obtained in court We want to be able to walk away feeling that the issue has been resolved and the world restored to rights But of course there is no “right answer”--if you take the message of “beyond a reasonable doubt” as it’s meant to be taken you understand that the world is filled with wrongs that can’t and won’t ever be proven in a court of law but still really did happen That when two exes after a breakup both accuse the other one of being the “abusive crazy” one you’ll probably never be able to piece together “the truth” by playing detective on Facebook and Twitter no matter how hard you try That when someone confides in you that they were sexually assaulted by someone they dated but they’ll never be able to prove it to the cops the chances are pretty good that they’re right far darker message than Hollywood usually gives us--even "True Detective" catches the bad guy at the end Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2016 The Associated Press one curiosity lingered as I waited for U.S How this weekly miracle comes out every week — and has done so since 2001 — is a tribute to the folks on this page and the many who came before them I’m glad to contribute a few tricks I’ve learned from 55 years in journalism all over the map "I always wondered if people pictured us banging our heads against the wall for six years it came about more quickly than usual," the GRAMMY-winning frontman said in a new Stereogum profile Today, Vampire Weekend released their highly anticipated fourth studio album It's been six years since the band released their last LP the GRAMMY-winning Modern Vampires Of The City The indie stalwarts have been working up a buzz around FOTB for months, first when they revealed the album's title/eminent release and dropped the first double batch of singles, "Harmony Hall" and "2020" on Jan. 24, and then with a tour announcement Now, in a deep-diving Stereogum profile, Ezra Koenig offers insight into the jubilant ease and complexity of the new release and how collaboration has helped the group expand its creativity and shine <iframe width="620" height="349" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sKDesEcDrcc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> "I always wondered if people pictured us banging our heads against the wall for six years it came about more quickly than usual," Koenig told Stereogum fully embraced his role as the band's frontman "I never felt comfortable calling myself the leader because I felt like that was something that I had to earn I made it clear that I was going to choose the songs It wasn't important for me to write all of the songs because I love writing songs with other people but it was important for me to have that curatorial role." Both Koenig and GRAMMY-winning producer Ariel Rechtshaid who returned after co-producing Modern Vampires with the frontman "The only people involved on the record were involved because it felt organic It's an informal revolving door of the homies and the homegirls." Koenig is evidently the type of artist always striving for growth and expansion to always be covering new territory and pushing their group's creative boundaries As a group with songs like the unabashedly nerdy "Oxford Comma," from their 2008 self-titled debut LP their new material feels lighter and more lyrically accessible but very much in the traditional Vampire Weekend vein of epic storytelling and upbeat sounds "Am I going to be throwing open the dictionary for every song That doesn't feel exciting," Koenig said "A lot of my favorite songs accomplish things I've never accomplished and part of it is the novelty of new artistic challenges." <iframe width="620" height="349" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1egwdCGi_dA" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> He also explained how the duets he shared with Haim one third of the GRAMMY-nominated sister trio of the same name played a key role in this new artistic exploration. "A true duet is people in a shared situation with slightly different perspectives," he said. "That felt like the type of thing I hadn’t done before I think this is the most rigorous I've ever been." emphasized the authentic nature of the collab "I've known Ezra for a couple years now and have always been a fan The first song he showed me was 'Hold You Now' and I loved it immediately He asked if I would sing it with him and the rest kinda just happened naturally." The album title, which Koenig shared had been "in the running three or four years ago," also ended up taking on a deeper meaning when Koenig recently became a father himself, with partner Rashida Jones "Why would a phrase like that be evocative to me you start looking at new themes as you get older. Father Of The Bride is meant to make you think of a wedding I didn't know that I would be a father by the time this album came out… But it's not a crazy coincidence that a major life cycle event would happen to me in the years after I started thinking about what adulthood really was." Father of the Bride is available wherever you get your music (digitally or at your local record store). You can also catch Vampire Weekend on tour, starting with Hangout Fest in Alabama this month X Ambassadors Want To Redefine What It Means To Be A Band The rising singer/songwriter opens up about repping Florida and why his two-part debut marks the start of something bigger Isaiah Falls has been building toward this moment for over a decade — honing his sound and staying grounded in his Southern roots After making waves with his 2024 debut EP Drugs N' Lullabies the Florida-born singer/songwriter is stepping into the spotlight with LVRS Paradise a two-part debut album that blends slow-burning intimacy LVRS Paradise (Side A), released May 2, expands on the breezy R&B that earned Falls over 23 million Spotify streams with his 2024 breakout hit "FLORIDA BABY." The lead single bass-heavy collaboration with fellow rising R&B star Joyce Wrice — continues that momentum and has quickly become a fan favorite But it's Side B — arriving later this year — where he says the vision truly deepens. "It's more smooth, kind of like red wine," Falls tells GRAMMY.com. "There's a lot more Southern influence, like OutKast Side B is gonna fill a pocket that R&B doesn't have right now." From confident declarations ("Money for your problems spend it on a bad day") to hungry ambition ("They gon' say the money changed me Falls' lyrical world is built on growth "You may not be good at love," he says "but if you're at least looking for it Falls spoke with GRAMMY.com about the project's inspiration and why he's manifesting big things for 2026 This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity What tracks off LVRS Paradise do you think best showcase your artistic growth between Drugs N' Lullabies and now Songs like "TRICK DADDY," "A FLORIDA LUV STORY," "GORGEOUS," and "TAKE A HIT" have sounds that push the boundaries "TRICK DADDY" is definitely very familiar to a lot of people "TAKE A HIT" is my take on OutKast "A FLORIDA LUV STORY" is kind of picking up the tempo of Drugs N' Lullabies With "A FLORIDA LUV STORY," we wanted that same feeling but we wanted to pick up the tempo and get people dancing I wanna feed the fans that like the B sides I wanna cultivate a fan base that's here to experience more than just one sound The biggest critique for Drugs N' Lullabies is that the songs weren't long enough so I was expecting longer songs off LVRS Paradise Another complaint over the past year was that I wasn't giving my fans enough music I wanted to spread it out and make sure they get new music every couple of months from me But it's both art and business when it comes to keeping the songs between two and three minutes Most people don't even listen to the whole song It's like 15 seconds on TikTok or social media two minutes is longer than what most of y'all listen to my thing is that I don't have the fanbase that's willing to listen to six minutes of one song yet I don't wanna bore them; I'd rather leave them wanting more I see myself doing longer songs with transitions I'm also inspired by all types of sounds so there will always be an element of that there'll be R&B melodies 100 percent Your breakout single "FLORIDA BABY" was an ode to where you grew up and I love that you're still repping your state on LVRS Paradise with "A FLORIDA LUV STORY." Why is that so important for you All my favorite artists, we always know where they were from. Kendrick [Lamar] always wore Compton on his back; he reps LA to the max. Same with Drake; we knew The 6 was his place I always knew that where I'm from is going to be part of my sound I think it's important to wear Florida on my sleeve when I'm making music Regional R&B and representing where you're from is kind of a lost art but I think everywhere else kind of lost its way Most artists nowadays kind of adopt other people's sounds but I think there are elements you can bring from your roots into your music that help tell your story more You said in an interview that "everybody's too cool to love" and how you want to bring love back in a cool way Let me just say that I don't think there is anyone that's not toxic out there Everybody has their trials and tribulations when it comes to love But I think what's cool about it is trying over and over again to really find that one and to know what you're looking for I don't want anyone to think that I am perfect and great at love because I've had my own issues as well but I love to just preach that we're here trying Being a little messy is part of the growing process of understanding what love is then you don't know what you're looking for Some artists are known for making their best music when they're sad or depressed but it sounds like you're someone who's more inspired by love Lauryn Hill and Miguel touched on wanting love the proper way but they also touched on the aspect of where they couldn't find it and had their issues I am heavily inspired by love and the actions of love When I feel that sense of love and the things that come with it Both of your parents have A&R experience have they given you about the business side of the music industry They preached to me to keep my day ones alongside me You have nothing necessarily to give to them at this moment so do whatever you can to take care of them Anyone that believed in me prior to "FLORIDA BABY," they're still with me today When you link up with producers and musicians outside of your crew Me and my guys are super open to collaboration We just like to go over everything together after it's done It's like a filtering system because they know my sound to a tee It's fun to hear other people's take on my sound they make suggestions and it always comes out exactly how I like it Before I had any of the motion that I have now [Luxury Lane] was guiding me and teaching me how to produce and even song structure You've said that you listen to more rap than R&B which struck me as interesting because R&B music is at the core of your sound There are certain seasons when I listen to a lot of R&B I went to a Cleo Soul concert recently and I have not stopped spinning her music since But one of the big reasons why I listen to rap more is because I just don't want to be influenced I remember melodies more than I remember lyrics I always looked up to artists [who push] their voice to do different things The way Kendrick utilizes his voice to sound like different characters Do you mind speaking to the "R&B is dead" trope R&B was getting drowned out by hip-hop and electronic pop it's being reimagined and people are seeing that it's very much alive I don't think it's necessarily dead I just don't think it's as popularized as other genres There was always incredible talent out there making incredible music things are very quick and R&B is typically slow and it takes time You need like 30 seconds to really get through a verse with R&B but one thing about R&B is that it's timeless You embarked on your first headlining tour in 2024 What was it like taking your music on the road and connecting with the people who enjoy your music and seeing their faces and reactions in real time I didn't realize the fan base I cultivated with Drugs N' Lullabies until I really got to meet my fans The energy in the room was just so genuine I think the LVRS ONLY Tour cemented my fan base and what we're standing for in this world Music isn't always looked at as something to help people I want people to resonate with it and feel like they're seen in their day-to-day lives I just want to create a safe space for them to escape from the world for even a moment I make all styles of music and with my fan base I realized they're real lovers of music that don't just love one style [of] music you didn't just come for 'FLORIDA BABY,' you came for everything You mentioned having 400-plus songs on your hard drive How do you sift through all of that material and then decide which tracks should be released I listen to my own music a lot and I go back and I ask myself this is a good contender for music to drop Is this a timeless song or just a fast food record You have to make records where you're trying shit and there has to be songs where you're really you put it out there that you're already manifesting a GRAMMY win in 2026 Everything that I wanted to happen in 2024 winning a GRAMMY is one of those accomplishments that helps the world understand your status The world doesn't value you until everyone else does Great art needs to be recognized and I think I present great art to the world so I'm hoping for the world to start catching on as we go All an artist ever wants is for their art to be seen A GRAMMY is something that helps