It is almost impossible to conceive of just how much history Pete Seeger both observed and was a part of during his lengthy and extraordinary life, but even a brief summation gives you an idea of its scope. Also this: “Before Seeger’s confrontation with HUAC, people sometimes regarded his optimism as childish, and unrealistic, as a habit of mind inconsistent with the moral rigor of a serious person. Afterward, he became a figure of undeniable stature. He had stared down jail time. He had stood amid peril for his beliefs. He had typified the principles of all the brave people he had sung about.” Seeger was 94.

Mangaung 1
Iceland 2
Tokyo 3
India 4
Omaha 5

Alamo 6
B.O. 7
Pyramid 8
Architecture 9
Asparagus festival 10

Hero 11
Librarian 12
Spaceship 13
Hammer time 14

Kalifornia 15
Germany 16
Cuba 17
Wichita 18
Iowa 19
Wyoming 20

Focus group 21
Bollywood 22
Instagram 23
Goldman testimony 24
Nietzsche 25

1. Africa is a Country, “My Own Private Mangaung [source]

2. The Millions, “My Own Private Iceland” [source]

3. Wired, “My Own Private Tokyo” [source]

4. TIME, “My Own Private India” [source]

5. Forbes, “My Own Private Omaha, Or, Do Locals Outperform?” [source]

6. Texas Monthly, “My Own Private Alamo” [source]

7. Slate, “My Own Private B.O.” [source]

8. New York Post, “My own private pyramid” [source]

9. Kotaku, “My Own Private Architecture” [source]

10. Los Angeles Times, “My Own Private Asparagus Festival” [source]

11. My Own Private Hero, Julianne MacLean [source]

12. New York Times, “My Own Private Librarian” [source]

13. NPR, “Tech Tycoons’ Dream: My Own Private Spaceship” [source]

14. The New Zealand Herald, “My Own Private Hammer Time” [source]

15. Psychology Today, “My Own Private Kalifornia, Part One” [source]

16. My Own Private Germany: Daniel Paul Schreber’s Secret History of Modernity, Eric L. Santner [source]

17. My Own Private Cuba: Essays on Cuban literature and culture, Gustavo Pérez Firmat [source]

18. Flying, “My Own Private Wichita” [source]

19. City Paper, “My Own Private Iowa” [source]

20. New York Times, “My Own Private Wyoming” [source]

21. New York Times, “My Own Private Focus Group” [source]

22. The Atlantic, “My Own Private Bollywood” [source]

23. NewYorker.com, “My Own Private Instagram” [source]

24. Fortune, “My Own Private Goldman Testimony” [source]

25. The Wilson Quarterly, “My Own Private Nietzsche: An American Story” [source]

PREVIOUSLY:

Sit on my face.

Full disclosure.

There’s a special place in hell…

Yes, Virginia…

If I weren’t an actor…

Like the man says…

What we talk about when we talk about…

It is a truth universally acknowledged…

Elon Green is a contributing editor to Longform.

Brian Wilson’s AMA, Briefly

by Jeva Lange

So this is happening.

★★ Everything superficial and fleeting. A few lost-looking clouds hung in the clear blue morning sky. Then came scraps and sheets, till by afternoon the sky was dull gray. The first shad and their roe, from some warming Southern river, had made it to the fish counter. The sidewalk was patterned with irregular salt rings. Suddenly snow was blowing up Broadway, medium-small flakes sticking readily to the coat and jeans. The snow held on long enough for the clouds to rip and divide, so the flakes and the sunlight were streaming uptown together. After dark, down in the 14th Street station, an erhu player wore a People’s Liberation Army-style quilted coat for extra authenticity. Perhaps hats with earflaps weren’t really more prevalent on the L train; perhaps the seeming abundance of hats with earflaps was merely a function of the greater number of passengers overall. Off Bedford Avenue, the thin slush on the sidewalks was freezing into slickness. It took a few turns in the low grid before the white glow of Manhattan against the sky oriented everything. Two or three hours later, the night was palpably warmer, the slippery ice gone with the rest of the day’s ephemera.

“Methane gas from 90 flatulent cows exploded in a German farm shed on Monday, damaging the roof and injuring one of the animals, police said.”

“Handbags are no longer seen as a female-only accessory after a survey found men are choosing to carry around a “man bag”, often containing contents worth £900“

“’People really do use sex as a way to get over or get back at their ex-partner in the aftermath of a breakup,’ said study researcher Lynne Cooper, a psychologist at the University of Missouri.”

by Jeva Lange

“Shawn Ryan recalls the hungry years, before his first big strike. The prospector and his family were living in a metal shack on the outskirts of Dawson, the Klondike boomtown that had declined to a ghostly remnant of its glory days. They had less than $300 and no running water or electricity. One night, as wind sneaked through gaps in the cladding, Ryan’s wife, Cathy Wood, worried aloud that their two children might even freeze to death. Today the couple could buy — and heat — just about any house on Earth.”
 — National Geographic reports that if you make like 1896, you can Get Rich Quick in the Yukon.

by Matthew J.X. Malady

People drop things on the Internet and run all the time. So we have to ask. In this edition, Sad Desk Salad author Jessica Grose tells us about the travails of freelancing.

The heart break of a home office. pic.twitter.com/jDjKvgM15l

— Jessica Grose (@JessGrose) November 22, 2013

Jessica! I’ve been meaning to ask you about this one for a while. So what happened here?

This was the first time my daughter, who at that point was about 11 months old, realized that when I closed the door to my room I still existed. Or at least that was the first time she showed me that she knew I was there. She was actually pretty reasonable about it. She pawed and mewled at the door a few times and when I ignored her, she eventually moved along. Though I didn’t encourage her — I didn’t want her to be pawing at the door every time I worked from home — I did have an intense, multifaceted reaction. It was a mixture of sadness (poor baby!), mild annoyance (I’m on deadline, kid! Gotta keep paying for your goddamn organic fruit!), and pride (you figured out where mommy is!).

It’s important to note that this happened on a Friday. My daughter has a wonderful nanny who comes Monday through Thursday and works 9–5. I work those hours, and often after she goes to sleep. Most Fridays, my parents come over to babysit. Now, I am incredibly grateful for the free childcare once a week, and lucky to have my parents so nearby. Bless their aged Jewish hearts! But in my experience, you get what you pay for. My daughter has never once pawed at the door when the nanny watches her. That’s because the nanny is not napping (dad) or reading depressing novels on her iPad (mom) while she cares for my kid. She’s a pro!

What advice would you give to parents of young children who are looking to work from home with a little kid (or kids) around?

I sort of had this fantasy before I had my daughter that I would write while the baby napped. Alice Munro did it! To that I say: ha ha, hahahahahahaahahhaa. I have a shared workspace that is reasonably priced and open 24 hours a day (Brooklyn Writers Space FTW), and I go there about 50 percent of the time. So if you can afford it, I would say have an escape hatch.

If you want to work from home, invest in a white noise machine-slash-giant fan that blocks out the din of your child. I am pretty good at focusing even when I’m home with my daughter and her nanny in our not-enormous apartment. Most of the time it’s really really lovely, and a great privilege. I can take a break and come out and kiss her or play with her for five minutes and then go back to work. If your kid distracts you, or if you’re a big procrastinator, or if you feel guilty about the whole thing, it might be harder to work from home.

Lesson learned (if any)?

That in the right circumstances, my kid looks like a mogwai coming to attack me.

Just one more thing.

My mom reminded me that I used to whine outside her home office. The seasons, they go ‘round and round, painted ponies and all that.

Matthew J.X. Malady is a writer and editor in New York.