People & Places
A Defiant Muhammad Ali Was Cherished By Black Men
Over the past few days, we’ve seen image after image of Muhammad Ali: triumphant in the ring, joking on talk shows and shakily lifting the Olympic torch at the 1996 Atlanta games. He’s remembered these days as an athlete and a humanitarian, and that was, definitely, Ali. But so was the defiant, incisive Ali. “I’m…
Francois and Berenice Chouteau
Today their names grace our highways, city districts and restaurants. But before Chouteau was a trafficway, it was the name of an immigrant couple who used their honeymoon to discover new land. Before McCoy’s was a good place to get a beer, it was a family of missionaries whose son would use his business savvy…
Sympathetic Vibrations | Taking That Tone
Dave Wendler is obsessed with tone. So much so that he has spent the majority of his life striving to unearth the tonal potential of every instrument he comes across. And it’s at his unassuming home in the south Kansas City suburbs where Wendler hones his craft. Wendler is the owner and operator of Wendler Instruments —…
Of Faith and Loyalty
The office of Palestinian-born shop owner Munir Yameen is a warm and congenial space, adorned by a black-and-white photo of Yameen as a young man in uniform, a smattering of carefully framed verses from the Quran and the customary photos of children and grandchildren. But the most striking photo on display is of his grandson Tarik standing…
In ‘Service,’ A Celebrated Photographer Turns His Lens On U.S. Troops
As a celebrated portrait photographer, Platon Antoniou (who goes professionally by his first name) is well-known for his close-up depictions of the powerful. He has aimed his camera at the faces of celebrities and world leaders ranging from Vladimir Putin and Moammar Gadhafi to Willie Nelson and Woody Allen. “Sometimes,” he says, “you look in…