people pay attention I know I have a lot more to offer over in the coming years when it comes to pushing my sound I would love for as many people as possible to hear and see that Key Glock On Channeling 2Pac With 'Glockaveli' & How The New Album Marks A "Rebranding" 6 Tips For Financial Literacy In Music From The Black Women's Brilliance Brunch Eric Church Reveals His 6 Most Important Songs Isaiah Falls Brings Southern Swagger To R&B With His Debut Album ‘LVRS Paradise’ Photos: iMBC/Imazins via Getty Images; Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images; 2010finalsGame7; Randee St Nicholas; Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images; David Giraldo; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy March's album releases include Alison Krauss & Union Station CocoRosie among many other outstanding women artists women in music continue to astound us with their unique creativity and singular releases Right on the first Friday of the month, Lady Gaga makes her long-awaited return with MAYHEM while BLACKPINK K-pop star JENNIE shines solo on her debut LP Caylee Hammack will release her album and companion book and rising singer Mackenzie Carpenter will drop Hey Country Queen K-pop enthusiasts have even more to be excited about, with fresh releases from ITZY’s Yeji, LE SSERAFIM, and Red Velvet’s Seulgi. For those craving global and experimental sounds, CocoRosie and Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek promise mesmerizing sonic journeys. To close out the month, Alison Krauss & Union Station make a triumphant return with Arcadia GRAMMY.com compiled a handy list with 15 must-hear albums arriving in March 2025 Who better to launch Women’s History Month than pop’s Mother Monster After focusing on her acting career for the past few years Lady Gaga is finally coming back to music with her long-awaited seventh LP "The album started as me facing my fear of returning to the pop music my earliest fans loved," said Gaga in a press release She described the creative process as "reassembling a shattered mirror: even if you can’t put the pieces back together perfectly you can create something beautiful and whole in its own new way." MAYHEM is not just a nostalgic lap across her anthemic discography but a 14-track "kaleidoscopic" reinvention that blends old and new perspectives A taste of this new era for the singer can be seen through her three pre-releases so far: the sleek industrious smash "Disease," the chart-topping hit "Die With a Smile" featuring Bruno Mars and "Abracadabra," a dark dancefloor anthem like only Gaga can deliver it’s time for BLACKPINK’s JENNIE to finally drop her debut studio album This is her first release after leaving YG Entertainment and Interscope Records in 2023 and founding her own label The 15-track collection is stacked with A-list features, from Childish Gambino and Dua Lipa to Doechii and Dominic Fike — the last two participating in previous singles "ExtraL" and "Love Hangover," respectively 2024’s hit "Mantra" and January’s "Zen," Ruby is living up to the promise of being a "sonic experience" that explores a sundry of genres and posits JENNIE as a "global force," per a press release The South Korean singer will perform a string of intimate shows in commemoration of the release The Ruby Experience kicks off in Los Angeles on March 6 and 7 JENNIE will also make her solo debut at Coachella festival in April Georgia native Caylee Hammack is bridging music and storytelling with her upcoming country album Bed of Roses released alongside a companion novel that details the backstories of heartbreak ballads and love songs on the album the book was co-written with New York Times bestseller Carolyn Brown and each of its chapters relate to one of the album’s 13 tracks "I was a child who grew up on paperback romances stolen from my aunt’s bookshelves I envisioned each song on this album as a book initially so writing one to pair with this project felt like a natural move," said Hammack in a press release following her 2020 debut If It Wasn’t For You Through the album’s title track and recent single "How Long," the singer conveys soul and red-dirt rock melodies into captivating tales Rising country star Mackenzie Carpenter will start off the month with her anticipated debut LP "This album has been a long time coming and I’m so excited to finally share these songs with you and now it’s time to set them free," she shared Carpenter "gives fans a deeper view of her multidimensional talents while paying homage to the beloved Country Queens that paved the way for her." The record captures themes of girlhood and love — like the single "Dozen Red Flags," a flirty cheeky track about falling for the wrong guy a lot of lessons and a fun debrief with your girls," she added The album arrives after an exciting 2024 for Carpenter She released catchy hits "Sound Of A Heartbreak," "Only Girl," and "Boots On" — all of which are included in the new album — and has since poised herself as one of 2025’s most promising artists ASTROPICAL is exactly what it sounds like: a mixture of astrology with tropical sounds. Formed by Colombian duo Bomba Estéreo (Li Saumet and José Castillo) along with Beto Montenegro and Andrés 'Fofo’ Story of Venezuelan band Rawayana the supergroup is set to release their namesake debut album on March 7 Each of the 12 songs in the LP is associated with an astrological sign — a subject that brought the two acts together when they first decided to collaborate "Astrology has always been present in Latin American culture," said Beto Montenegro in a statement "Since we were recording in the Colombian tropics ASTROPICAL sounded like the perfect name." Saumet added that the release embodies an energy that needed to materialize "This is a very important time on a political "We need melodies and lyrics such as these ones as a way of shepherding the moment." in March ASTROPICAL will play at the Vive Latino festival in Mexico City and Estéreo Picnic festival in Bogotá GRAMMY-nominated artist and producer TOKiMONSTA (born Jennifer Lee) went through a hard time last year, pausing all of her work to care for her best friend before her passing. Hence, Eternal Reverie evolved from personal project to loving tribute Coming out on March 7, the LP can be previewed through a handful of singles: the vibrant "Switch It" featuring Cakes da Killa, the samba-driven "Corazon / Death By Disco Pt. 2," "On Sum" with Anderson .Paak and Rae Khalil "For You," featuring Kaelin Ellis These songs hint at an album that is both self-reflecting and widely relatable weaving personal themes with universal feelings Lee will kick off a North American tour starting May 3 in Bentonville before closing it off on June 21 in Chicago Read More: TOKiMONSTA On Grief & Good Music: How Eternal Reverie Pays Homage To Everlasting Friendship Yeji, leader of K-pop girl group ITZY will add another exciting role to her portfolio: her first solo album "Yeji has firmly established herself as a 'performance queen' — we encourage fans to witness the unique charm she will bring as a solo artist," her label The four-track album is said to highlight her passion for dancing and singing which she has often referred to as being as essential as air for her the quintet has steadily grown in worldwide popularity becoming one of JYP’s leading acts and one of the industry’s most energetic performers as Yeji will be the first member to venture on a solo career — giving fans deeper insight into her artistry and individual skills Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek are a self-described "outernational" quartet blending global influences into their sound Turkish-rooted singer and bağlama player Derya Yıldırım the band features South African drummer Helen Wells alongside French musicians Graham Mushnik (keys) and Antonin Voyant (guitar/bass) From this simmering pot of influences comes the band’s upcoming album which translates to "If There Is No Tomorrow," reflects the album’s central themes of "deeply personal pain and collective resistance" all while longing for change including single "Hop Bico." Other previously shared singles include "Cool Hand," "Yakamoz," "Direne Direne," and "Ceylan" hinting at some of the band’s purest music to date Yarın Yoksa blends Anatolian music with psychedelic soul and hypnotic rock rhythms creating a fresh and forward-thinking sound Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek will embark on a Europe and U.K Following 2021’s GRAMMY-nominated Jubilee, indie pop darlings Japanese Breakfast will release their fourth studio album For Mеlancholy Brunettes (& sad women) For Melancholy Brunettes is the band’s first album recorded in a professional studio, and counted with co-production by Blake Mills (Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple) it was inspired by "the plight of Icarus and other such condemned ones" where characters are taken through "cycles of temptation the album marks a return to the band’s gloomier as can be seen in singles "Mega Circuit" and "Orlando in Love." Frontwoman Michelle Zauner added "I felt seduced by getting what I always wanted and I realized if I kept going I was going to die." The release will be celebrated with a North America and Europe tour kicking off at Coachella Music and Arts Festival in mid-April Newly-engaged couple Selena Gomez and benny blanco announced their first collaborative project just in time for Valentine’s Day — the studio album I Said I Love You First I Said I Love You First is a celebration of the love between Gomez and blanco giving fans "a unique window into their relationship." The album naturally emerged as a consequence of the creative comfort they felt while working together and narrates their entire story — before they met CocoRosie have been at the forefront of daring music for two decades and 2025 begins with yet another iteration of their unrestrained creativity The album aims to unearth the generational struggles of women weaving a surreal tapestry of forgotten pop culture fragments and reframing them through CocoRosie’s singular lens and discarded relics into something sacred — breathing new life into kitsch and cliché to uncover deeper truths CocoRosie kicked off the new era last year with the release of "Least I Have You," a joyful celebration of sisterhood They followed up with "Cut Stitch Scar" and "Yesterday," along with a European summer tour announcement and CocoRosie’s Jubilation Ball a live hybrid-mini set scheduled to happen on the day of release at Xanadu Roller Arts in New York Following indie trio Boygenius’ breakout success in 2023 Lucy Dacus is turning her focus back to her solo work in 2025 Her highly anticipated fourth studio album "I got kicked in the head with emotions," Dacus said in the press announcement about her creative process for this release falling out of love… You have to destroy things in order to create things I don’t know how much time I’ve spent in forever Dacus debuted several of the new tracks during her intimate "An Evening With Lucy Dacus" shows in February along with singles "Ankles" and "Limerence." Starting April she will kick off a 21-date tour in North America March will also bring forth much-anticipated comebacks The Nashville band will release their first new album in 14 years Comprising ten songs that "transcend time and reaffirm why the group remains one of the most influential widely celebrated acts of the past four decades," according to a press release It's an expansion of the "immaculately crafted endlessly surprising sound that Alison Krauss & Union Station are known and loved for." Krauss added: "The stories of the past are told in this music It's that whole idea of 'in the good old days when times were bad.' There's so much bravery and valor and loyalty and dreaming of family and themes of human existence that were told in a certain way when our grandparents were alive." The band will also get back on the road with a lengthy, 75-date tour across North America featuring Jerry Douglas the Arcadia 2025 Tour will only wrap up on Sep Following up her critically-acclaimed 2021 debut British experimental artist aya will return with her second album via Hyperdub The record will be available in digital formats and vinyl on March 28 and blends a variety of inspirations — from SOPHIE to Slipknot hexed! is "about what happens when aya turns the lights on," per a press release. It confronts "the desperation and dysfunction of addiction," and unveils "internalised phobias and suppressed traumas." aya also shared on instagram that "this has been a very very hard record to make Listeners can get a preview of the 10-track new album through its first single "off to the ESSO" — a disarming journey through distorted claustrophobic beats and accelerated rap lines Little Dragon’s vocalist and co-founder Yukimi is gearing up to release her first solo album "I want this music to really be a force to connect people to each other and step away from the madness of everything on the planet right now," said the Swedish singer in a press release "I’m excited about embarking on that journey on my own — the expression really feels pure." Titled For You, the LP intertwines jazz, soul, and electronic pop with hip hop, roots, and psychedelia, and the lyrics "dig deeper than ever" across themes of love, loss, resilience, and feminine energy. To introduce the project, Yukimi released her debut single "Break Me Down" last year, co-written with Erik Bodin and Lianne La Havas The collaboration was Yukimi’s first time writing and creating music with another woman "allowing her to fully express her feminine energy in an unguarded and personal manner." Yukimi will celebrate the release of For You with