We’re out this week, but we’re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2011 while we’re away. We hope you enjoy—and have a happy New Year!Let’s be honest. I rue the day I didn’t have my late stepmother whacked. I’d rather eat dirt than …

For the last fifteen or sixteen years I’ve been making portraits of people (in rich, resonant, analog sound) with an old cassette recorder: spoken-word portraits. In my library in Paris are hundreds of magnetic tapes stacked in their fragile, tran…