a North American tour Steve Cropper reflects on his decades-long career his 2025 GRAMMY nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album and the enduring influence of Stax Records The 2025 GRAMMYs, officially known as the 67th GRAMMY Awards, will air live on CBS and Paramount+ on Sunday, Feb. 2. Watch highlights from the 2025 GRAMMYs on live.GRAMMY.com The 2025 GRAMMYs telecast will be reimagined to raise funds to support wildfire relief efforts and aid music professionals impacted by the wildfires in Los Angeles. Donate to the Recording Academy's and MusiCares' Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort To Support Music Professionals Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted before the onset of the wildfires in Los Angeles Steve Cropper is still "selling energy" — putting forth what a younger generation might call blues rock "vibes" with his pals as if it were still 1970 Cropper co-wrote Redding's "(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay." Steve Cropper has stayed true to himself for over seven decades thanks in no small part to advice from Stax founder Jim Stewart 'Just play yourself and if they don't like it they'll tell you,'" Cropper tells GRAMMY.com "So I've been playing myself all my life and it's worked out "Steve's guitar playing on the song 'Hurry Up Sundown' is probably some of his best solo work and rhythm work," Tiven says "It's amazing that at this point in his career he could still be creating some of the greatest music of his life I think that's a wonderful testament to the strength of his talent." There was very little methodical music-making behind Friendlytown which partially grew out of sessions Cropper put together for his 2021 album Fire It Up "This record was just about a bunch of guys getting together and having some fun Let's have a blast and try to make the party come to the record rather than the record come to the party," Tiven notes Cropper and Tiven had been working on songs for years with the hopes of finding friendly musicians to give them life the duo sat on instrumentals for years — until Tiven ran into Billy Gibbons at Trader Joe's When Tiven told the sharp-dressed man he was making a record with Steve Cropper "He just lit up like a firecracker and said he'd like to bring us a song it's only going on the record unless you play on it.' And he said Gibbons ended up on 11 tracks; Friendlytown marks the first time he and Cropper worked together in many years The ZZ Top vocalist's influence is audible on the album particularly the title track and Eliminator-esque "Lay It On Down." While casual may be the name of Cropper's game these days, "it definitely wasn't 35, 40 years ago," he says. Back then (and largely before, as Cropper left the label in 1970), making music was "was very serious, and I don't even think the guys had a good time." With a laugh, Cropper recalls his best friend, the Stax bassist/MG Duck Dunn pining for a world in which "Jim Stewart would've only smiled every now and then."   While Cropper calls Stewart "the greatest guy I've ever met," the label head was known to be critical it wasn't worth nothing," Cropper says A songwriter could tell me how good a song they wrote is I'm sure I've thrown away some good ones before."  Read more: 1968: A Year Of Change For The World, Memphis & Stax Records A young Cropper put up a couple of fights, and for good reason. He recalls stumping for Wilson Pickett's "Ninety-nine and a half": [Jim Stewart said] "You boys was out there woodsheddin’ That song ain't going to make it." Cropper pressed it The track made the cut for Pickett's 1966 album The Exciting Wilson Pickett Another big Stax hit stayed on the shelf for nine months while Cropper and co. battled it out with Stax brass. "Finally Al Bell went to Jim and said It's called ‘Knock on Wood.' And Jim says but you got to use your own money,'" Cropper says "He hated that record until it was a hit." Reflecting on the hardest song he's ever played Cropper quickly points to Sam and Dave's "Soul Man." But the 1967 smash isn't difficult for the reasons you might think: the guitarist had to balance a Zippo lighter on his leg during sessions and performances which he used to mimic the song's opening horn line "I always had to dance [when recording] with Sam and Dave A lot of guitar players don't know that I played with a Zippo lighter and I'd slide it," he recalls Cropper reportedly hated the sound and feel of new guitar strings — something is no longer the case in old age — and in a lip-smacking good tidbit of studio lore "I carry a thing of ChapStick all the time and I would go up and down the strings; [that would] take about three months out of the string so it would sound like the rest of them." After decades in the business, it seems as if Cropper – though ever a professional – doesn't take himself or the creative process too seriously. He jokingly shares a reccolation from a studio session during his Stax years: Once the session was finished, Cropper told the group "Damn, this sounds like a hit." "And Al Jackson said they're all hits until they're released.' He's probably right." One of Stax's reliable hitmakers was a close friend of Cropper's: Otis Redding The two shared a deep musical bond and some shared history Both musicians grew up on farms ("By the time I was 14 I was gone in my mind," Cropper notes) yet the guitarist describes Redding as "most streetwise person that I ever met Redding played guitar with one finger and you "never argued with Otis" — especially because he was never available for sessions for more than a day or two "I remember we cut 'I Can't Turn You Loose' in 10 minutes," Cropper says we had everybody come back at 1 [a.m.] -- after they did their gig and they went home and had their shower – so we could cut it." Cropper knew that  "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" — arguably Redding's biggest hit and Cropper's first GRAMMY win —  was a hit Because we had Otis the longest I'd had him; for two weeks." The gentle lull of "Sittin'" was a radical departure from Redding's Southern soul bombast and perhaps a sign of what was to come if the singer hadn't died tragically in a plane crash We call it crossover music; so it could go either way: That was the first one we ever had," Cropper says Steve Cropper is still going strong at 83 years old. He reports that he enjoyed HBO's recent Stax Records docuseries, and has an unfinished instrumentals album in the can. He hasn't time for regrets, only dreams, but the name of the one person Cropper wishes he had worked with fires off like lightning: Tina Tuner it didn't matter how it was she's yelling and screaming," he says Tina Turner's loudest albums still have melody and something "people will walk away humming" — the very thing Cropper loved about  Stax records rather than the music," Cropper says of his work with the MGs We just cared about melody and what's in the simplicity of the song." 2025 GRAMMYs: See The Full Winners & Nominees List Watch Performances & Highlights From The 2025 GRAMMYs On Live.GRAMMY.com 2025 GRAMMYs: Beyoncé Wins First Album Of The Year Award For 'COWBOY CARTER' Kendrick Lamar Sweeps The 2025 GRAMMYs With Song Of The Year Win 2025 GRAMMYs: Chappell Roan Wins Best New Artist Sabrina Carpenter Celebrates Her 2025 GRAMMYs Wins With A Performance of "Espresso" & "Please Please Please" 2025 GRAMMYs: The Weeknd Makes Triumphant Return To GRAMMY Stage 2025 GRAMMYs: Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars Perform "California Dreamin'" 2025 GRAMMYs: Chappell Roan Sings "Pink Pony Club" In Colorful Charli XCX Brings 'Brat' To The 2025 GRAMMYs With A Performance Of "Von Dutch" & "Guess" 2025 GRAMMYs: Kendrick Lamar Dedicates Record Of The Year Win To Los Angeles 2025 GRAMMYs: Shakira Performs A Belly Dance-Filled Medley Of "Ojos Asi" & "Bzrp Sessions" 2025 GRAMMYs: Best New Artist Nominees Doechii Benson Boone & More Showcase Their Remarkable Talent Beyoncé Becomes First Black Woman To Win GRAMMY For Best Country Album With 'COWBOY CARTER' Watch Coldplay's Chris Martin With Grace Bowers Perform "All My Love" In A Moving In Memoriam Tribute | 2025 GRAMMYs Performance 2025 GRAMMYs In Memoriam: Recording Academy Remembers The Music People We've Lost 2025 GRAMMYs: Alicia Keys Delivers A Powerful Call To Action After Receiving Dr 2025 GRAMMYs: Quincy Jones Honored With Star-Studded Tribute Featuring Stevie Wonder Watch Doechii Win Best Rap Album For Alligator Bites Never Heal | 2025 GRAMMYs Acceptance Speech Watch Shakira Win Best Latin Pop Album For 'Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran' | 2025 GRAMMYs Acceptance Speech Watch SZA Talk About Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show "Saturn" Winning Best R&B Song & Silent Retreat Lessons | 2025 GRAMMYs Backstage Interview Watch The GRAMMYs Pay Tribute To First Responders & Hear The From The LAFD Fire Chief | 2025 GRAMMYs Acceptance Speech This playlist of outside-the-box Christmas songs is filled with fresh aural holiday cheer Editor's Note: This article was updated with a new photo and YouTube videos on Dec you can never go wrong with the tried-and-true classics or any new version of a festive favorite?Even so it's always good to get out of one's comfort zone unwrap these 12 outside-the-box Christmas songs spanning rock to rap and featuring everything from refreshing spins on the familiar to unexpected holiday thrills Read More: New Christmas Songs For 2024: Listen To 50 Tracks From Pentatonix, Ed Sheeran, LISA & More This firsthand account of spending the most joyous holiday locked up and separated from the one you love offers a different kind of longing than the average lonesome Christmas tune. In signature John Prine style "Christmas In Prison" contains plenty of romantic wit ("I dream of her always even when I don't dream) and comedic hyperbole ("Her heart is as big as this whole goddamn jail") "Christmas In Prison" appeared on Prine's third album and again as a live version on his 1994 album which makes for perfect further off-beat holiday exploration When it comes to gloriously tasty six-string instrumentals, no one does it better than GRAMMY-winning Texan Eric Johnson. For his take on this timeless Christmas carol, the "Cliffs Of Dover" guitarist intermingles acoustic-based lines, sublime clean guitar passages and Hendrix-y double-stops with his trademark creamy violin-like Strat lines The result is a sonic equivalent on par with the majesty of the Rockefeller Christmas tree (For more dazzling holiday guitar tomfoolery Who doesn't want a large semiaquatic mammal for the holidays For then-10-year-old child star Gayla Peevey not only did she score with the catchy tune rocketed up the pop charts and led to a fundraising campaign to buy Peevey an actual hippo for Christmas and the Oklahoma City native got her hippo which she donated to the Oklahoma City Zoo The song itself features plodding brass instrumentals and unforgettable lyrics such as, "Mom says a hippo would eat me up but then/ Teacher says a hippo is a vegetarian." It seems Peevey still has a fond legacy with the hippo activist community — she was on hand in 2017 when the Oklahoma City Zoo acquired a pygmy hippopotamus Try getting into the holiday spirit by way of meditating on the true meaning of the season with this brash uptempo Southern California crust punk tune Now the best-known song from the Vandals' 1996 Christmas album of the same name, "Oi To The World!" remained a relatively obscure track by the Huntington Beach punkers until it was covered by a rising pop/ska crossover band from nearby Anaheim, Calif., in 1997. (Perhaps you have heard of them — they were called No Doubt.) Ever since the song has been a mainstay of the Vandals' live sets and they have also played the album Oi To The World in its entirety every year since its release at their annual Winter Formal show in Anaheim Though it's best known from OutKast's 1994 debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, the Christmas version of the track "Player's Ball" was released earlier on A LaFace Family Christmas, an L.A. Reid-led project to introduce new acts The then-young Atlanta rapper duo took a Southern hip-hop spin on the season which can come across as a little irreverent but at least they're honest: "Ain't no chimneys in the ghetto so I won't be hangin' my socks on no chimneys." Though some people may not find it cheerful OutKast's season's greetings give "a little somethin' for the players out there hustlin'." You'd be hard-pressed to find a more heartbreaking Christmas story than this Tom Waits' masterpiece from 1978's Blue Valentine I'm pregnant and living on 9th Street," begins the Christmas card narrative in which a woman writes to an old flame reporting how much better things are going since she quit drugs and alcohol and found a trombone-playing husband Waits' signature early career piano-plinking and tall-tale-storytelling weaves through a dream world of hair grease and used car lots even sneaking in a Little Anthony And The Imperials reference our narrator comes clean with the sobering lyric he don't play the trombone" before pleading "I need to borrow money to pay this lawyer and Charlie hey I'll be eligible for parole come Valentine's Day." For the uninitiated this is the off-beat genius of GRAMMY winner Waits at his finest Though they took some lumps in their '80s hair-metal heyday, few would dare deny Winger's talent and musicianship. Surely on display here, frontman Kip Winger (a GRAMMY-nominated classical musician) and his bandmates begin with a traditional unplugged reading of the Franz Xaver Gruber-penned holiday chestnut But then it gets really interesting: the boys get "funky" with an inside-out musical pivot that fuses percussive rhythmic accents and some choice bluesy soloing (and high-pitched vocal responses) courtesy of lead guitarist Reb Beach With lyrics that include "I know I should have thought twice before I kissed her" in the opening, you know you're in for a sleigh ride like none other. It's therefore no surprise that Cyndi Lauper and Swedish rock band the Hives' unconventional Christmas duel describes many marital hiccups that might make some blush "It's also an absolute riot." Leave it to LCD Soundsystem's producer/frontman James Murphy to pen a holiday song about the depressing side of the season "If your world is feeling small/ There's no one on the phone/ You feel close enough to call," he sings tapping into that seasonal weirdness that can creep up especially as everything around you is incessant smiles While he doesn't shy away from examining the depressing side of surviving the holiday season as an aging 20- Murphy does at least give a glimmer of hope to grab onto "But I'm still coming home to you." As Snoop Dogg declares "It's Christmas time and my rhyme's steady bumpin'." This track from the 1996 album Christmas On Death Row lets you know why "Santa Claus Goes Straight To The Ghetto." Church food and happiness stand out as Christmas is "time to get together and give all you got; you got food good moods and what's better than together with your people." Love in the hard hood might have to watch itself but the various artists of Death Row contagiously testify to abundant love and seasonal joy This unusual combination makes A Twisted Christmas the perfect soundtrack for any child of the '80s still hoping to tick off the neighbors this holiday season the track celebrates Bay Area culture with its infectious energy and hometown pride With its dynamic lineup and energetic vibe "Players Holiday '25" is a love letter to the region's sound and legacy that bridges hip-hop and basketball culture This article features contributions from Nate Hertweck RECORDING ACADEMY MEMBERSHIP ADVOCACY MUSICARES LATIN GRAMMYS GRAMMY MUSEUM Some of the content on this site expresses viewpoints and opinions that are not those of the Recording Academy and its Affiliates Responsibility for the accuracy of information provided in stories not written by or specifically prepared for the Academy and its Affiliates lies with the story's original source or writer Content on this site does not reflect an endorsement or recommendation of any artist or music by the Recording Academy and its Affiliates He was as upwardly mobile as the Enterprise itself Walter Koenig joined Star Trek in 1967 as Pavel Andreievich Chekov an eager young ensign who would occasionally replace Mr Chekov was tactical officer and chief of security and even rose to the rank of commander in chief of Starfleet in a later Trek novel written by William Shatner But while the character’s ascent is well documented his arrival during Trek’s second season is shrouded in legend and more than a few goofy rumors Was Chekov really added to the show because the U.S.S.R had complained there were no Soviets in Starfleet Was Koenig so poorly treated on the set that he was forced to share a script with George Takei And what’s the real deal with Chekov’s mop-top hairdo We sat down for a chat with the delightful 79-year-old Koenig to get the facts RELATED: Star Trek Convention Beams Into NYC With The Voyage Home Staged Reading, Cast Reunions and Shatner RELATED: CBS’ Star Trek Reboot Recruits Gene Roddenberry’s Son and Trevor Roth RELATED: Leonard Nimoy’s Son Adam on Making For the Love of Spock a Reality Sign Up Despite that context, a small community of detractors is subjecting Serial to a scathing critique framed in the language of social justice. Its narrator and producer stands accused of exemplifying white privilege, stereotyping Asian Americans and Muslims, racism against blacks, and making "people of color" cringe. We'll get to the examples marshaled to support those critiques in a moment. Journalism requires its practitioners to delve into unfamiliar subjects Mistakes happen often and can be difficult for the reporter or audience to discern "You got that country wrong," or "you misjudged that church," or "you don't understand how such companies work," or "that's not how it is in that political faction," or "you fell into stereotypes when writing about that ethnic community" should never be dismissed The best course is to reflect on the critique with as open a mind as possible there is at least something to be learned from the critic The second reason to address these critiques is that the show's reception among those invested in social justice will help determine whether other experiments like it are attempted Should more journalism like Serial receive funding or enjoy the moral and financial support of podcast listeners in the future or is there something "problematic," cringeworthy or even racist about this kind of journalism The stigma attached to those characterizations could cause producers or reporters to shy away from similar projects As a longtime fan of This American Life and especially of Koenig's past work Avid listeners couldn't help learning civically valuable details about the criminal-justice system And I detected nothing objectionable about the podcast with respect to white privilege I did reflect on the ethical implications of publicly reinvestigating a murder case in a way that would likely force the family of the victim to relive it But I concluded that the nontrivial chance of a wrongful conviction made renewed inquiry a moral imperative (if not for this podcast then for someone) I've found much of his writing on race in America to offer uncommon nuance and insight is a Korean-American daughter of immigrants is the son of Muslim immigrants from Pakistan If Serial were a newspaper story or even a traditional magazine feature the identities of all three could exist alone as facts; the reader could decide how much weight to place upon them But Serial is an experiment in two old forms: the weekly radio crime show wherein the journalist plays the role of the protagonist The pretense of objectivity is stripped away: Koenig emerges as the subject as the show’s drama revolves not so much around the crime Koenig "stomps around in a cold case involving people from two distinctly separate immigrant communities," Kang writes arguing that "especially for people of color," she is "talking about our communities getting it wrong." He sees her mistakes as characteristic of "well-intentioned white people" who retain a bankrupt understanding of other cultures despite their best efforts he offers readers two examples from Serial What he characterizes as the more objectionable example occurred in Episode 2 Can you guess what part he regards as a white reporter going into an immigrant community and getting things wrong The other information I have to go on are Hae's own words about their relationship is that it's essentially a chronicle of the Adnan-era of Hae's life And in all those months what she's mostly writing about is Adnan If you had to bookend Adnan and Hae's romance you'd put a dance right at the beginning and then another one right at the end Adnan and his best friend had a little competition going about who could get the prettiest prom date that year On April 27 she wrote a long entry in her diary about prom night I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting her diary to be like She jumps from her boyfriend to driver's ed to the field hockey game He was prom prince and Stephanie was prom princess And traditionally they were supposed to dance together guess who danced with me but not with Stephanie Now how could I not fall in love with this guy by the way—well I’m not exactly sure what I expected her diary to be like but—it’s such a teenage girl's diary." The statement "seems to suggest a colorblind ideal," he says regardless of race or background." But he sees more: I imagine there are many listeners—especially amongst people of color—who pause and ask what did you expect her diary to be like?” or “Why do you feel the need to point out that a Korean teenage girl’s diary is just like a teenage girl’s diary?” and perhaps “Where does your model for ‘such a teenage girl’s diary’ come from?” These are annoying questions not only to those who would prefer to mute the nuances of race and identity for the sake of a clean but also for those of us who have to ask them because Koenig is talking about our communities This is a weak example to illustrate his theory Kang himself presents the ostensibly objectionable passage as ambiguous He doesn't pretend to know what Koenig did mean There's nothing wrong with raising questions about ambiguous passages but doing so doesn't actually support the thesis that a show is getting it wrong "While it's true that Koenig was holding the banality of the diary up against Hae's otherwise unusual life the unusual-ness didn't come from her membership in an immigrant community It came from the fact that she was murdered .. I'd say the author took the quote out of context The aim of that episode is explicit: to explore the nature of the relationship between this girl and the young man given a life sentence for her murder And—whaddaya know!—the journalist has in her hands the girl's diary What could it possibly say about that relationship Messy real life intrudes on the hard-boiled detective novel trope of a case-cracking clue contained in the secret diary." "When I heard Koenig say she was surprised that Hae's diary was *such* a teenage girl diary in my mind I interpreted it along the lines that it's been a long time since Koenig was a teenager herself or since perhaps she interacted deeply with teenage girls and so upon reading Hae's diary she was shocked by how classically twee it was I did not hear any indication in that podcast that Koenig was surprised that Korean girl would have written a diary like Hae's It's probably been a long time since most of us were teenagers and frankly teenagers are idiots most of the time It's always hilariously shocking to get into the mind of one and be reminded what that time was like ..." I agree that those interpretations are more plausible. As Lindsay Beyerstein notes in The New York Observer "There’s nothing in Serial that suggests that Ms Koenig’s mild surprise at Hae’s boy-crazy diary stems from any assumption about what Korean people’s diaries are like It’s a total non sequitur." It is uncharacteristically uncharitable for Kang to assume that Koenig was alluding to having ignorantly otherized Hae on the basis of her racial identity even if Koenig had done a poor job reporting even if her ostensibly prejudicial stereotyping or unfamiliarity with immigrant culture had caused her to bungle this aspect of the story would the best frame for describing that be "white-reporter privilege" Is failing at one's job or harboring ignorant stereotypes about an ethnic group most accurately characterized as an unearned advantage Would a black or Hispanic reporter necessarily be free from stereotyped reactions to a Korean-American or Pakistani family The critiques Kang raises fit more cogently outside the "white privilege" framework If a newspaper editor in Fresno decides that her publication needs to cover the Hmong immigrant community better and fourth-generation Japanese-American reporters to a training session Or should she just send the white reporters because cultural ignorance stems from "white-reporter privilege" All journalists risk getting any subculture other than their own wrong None of this means that the disproportionate whiteness and lack of religious and socioeconomic diversity in most American newsrooms isn't a problem that negatively affects the quality of journalistic output Kang could doubtless produce scores of examples of white reporters getting immigrant communities wrong in broadcast and print media—and that would be a service to journalism White journalists are far from unique in getting things wrong but the demographics of journalism make white reporters the most common offenders And minority communities are least likely to be part of many feedback mechanisms that alert journalists to their mistakes I nevertheless find the social-justice indictment of journalism as practiced by Serial and This American Life to be strangely disconnected from the actual role those shows play in U.S Kang notes that he is disturbed by Sarah Koenig "stomping around communities that she clearly does not understand generally inconsequential details about the people inside of them and subjecting it all to that inimitable This American Life process of tirelessly expressing her neuroses over what she has found." In Episode 502, "Ira tells the story of Meron Estefanos a freelance journalist who in 2011 got a troubling tip: A group of Eritrean hostages was being tortured and held for ransom in the Sinai desert and soon dozens of desperate hostages were begging her for help ... Soon she was talking to the hostages regularly and devoting her life to trying to save them." Episode 498 includes the story of activists from the National Immigrant Youth Alliance "who intentionally got arrested for being undocumented They believed if they could get inside the Broward Transitional Center in Florida they could prevent lots of the immigrants there from being deported." Listeners hear from several of them Episodes 487 and 488 are two exhaustively reported hours on Harper High School in Chicago and how gang violence affects the largely minority students there What broadcast journalism show is telling these stories better How many broadcasters are telling them at all Are these episodes best characterized as exhaustively reported features told with care and empathy or as stomping around communities the journalists don't understand Would journalism or social justice be advanced if This American Life told fewer stories like these to its huge influential audience—or would it be better if other broadcast journalism more resembled This American Life What particular mistakes do these episodes make Are they best noted specifically and constructively or bundled under the vague label "white-privileged cultural tourism," which many of the subjects would dispute Kang says that Serial "lacks the hard-earned and moving reflections on race found in .. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family," which is true But Random Family is a book that took 10 years to report and was partly a reflection on race (It is also one of the best works of narrative nonfiction I've ever read.) Serial is a reflection on a murder case and the criminal-justice system reported over "just" a year it is researched with more effort and depth than 99 percent of journalism produced on any beat in America "Even the best works of journalism produced by white journalists about minority communities .. someone who will stay long enough to write a story and then leave." But wouldn't any professional journalist spending a year in Woodlawn investigating a case that the victim's family doesn't want reopened feel like an interloper who'd write the story and leave Nearly all journalists are interlopers by necessity. (So are police detectives and prosecutors and defense attorneys. That's just the job.) When white journalist Radley Balko's reporting helped spring African American Corey Maye from death row I'm sure Maye didn't mind that Balko didn't stick around Mississippi afterward Reporters should be critiqued when they get something wrong about any community they're covering White reporters covering minority communities should proceed with great care and sensitivity—and scrutiny of their coverage is important But such critiques shouldn't hinge on whether the journalist "feels like" an interloper or was disabused of ignorance in the reporting process or is slightly ambiguous on a peripheral matter that could be interpreted as offensive but the response to mistakes should never be to discourage white reporters from telling important stories Insufficient coverage can mean that murderers are never found that cities are more corrupt than they might be that innocent people stay locked in prison for life without parole that Americans have less empathy for their neighbors and magazines tend to be overwhelmingly white which leaves reporters and writers with a set of equally troubling options," Kang writes "Either ignore stories from communities of color or report them in the same sort of shorthand that Koenig uses throughout Serial." To which I can only say: year-long inquiry into a possible wrongful conviction is not speculative transgressions of tone and interpretation troubling in just the same way as not even covering injustice minimizing the number of times that people cringe should not be elevated to a primary goal American history is filled with people interacting across racial ethnic and religious lines in ways that were fraught There is no other way to live together in a diverse society *For the curious Kang's other example of Serial getting it wrong is no more persuasive Koenig follows up with this statement from Syed: She has supported her statement about immigrant parents with a quote from the source The problem is that Syed never says the word “immigrant.” Instead he says “parameters,” which is about as neutral and clinical of a word as one could come up with in that situation meaning that all we’re left with is Koenig’s inference that those “parameters” necessarily mean “immigrant culture.” In a startling omission the Lee family has not yet appeared in Serial and Koenig’s insistence on directing the reader towards the typical immigrant family who raised the typical American teenager the Lees and the Syeds have been rendered as Tiger Parents—overbearing and out-of-touch The problem isn’t just the leap itself—that we would hear about strict parents and assume they were all similar—but Koenig’s confidence that we will make it with her Kang himself has excised some important facts here Why would we hear about strict parents like Adnan's and Hae's and assume that they were similar Perhaps because in a passage spoken just before the one that Kang quotes "We had a lot of real similar types of situations with our families." We're making the leap with Adnan and the leap isn't that all immigrant families are similar Koenig tried as hard as any reporter could But what I find most confounding about Kang's characterization is the notion that stereotypes drove the portrayal of the Syeds when in the same episode Koenig describes and interviews Adnan's mom as follows: I would pick up the phone and I would—(laughs) he would say mom Adnan's father was a little more loose about it everybody's doing it.' Even my husband would say that the boys are doing it It wasn't like he was about to get kicked out of the house It was more like he was about to get reminded of his responsibilities Then came the homecoming dance in the fall of senior year Adnan and Hae had been together for about seven months by then This dance would become a big deal at trial Proof of just how fraught their whole relationship was And how tormented Adnan was about his double life Adnan's parents got wind that very night that he had taken Hae to homecoming Adnan says this kind of thing happens in their community all the time Someone sees someone's kid at a dance or at the mall and before you can even hide behind a potted plant four aunties are on the phone to a kid's mother Adnan's parents did not wait to deal with it at home They showed up at the dance and chastised him The prosecutors argued that this scene would come to haunt him until the day he killed Hae This is not a portrait based on stereotypes of immigrant parents that notes her particular place of origin and its attitudes toward dating Koenig goes out of her way to mention that the immigrant father had a totally different take on appropriate behavior and was totally in touch with how most American boys were dating a strange distinction to draw if she's supposed to be stereotyping all immigrants but not because Koenig thinks all immigrant parents are overbearing—she's portrayed that way because directed the family's imam to intercede on behalf of conservative dating norms and showed up at Adnan's high-school dance to shame him for attending And these aspects of her parenting are chosen not arbitrarily but because they're exactly the attributes that are relevant to Adnan's case Given the specific "parameters" under which Adnan lived—dating restrictions grounded in the cultural and religious norms found in his mother's country of origin—his comment that Hae lived within "the same parameters" might lead one to suppose that the known strictness of her parents and their known status as immigrants had some connection Koenig makes a small leap without explicitly documenting the ground between rather than treating a minor ambiguity as clear evidence of her "getting it wrong," is that her notion of Hae's "parameters" was not just shaped by one conversation with Adnan Kang writes as if everything turned on how Koenig interpreted that word But she has spoken to Adnan for countless hours No journalist backs up every assertion with a direct quote to support it Why is Koenig's failure to do so on a very minor narrative point taken as evidence of cultural ignorance when the depth and effort of her reporting is so obvious and vetting episodes with veteran colleagues doesn't guarantee against mistakes of the sort Kang discusses but surely it explains why she'd expect to be spared accusations of getting it wrong where Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Vampire Weekend happy to enter post-breakout phaseThe Associated PressAfter a flood of hype we feel like we're a normal band,'' said singer and songwriter Ezra Koenig in an interview before the band's performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival Vampire Weekend's self-titled debut album was released in January but the band has already lived through a year's worth of excitement over its arrival The process of blog chatter and media fawning has become increasingly predictable and while most bands dream of such a reception Vampire Weekend is happy to be done with it formed in 2006 while its four members were students at Columbia University was playing its first festival at Coachella and was happily considering ways to expand shows to suit bigger stages The desert setting of the Southern California festival appeared to fit Vampire Weekend Before launching into "A-Punk,'' Koenig suggested to the crowd: "This song is good to dance to in the desert Their worldly sound is melded with classical inflections a distinct and unabashed preppy fashion sense and lyrics about their Ivy League collegiate experience They've described this blend as "Upper West Side Soweto.'' in the connections between preppiness - whatever that means - and colonialism and the rest of the world and how there are these connections While Africa might appear to have little in common with upper Manhattan Koenig said: "We weren't interested in how different African music and classical music were or how different preppy clothes and Indian patterns were They're now more than a year past their college lives but it's well represented in such songs as "Campus'' and "Oxford Coma.'' The band is now looking elsewhere for lyrical inspiration; Koenig uses the past tense in describing the group's cultural mash-up "The songs on the first album were about a specific time and place And we've now been out of college for a while,'' Koenig said we've had a lot of different experiences and we've been all over the place We haven't just been hanging out in uptown Manhattan.'' "The second album is always the road album.'' Koenig has been writing new material and says the band members have a lot of ideas they're eager to work on once they're done touring Essential digital access to quality FT journalism on any device Complete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders Complete digital access to quality analysis and expert insights complemented with our award-winning Weekend Print edition Terms & Conditions apply Discover all the plans currently available in your country See why over a million readers pay to read the Financial Times Walter Koenig joined the cast of "Star Trek" in 1967 as Ensign Pavel Chekov the feisty Russian upstart who was always quick to point out that a lot of human culture originated in his home country He was often hot-headed and a little brash By the events of the 1982 film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," Chekov had been promoted to the rank of commander and served as the executive officer on board the U.S.S Reliant underneath Captain Clark Terrell (Paul Winfield) Commander Chekov and Captain Terrell were captured by the revenge-bent Khan (Ricardo Montalbán) who forced miniature Ceti eels into their ears The eels burrow into their hosts' brains and make them docile and suggestable forcing Chekov to turn against Starfleet and aiding Khan in his evil schemes Chekov manages to reject the eel and rejoins Kirk on board the U.S.S It seems that Koenig, for the most part, had a very positive experience working on "Star Trek." He appeared in the show's first and second seasons, as well as all six feature films based on the original series. He recently had a voice cameo in the final episode of "Star Trek: Picard," playing a descendant of Pavel Chekov that he had his worst experience while filming "Star Trek II," thanks to the above-mentioned incident That was the only really bad moment that I've had in the whole history of watching 'Star Trek' or being involved in 'Star Trek.' We were getting ready they discovered me and Paul and then we got on the transporter 'Move a little bit this way.' He didn't want me so much in the shot Koenig recalls Shatner's overblown reaction to his joke about the actor's tendency to step into the spotlight It seemed far larger than the joke being made That's neurotic!' And then he did a double take to look at me twice — as if looking at me twice is going to somehow cow me Luckily Koenig was not cowed by the icy stare having come in for the second season of "Star Trek," he seemed to possess a pretty healthy and egalitarian attitude toward working with an ego like Shatner's He understood that he wasn't the star of "Star Trek," and that Shatner and DeForest Kelley were the top-billed actors He said this was true of most TV in the 1960s: Shatner's attitude was reminiscent of the attitude of the times When we did 'Star Trek,' it wasn't a c-a-s-t If you were one of the three stars — and this was not 'Star Trek' alone this was most television series — you got billing at the top of the show But it reflects an attitude [...] Did that bother me a lot William Shatner wasn't behaving any differently than any other TV lead It wouldn't be until 1970s reappraisals that Trek would emerge as an ensemble drama The final episode of Sarah Koenig’s runaway smash hit podcast "Serial" airs tomorrow Here’s a not-so-quick refresher course on the many ups and downs shifting allegiances and nagging questions we’ve been confronted with over the past 11 episodes What’s it about: Sarah establishes the fundamentals of the case and introduces the main players letters from an acquaintance of Adnan’s named Asia McLean who says she saw Adnan in the school library around the time when the prosecution alleges Hae’s murder took place Adnan’s defense attorney never calls Asia to testify Key quotes: “This is a Global-Tel link prepaid call from Adnan Syed an inmate at a Maryland Correctional facility …” “Someone is lying … and I really wanted to find out who.” --Sarah Koenig Nagging questions: Why didn’t Adnan’s defense lawyer call Asia to testify “I just hope that Adnan isn't some sick bastard just trying to manipulate his way out of jail,” Asia writes to Koenig I'm on exactly the same page.” But is he!?! would I be able to remember where I was six weeks ago if somebody questioned me What’s it about: The prosecution alleged that Adnan killed Hae because he was furious about the breakup Using Hae’s diary and testimony from friends Koenig attempts to establish the nature of Hae and Adnan’s relationship at the time New evidence: Hae’s diary and testimony from high school friends and from Adnan’s parents Most people say that Adnan took the breakup pretty well including a girl called Nisha from Silver Spring Key quotes: "No one at the time described Adnan as acting obsessed or menacing in any way Hae never expresses any concerns about Adnan’s post breakup behavior … At this point I’m going to say flat out that I don’t buy the motive for this murder.” -- Koenig “I’m not a detective but I consider this a red flag What I don’t know is is this a teeny tiny red flag like he just got confused and so what Or is this like a great big flapping in the breeze red flag?” -- Koenig on Adnan changing his story about the ride Notable supporting characters: Adnan’s mother Shamim Hae and Adnan’s friends -- including Aisha Pittman Nagging questions: The night before Hae disappeared We also learn a detail that “doesn’t look good for Adnan,” which is that some of their friends recall Adnan asking Hae for a ride even though Adnan claims he didn’t ask her for a ride Adnan told the cops that he was supposed to get a ride with Hae under some potentially shady circumstances New evidence: The Brandy bottle near the body (which proves to be irrelevant … Mr S’s polygraph test (he fails the first one and passes the second) Key quotes: From an unidentified Baltimore man Koenig speaks to: “While you’re digging in Leakin Park to bury your body detectives Bill Ritz and Greg MacGillivary S really just be a random creepy streaker who went to pee in Leakin park coincidentally near Hae’s dead body Detective MacGillivary tells Koenig briefly “beyond question What’s it about: We learn how the case against Adnan began in the form of testimony from Jay and his friend Jenn Pusateri We hear about Jay’s shifting and inconsistent testimony which Koenig feels the police don’t scrutinize enough Key quotes: On Jay and Adnan’s relationship we get this from Koenig: “It’s not like there was some secret feud between Jay and Adnan Neither had bad-mouthed the other or stolen the other's girlfriend it sounds like they didn't even know each other very well.” Jay says Adnan would have called him to help because quote: “I’m the criminal element of Woodlawn.” Koenig on Jay: “He's the biggest mystery of this whole case for me.” - Who made the initial anonymous call to detectives that led them to get Adnan’s cell records - Why did Jenn say she picked them up at Westview mall when Jay said he got dropped off at her house - Why did Jay help Adnan bury the body at such a great risk to himself instead of going to the cops - Why did Adnan give Jay his car and his cellphone What happened to the trip to Patapsco State Park Why did he initially say Adnan only mentioned killing Hae that day then he later said Adnan had started talking about the murder days before - And the biggest one of all: Where did Adnan first show Jay Hae’s body in the trunk Jay says Adnan called at 3:45 to pick him up at Edmonson Avenue he will say that Jay called him to pick him up at Best Buy He says he lied about the location because he figured there were cameras at Best Buy (turns out there were none) and that someone had seen the murder go down and that he was afraid because he was associated What’s it about: This episode deals mainly with the cell tower log and is perhaps the most intricate and technical episode so far Koenig and producer Dana Chivis attempt to re-create the state’s timeline Particularly damning is the two incoming calls to Adnan’s phone at 7:09 and 7:16 that ping a cell tower in Leakin Park It seems highly likely that the cellphone was in Leakin Park at that time Key quotes: This banter between Koenig and Chivis: “Isn’t that sort of tantamount to saying ‘I think Jay’s telling the truth?’” “I’m saying I think the cell phone was in Leakin Park.” I did not show them a location that was true.’” Koenig: “As oxymoronic as it sounds There are parts of Jay’s story that make no sense where it seems like there must have been more going on than he’s saying You can say the same thing about Adnan’s story too.” Dana: “There’s a shrimp sale at the Crab Crib.” Nagging questions: Could Adnan really have gotten from Woodlawn to Best Buy and committed murder by strangulation between 2:15 and 2:36 - What is the deal with the 2:36 call (the “come get me Not only does Adnan have an alibi for that but that call time is based on nobody’s testimony And how did he make the call if there’s no phone booth at Best Buy - How the hell did the jury stay awake through this cellphone part of the trial the state’s timeline matches up with the cell towers after 6:07 p.m The state’s is logistically very problematic and based on site tests that prosecutor Casey Murphy and a cell expert did at the time Jay’s story does not line up with the cellphone calls If he was innocent why was Adnan's cellphone in Leakin Park that night The combo package of the Nisha call and the Leakin Park cell tower do not look so good What’s it about: Koenig investigates everything else that looks bad for Adnan New evidence: The letter from Hae that Adnan and Aisha were writing notes on - A guy named Dave tells the cops that a “neighbor boy” told his daughter he had seen the body of an Asian girl in a car trunk who says the neighbor boy said the friend who showed him the body was named Adnan But later she speaks to the neighbor boy and he denies the whole story and says he has never seen a dead body - Cathy’s testimony that Adnan was acting very suspicious at her house Key quotes: Adnan gets a call while at Cathy’s Says Koenig: “I see many problems with the state’s case I see many problems with Adnan’s story too Notable supporting characters: Nisha (and Nisha’s invisible answering machine) Nagging questions: If Adnan wasn’t with Jay at the time Could it have really been a two and a half minute butt dial - Wouldn’t Adnan remember more about this day seeing as he got a call from the police on this day just making it not just another average day - Why did Adnan never once call to try and locate Hae once he knew she was missing - Where did the “I’m going to kill” note come from - Why is Cathy so convinced that Adnan was acting fishy at her place if he wasn’t indeed acting fishy at her place What’s it about: Koenig talks to Deirdre Enright who runs the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia School of Law who has years of experience in cases like this this is just a case that wasn’t ready to be brought Enright says: “In my 26 years of doing this I get the innocent ones and I get these dumb “so me and my friends smoked crack for three days and drank five bottles of whatever and then we got a plan.” That’s who I get I think the odds of you getting the charming sociopath Notable supporting characters: Deirdre Enright and her pro-government right-wing Republican operative Nagging questions: Why DNA was so underused in the initial case - Why was the liquor body found near Hae’s body never tested for DNA and why weren’t the fibers found underneath Hae’s body tested against a rope found nearby - How did Adnan get convicted with such scant evidence the detectives on the case who could have used a little CSI … What’s it about: Koenig investigates what made Jay a credible witness and tries to demystify the human cipher at the heart of this case Evidence: Juror testimony and testimony from Jay’s friends and classmates Koenig and Snyder’s instincts about Jay when they meet him Key quotes: As Koenig says: “You gotta wonder whether moments like this hurt Adnan’s case rather than helped it Jay probably comes off as a nice young man and this white lady is yelling at him.” When asked why the image of Hae in the trunk stuck with him Jay says: “I’ve never seen anyone dead before and the first thing I thought was how fragile Stephanie was.” “He was like the Rodman of our social world,” says one of Jay's classmates “He was the one black kid that had a lip ring and listened to Rage Against the Machine," says another Nagging questions: Why is Cristina Gutierrez so damn annoying - What happened in the interrogation room with Jay before the videotape was turned on - if Detective Trainum thinks this is a “pretty sound investigation,” then what does an u-sound investigation look like - Is "Serial" racist? Episode 9: OK, so maybe Adnan didn’t do it? What it's about: After revealing some new bits of evidence, most of this episode focuses on what Adnan went through during the trial. Evidence: A friend of Adnan and Hae called Laura tells Koenig that there was definitely no pay phone at Best Buy, which makes the 2:36 call seem increasingly unlikely. Meanwhile, Hae’s co-wrestling team manage Summer says she was with Hae at school at 3 p.m. Also, Koenig reveals it may have been Aisha who made the call to Adnan at Cathy’s, after which she thought he seemed rattled. Key quotes: The judge says to Adnan: “You used that intellect, you used that physical strength, you used that charismatic ability of yours that made you the president or the- what was it?- the king or the prince of your prom? You used that to manipulate people and even today, I think you continue to manipulate even those that love you, as you did to the victim. You manipulated her to go with you to her death.” Notable supporting characters: Krista, whom Adnan wrote to while he was in jail initially Nagging questions: If the 2:36 call isn’t the “come get me, I’m at Best Buy call,” then how can we trust the prosecution’s timeline at all? Who looks bad: Laura the record thief (at least she admitted her guilt, unlike everyone else in this story) What’s it about: This episode focuses on the criminal justice system. Was the system biased against Adnan because he’s Muslim? And did Gutierrez bungle the case? New evidence: We learn about the unraveling of Cristina Gutierrez, how her behavior got increasingly unusual and erratic during the second trial and kept asking Adnan’s family for money, while failing to pay expert witnesses what they were owed. We also hear testimony from Adnan’s mother, Shamin Rahman, who thinks that the family was discriminated against because they are Muslim. Key quotes: The prosecutor’s racist remarks: “He is unique because he has limitless resources, he has the resources of this entire community here. Investigation reveals that he can tag resources from Pakistan as well. It’s our position, Your Honor, that if you issue a bail, then you are issuing him a passport under these circumstances to flee the country. We do not want another Sheinbein situation your honor.” Koenig: “I don’t want to overdo it here, but it’s possible that had this bench conference not happened, Adnan’s whole life could have been different." Koenig: “I wish I could complain to a judge every time someone called me an asshole.” Nagging questions: Would Adnan have got off if not for Gutierrez? What caused her to unravel like this? Did she mess up the case on purpose? - Why did the prosecutor get Jay a lawyer when it’s so clearly against the rules? Notable supporting characters: Cristina Gutierrez, aka the “pitbull on the pant leg of justice." Who looks bad: Gutierrez, the judicial system What’s it about: Koenig continues to interrogate Adnan’s personality by speaking to an expert on psychopathy, and by looking at testimony and rumors from within Adnan’s close-knit Muslim community. We also hear a lot from Adnan himself. Evidence: Adnan stole money from the mosque. Key quotes: Koenig talks to Charles Ewing, a forensic psychologist and frequent expert witness in murder trials, who says it's unlikely that Adnan is a psychopath: “Most psychopaths aren’t killers and most killers aren’t psychopaths,” he says. Adnan: “The reality of it is I’m just a normal person.” Adnan, to Koenig: "You go from my savior to my executioner on a flip-flop flip-flop, like Mitt Romney ... You’re publicly shaming me for something I never denied, and what does it have to do with the case?" Key supporting characters: A bunch of anonymous callers Nagging questions: What was the big rumor that Koenig mentions but doesn’t explain? - OK, but why are there so many psychopath killers on TV if there aren’t that many in real life? - Is all Adnan’s past shadiness just because he didn’t want to mess with his upcoming appeal? As Koenig says, “there’s another factor I haven’t mentioned, and that is, as a defense attorney’s explained to me, no good can come, and in fact only harm can come, from Adnan attempting to contact or influence people on the outside who are connected to his case.” - Was listening to this podcast totally unethical on our part? Who looks bad: Sarah Koenig, sort of. Also, us, for being complicit in this whole thing. Copyright © 2025 Salon.com, LLC. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. SALON ® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. which bills itself as a meditation on crime podcasting itself Chuck’s then-teenage daughter Lanie (Lizzy Caplan) was coached compels Poppy to retrace her steps—in a revelatory first-person podcast if Koenig had helped put Adnan Syed behind bars in the first place It stands to reason that when Poppy shows up at San Quentin Warren isn’t exactly overjoyed to see her The surprise is that his arms are covered in white supremacist tattoos; at some point during his two decades in prison he joined the Aryan Brotherhood Truth Be Told wants us to ponder whether a black journalist is morally obligated to help a Nazi whom she believes was wrongfully convicted even if his incarceration is partly her fault The dilemma is cumbersome enough to come across as a contrived-for-TV thought experiment more than a smart inquiry into real ideas about race and ethics it’s a waste to cast Paul as a character with so little heart None of this makes Truth Be Told any worse than your standard network detective drama; you can imagine it scraping together passable ratings with an NCIS lead-in on CBS But it marks another misstep for Apple TV+ because it’s so bland and forgettable the shows that have made their respective platforms’ reputations for original programming have been (at least in their debut seasons) contemporary revolutionary and just plain excellent: Orange Is the New Black It takes more than a timely hook like true-crime podcasts to launch a subscription service A month into the life of Apple TV+, the weird, exuberant Dickinson remains its most endearing show simply because it’s the only one with the urgency of a passion project. Apple might well be in the streaming wars for the long haul but it won’t establish a real following until it consistently gives viewers more than just imitations of what they’re already watching—a reasonably diverting horror serial (Servant) a middling Shonda Rhimes ripoff (The Morning Show) the service has added a prosaic crime drama to the mix but it remains a platform in search of an identity Contact us at letters@time.com Link IconCopy linkFacebook LogoShare on FacebookXShare on XEmailShare via EmailLink copied to clipboardBad Brother: A Fairmount bar with a side of sibling revelryThe three partners want to restore the former glory to the old Bridgid's on 24th Street What else to name the bar-restaurant that three of them plan to open in the next several weeks in Fairmount but Bad Brother It will occupy the corner building at 24th and Meredith Streets that for decades was Bridgid’s before it sank into despair last year as a short-lived tapas bar called Paseo Delaware County-bred brothers Nick and C.J Pund (the oldest of four boys) with chef Justin Koenig (who has two brothers of his own) are behind the venture 16-seat bar and the overall configuration (seating in the snug dining room they say they will reclaim it as a neighborhood destination for solid food and great beers (Bridgid’s back in the day was a haven for Belgian beer fanciers.) an alum of Craft Hall and Fishtown Brewpub says his menu will mix more “foodie” fare such as lamb tartare with more traditional dishes Fairmount these days happens to be short a couple of bar options as London Grill is in the process of getting a new occupant as is the short-lived Frankie Ann’s (once Rembrandt’s) It’s almost a decade since a much-shared Harvard Business Review article declared data scientist the sexiest job of the 21st century But is working with data still as novel or as exciting as it was then El Salvador will officially recognise Bitcoin as legal currency and one that will likely stimulate a huge amount of economic growth as Salvadoreans leapfrog from a largely cash-based society straight to a system characterised by the frictionless finger-snap efficiency of digital currency A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to ban WeChat over concerns the ban would threaten users’ first amendment rights The software maker’s quarterly revenue exceeded analysts’ expectations as remote working drove greater demand for its cloud-computing services Humans could reach Mars in the next 20 years Professor Karsten Koenig of JenLab explains the dangers such a spaceflight could pose to the health of an astronaut’s skin Zero gravity has a number of long-term effects on the health of human skin NASA plans to send humans to Mars within the next 20 years The Red Planet is more than 55 million kilometres away and it would take at least half a year to get there How do you protect the astronaut’s health in the hostile environment of interplanetary space The astronaut will face cancer-inducing radiation and maybe massive deep-space solar storms such as skin particles from other crewmembers the body will change as a result of the long-term lack of gravity Human spaceflights have been performed since 1961; 541 astronauts and cosmonauts have been to space The record for the longest spaceflight is held by Russian cosmonaut and space medicine expert Valeri Polyakov most health information on humans in space is obtained from scientific projects performed during six-month stays at the International Space Station (ISS) in a low Earth orbit at an altitude of 430km A series of pathophysiological modifications have been observed The question arises: why do some astronauts develop health problems Skin impairments are one of the most frequent health problems that occur during space missions so far no major studies on the effects of extended space travel on human skin have been performed There was one pilot study conducted in 2006 with a European astronaut who performed in-flight and post-flight skin measurements the measured increase in the transepidermal water loss reflected an impairment of the barrier function of the outermost skin layer It seemed the astronaut underwent an accelerated skin ageing process in space need further research activities to protect astronauts’ health during long-term flights and to better understand ageing and wound-healing processes NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the ‘Skin B’ project and post-flight skin measurements on five astronauts medical femtosecond lasers are being employed to obtain label-free optical biopsies with superior intracellular resolution on astronauts Physically taken biopsies are not required to get a precise look inside the skin and to monitor modifications of the tissue architecture and the cellular metabolism The novel imaging technology is called multiphoton tomography (MPT). MPT was introduced by the German company JenLab MPT is mainly used in major hospitals in Australia Russia and Western Europe for early detection of skin cancer and to monitor tumour borders during neurosurgery it became an important tool for major companies such as P&G Beiersdorf and Shizeido to evaluate pharmaceutics and cosmetics JenLab was awarded a New Economy Award in London and an IAIR Award in Milan for the development of the certified multiphoton tomograph MPTflex The in-flight measurements take place aboard Columbus (the ISS’s space lab module) to obtain information on skin hydration the function of the skin barrier and the skin surface Pre- and post-flight multiphoton measurements are performed at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne Alexander Gerst and Samantha Cristoforetti have been studied 2013 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Their journeys to the ISS were performed with the novel ‘express spacecraft’ and took less than six hours Parmitano and Gerst spent almost half a year on the ISS Normally our skin thickness stays relatively constant Cells produced in the lowermost skin cell layer That dead cell layer acts as a barrier and keeps we lose the outer dead cells as horny dead biomaterial (e.g by mechanical friction) and it drops to the ground due to gravity This turnover of the epidermis takes one month – at least on Earth Bioparticles from the stratum corneum are ‘floating’ in the air and may easily be inhaled MPT provides clear evidence the epidermis of the two male astronauts became thinner by more than 10 percent: the mean epidermis thickness decreased from 57µm to 49µm (14 percent) on the thinnest area and from 67µm down to 57µm (15 percent) on the thickest investigated site The decrease was observed within the living cell layers of the epidermis and not within the dead-cell layer stratum corneum The observed thinning of the epidermis did not correspond to other significant signs of skin ageing such as flattening of the epidermal-dermal junction the extracelluar matrix components elastin and collagen underwent modifications there was a strong increase in the amount of collagen and in the ratio of collagen to elastin compared with pre-flight conditions This observation is in contrast to ageing effects on Earth the monitored collagen-elastin ratio increase results in an ‘anti-ageing’ effect as observed with certain cosmetic products on Earth thinning of the viable epidermis is of no advantage such as low-wavelength ultraviolet and cosmic radiation can reach the basal cell layer easily at the epidermis-dermis junction That most important skin layer contains the stem cells and is also the location where skin cancer often starts If an astronaut’s viable epidermis is only 30µm thin after a six-month expedition his viable skin cell layers can likely shrink to less than two cell layers during a one-year Mars expedition The good news is the skin effects are reversible the epidermis of the two astronauts became thicker again Studies are currently being conducted to monitor the repairing process and to evaluate memory effects We will gain knowledge of the process of readapting to gravity Skin can be employed as an early recognition system for physical and mental health status Further studies are recommended to understand why some astronauts show severe skin reactions before starting the trip to the Red Planet This week millions of Americans are navigating crushing crowds and spending hours traveling in order to catch a glimpse of Pope Francis on his first visit to this country trip presents a unique opportunity to get papal blessings But even those devoted Catholics who aren’t in the front row seat for Francis' visit may see benefits to their belief. A slew of research has tied being religious with better well-being and overall mental health. A number of studies have found that devout people have fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as a better ability to cope with stress Certain religious practices may even change the brain in a way that boosts mental health religion could also be a double-edged sword: Negative religious beliefs — for example that God is punishing or abandoning you — have been linked with harmful outcomes including higher rates of depression and lower quality of life Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox "People who are more involved in religious practices and who are more religiously committed seem to cope better with stress," Koenig said "One of the reasons is because [religion] gives people a sense of purpose and meaning in life and that helps them to make sense of negative things that happen to them," Koenig said A person's religious community can also provide support and encouragement through hard times and meditative prayer (such as prayer that repeats a particular phrase) activate areas of the brain involved in regulating emotional responses A 2010 study by Newberg and colleagues that included brain scans of Tibetan Buddhist and Franciscan nuns found that these long-term meditators had more activity in frontal-lobe areas such as the prefrontal cortex compared with people who were not long-term meditators It's also possible that the beliefs and teachings advocated by a religion — like forgiveness love and compassion — may "become integrated into the way the brain works," Newberg said The more that certain neural connections in the brain are used the neural circuits involved in thinking about compassion become stronger "So you keep coming back to these positive feelings and emotions, and that reduces stress and can lead to reduction in stress hormones," Newberg said Some religions also advocate that members stay away from high-risk health behaviors Steering away from these unhealthy behaviors could also be beneficial for brain function However, religion doesn't always have a positive effect on mental health — its impact depends on a person's beliefs and whether religion is generally accepted by the larger community if instead of advocating love and compassion these negative beliefs would also become part of the way the brain works this would turn on areas of the brain involved in thinking about hate and could increase stress and stimulate the release of stress hormones In addition, if some people believe that a health condition — such as addiction — is a punishment from God Pargament has also found that when people believe that God has abandoned them they tend to experience greater emotional distress and even face an increased risk ofan earlier death "These kinds of struggles have to do with the aspects of life that you hold sacred," Pargament said then … it's going to be very distressing." Exactly why some people take a positive view of religion while others take a negative one is not known and more studies should be conducted to examine this topic Pargament said some people can come out of a religious struggle feeling more whole particularly those who have support from the community throughout their struggle Science news this week: International blackouts and 'T. rex skin' handbags 'Dramatic revision of a basic chapter in algebra': Mathematicians devise new way to solve devilishly difficult equations STOCKTON - Pat Koenig gently lifts a 12-week-old pup and peels back its jowls, revealing canines that curve like some cruel tool of dentistry. This is no domestic dog, Koenig claims. Rather, it is three-quarters blow-your-house-down wolf. Koenig offers this pup and two others for $500 each, selling in part just another pet, and in part the mystique of owning what is legally a wild animal. "People just love them to death," he said. That's the problem. People who buy hybrid wolves often end up unable to care for them, authorities say; they wind up at shelters and are usually killed because, unlike domestic dogs, they cannot be vaccinated against rabies. Hybrids are prohibited in San Joaquin County and turn up only rarely, said Agricultural Commissioner Scott Hudson. The state of California also outlaws ownership of a first-generation hybrid without a permit. The city of Stockton has its own rule forbidding possession of "wild animals," including canines that are at least 50 percent wolf, said Tom Ramirez, animal control supervisor. But with few physical characteristics to distinguish wolf dogs from ordinary canines, the law doesn't have much teeth. Nor is it practical to estimate how many wolf dogs might live around here. Ramirez did recall a couple of cases in which neighbors complained about suspected hybrid wolves; the animals were impounded. "We could take blood samples," he said. "It's never gone to that. A lot of times you just don't know what their lineage is." Despite this uncertainty, people are willing to put down hundreds of dollars on dogs said to be part wolf. An Internet search turns up Web pages for breeders selling animals, and Koenig advertised his dogs in the newspaper. Hybrids have been created by mating wolves with malamutes, huskies and even standard poodles. One rescue group estimates there are anywhere from 1 to 2 million kept as pets in the United States. "Wolves belong in the wild, as is naturally intended," said Bill Chamberlain of the United States Wolf Refuge north of Sparks, Nev. "We don't have enough adequate homes for our dogs," Chamberlain said. "There surely is not enough of the specialized homes needed for these wolf dogs." But Koenig, a 58-year-old freight loader and security guard, says there are loving owners out there. The Stockton native launched into breeding six years ago when his son got a wolf dog and, after deciding he couldn't handle the animal, turned it over to Koenig. Now he has four adults and what's left of a litter of eight pups; city code allows three animals per household. "All of my dogs would protect me with their lives," Koenig said. "They're very special." Koenig does not own the full-blooded wolf used to breed the pups. The dogs live in his two-bedroom duplex in north Stockton, playfully growling in the garage and getting out sometimes for walks to the park. Koenig said he plans to buy a home to give the dogs more room. For now, income from the pups is helping pay doctors' bills for Koenig's recent stroke, he said. Most of the people who buy his wolf dogs have owned hybrids before, he said. They know what they're doing, although it is a big responsibility, he said. "When you take on a wolf, she owns you," Koenig said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has noted attacks on people, mostly children. In 1988, a wolf hybrid adopted from a Florida shelter escaped its new owner's yard and killed a 4-year-old boy; the shelter ultimately paid a $425,000 settlement to the child's family. Local officials said they were unaware of any attacks here. There has also been a "good deal of fraud" in the hybrid wolf trade, though most breeders are honest, the federal government has reported. Koenig says he's sold wolf dogs to buyers from as far away as Washington state. There are other hybrids out there, he said, "But none like I've got." Contact reporter Alex Breitler at (209) 546-8295 or abreitler@recordnet.com. It may not be an established sports discipline recognised by the Olympic Committee but the third annual German office chair championships held in the town of Bad König-Zell in Hesse surely managed to attract attention on Saturday as office chair enthusiasts sped downhill to see who could go the fastest. The Germany Office chair championship comes closer to the Wacky races we used to watch on TV, even if participants have to follow the rules of the game as they vie against each other on office chairs which are allowed to be modified as long as they are not motorised in any way. The chairs, which are usually found in front of computer desks, could include inline-skater wheels and handles while competitors were permitted to check each chair prior to the start of the race. The 58 racers, who mainly came from Cologne, Stuttgart and Luxembourg areas, then launched themselves headlong from a ramp onto a downhill course, armed with helmets, elbow protectors and kneepads as they faced the racing competition in pairs. When the results were out, Luxembourger Pierre Feller emerged the winner as he set a new course record by covering the 200-metre downhill stretch in just 26.95 seconds, reaching speeds of up to 35 kilometres per hour (22 mph). And it was not just a stroke of luck that made him win but as one organiser said, “His lying-down technique was sensational!” Meanwhile the prize for design was won by Heiko Winter who was dressed as a cowboy, riding his chair with a horse’s head and a saddle. Pedro Crespo, this year’s favourite, did not make it and had to pull out of the race after crashing in the fifth round while last year’s winner, Jan Paul, took it all with a pinch of salt as he helped himself to cake in order “to achieve the perfect racing weight!” And as the chairs are rolled back into their respective offices, participants have another year to think about how they can change the ubiquitous pieces of furniture and make them go faster till next year’s racing competition. To view comments, please register for free or log in to your account. To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum Serial is a new podcast from the creators of This American Life Serial will follow one story – a true story – over the course of a whole season You can listen to the podcast in full here. +6ShareQ&AFind answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning Israel Keyes is all of your worst fears personified into one of the most terrifying serial killers of the 21st century began like any other day at work for 18-year-old Samantha Koenig Finishing up her shift at the Common Grounds coffee stand in downtown Anchorage the young barista was approached by a man wearing a ski mask who ordered coffee – a man who would later be named as Israel Keyes Keyes tied the young woman’s hands together with zip ties before forcing her into his white Ford Focus where she tried – and failed – to escape the abductor who held a gun to her head and said he would kill her if she tried again Driving around town with Samantha still bound in the vehicle Keyes explained to the terrified teen that this was simply a kidnapping for ransom and that if she cooperated she’d be returned to her family unharmed Keyes kept Samantha alive for several hours and even drove back to her coffee stand to retrieve her mobile phone He then used it to send a fake text message to her boyfriend who was due to pick her up after her shift I’m spending a couple of days with friends He turned his radio up so no one could hear her screams and pleas for help Keyes made his way to retrieve her ATM card from her boyfriend’s truck Keyes was confronted by Samantha’s boyfriend – who was already on edge after discovering Koenig was not at work when he arrived to pick her up as well as having received the strange text message from her phone earlier Thinking he was a random burglar attempting to break into his car Samantha’s boyfriend ran inside to get help Keyes poured himself a glass of wine as he returned to his shed and raped a sobbing Samantha packed for a pre-planned cruise in New Orleans he decided to remove Samantha’s body from the cupboard He applied makeup to Samantha’s face – frozen and lifeless – before unsettlingly sewing her eyes open with fishing line to give her the appearance of being alive He then took a Polaroid of her “holding” up that day’s newspaper and he left this – as well as the photograph of Samantha staged to look alive – in a park under a memorial flyer of a dog named ‘Albert’ before using Samantha’s phone to text her boyfriend cut a hole in the ice and dumped her remains in the lake James Koenig – believing his daughter was still alive after seeing the sickening photograph – was depositing the ransom money into Keyes’ account with the $30,000 having been generously donated by members of the community As he had instructed her family to deposit the money into her debit account authorities were able to determine that the perpetrator was driving a white Ford Focus Keyes was then being pulled over for a traffic stop where authorities found dye-stained bills from a bank robbery a gun – and Samantha’s phone and debit card Israel Keyes is all your worst fears personified into one of the 21st century’s most terrifying serial killers and as close to a real-life horror movie villain as one could get If he hadn’t become complacent and killed Samantha Koenig in his hometown on that fateful day authorities agree it’s very likely he may never have been caught at all Not only did he have a confirmed murder count of three people (with investigators believing there are at least eight other victims) but unlike some of history’s most feared killers Keyes didn’t target specific types of victims – or even ones in his own area he admitted to abducting Samantha Koenig from the coffee stand He would later give police more details – though on the condition that they made one promise; keep everything out of the press He didn’t want his young daughter to read about what he had done to Samantha “I’ll tell you everything you want to know I have lots more stories to tell,” he told police It soon dawned on authorities that they weren’t dealing with just a murderer – they were with one of the coldest, most methodical serial killers of all time It quickly became evident that there were many more murder victims than just Samantha Koenig took place in Washington state in the late 1990s He told authorities that he had killed at least seven others around the country though it’s believed the number of victims killed by Keyes stands at 11 people — with the only other names revealed (besides Samantha Koenig’s) being missing married Vermont couple Bill and Lorraine Currier Keyes reportedly broke into the Curriers’ home on the night of June 8th instigating what he dubbed a “blitz attack” on the pair cutting their phone line before entering their home while wearing a headlamp and tying them up before driving them to an abandoned farmhouse He shot Bill Currier in the basement with a .22-caliber 10/22 Ruger Charger and sexually assaulted and strangled Lorraine Currier “It is clear from the facts of the case that Bill and Lorraine showed extraordinary bravery and extreme dedication and love for one another,” Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J Keyes would later admit that two years prior to the Curriers’ deaths he hid a “murder kit” which contained a handgun Keyes planned murders ahead of time and took extreme caution to avoid detection In contrast to most serial killers – which made discovering his crimes far more difficult – Keyes did not have a specific victim profile but claimed that children and parents were off-limits he would pay only cash and turn off his mobile phone and had no connection whatsoever to any of his victims he would bury a “murder kit” in the targeted area — as he did prior to the Currier murders His murders kits have been found in Alaska and New York but he admitted to having others in Washington Keyes had previously revealed he admired fellow killer Ted Bundy telling investigators he “saw himself” in the notorious murderer he labelled fellow serial killer Dennis Rader a “wimp,” for professing remorse for his killings Anchorage homicide Detective Monique Doll said of Keyes “[he] didn’t kidnap and kill people because he was crazy He didn’t kidnap and kill people because his deity told him to or because he had a bad childhood.” “Israel Keyes did this because he got an immense amount of enjoyment out of it much like an addict gets an immense amount of enjoyment out of drugs and he was addicted to the feeling that he got when he was doing this.” When asked by investigators why he committed his crimes while being held in jail at the Anchorage Correctional Complex Under his body was a rambling letter that was later called a “creepy” ode to murder, which offered no clues as to the identities of his unnamed victims, but rather described them as “pretty, captive butterflies.” Another snippet read, “Your face framed in dark curls like a portrait, the sun shone through highlights of red. What colour I wonder, and how straight will it turn plastered back with the sweat of your blood.” On December 10, 2012, Keyes’ mother, Heidi, and four of his sisters attended a small funeral service for Keyes in Deer Park, Washington. The pastor, Jake Gardner, opened the service by saying, “He is not in a better place,” he began. This song bio is unreviewedGenius Annotation1 contributor“Friend Like U” is a song from a special Christmas themed episode titled “Pink Christmas” in Ezra Koenig’s Netflix anime show “Neo Yokio” The show consists of a demon-slaying protagonist named Kaz Kaan (Voiced by Jaden Smith) and his complicated-relation archnemesis named Arcangelo Corelli (Voiced by Jason Schwartzman) In this song Koenig voices as Arcangelo Corelli singing the Chorus and Bridge of the song +2ShareQ&AFind answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning