"Three days after the September 11 attacks, reporters at The New York Times, armed with stacks of homemade missing-persons fliers, began interviewing friends and relatives of the missing and writing brief portraits of their lives to create “Portraits of Grief.” Not meant to be obituaries in any traditional sense, they were informal and impressionistic, often centered on a single story or idiosyncratic detail." As we near the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the Times has revisited some of the people they interviewed back then, for Profiles Redrawn. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Aug 11, 2011 - 8 comments

Dyson likes to dress as a princess, so his mother wrote a book about acceptance, and his school and family rallied around him this Halloween. [more inside]
posted by mikoroshi on Oct 25, 2010 - 65 comments

Web of stories - "There are few things more interesting or more pleasurable than to watch someone tell a good story. And one story always leads to another."
posted by unliteral on Aug 24, 2010 - 5 comments

"Yes, I have four children. Four children with whom I spend a good part of every day: bathing them, combing their hair, sitting with them while they do their homework, holding them while they weep their tragic tears. But I'm not in love with any of them. I am in love with my husband."
posted by Brandon Blatcher on May 27, 2009 - 182 comments

For The Bible Tells Me So. (documentary, Google Video. Trailer.)
posted by Ira.metafilter on Mar 8, 2008 - 52 comments

It is not Christmas without tamales.
posted by bigmusic on Nov 29, 2007 - 37 comments

While there have been many posts on Mefi of blogs written by those affected by the Iraq War, I have not seen this one posted. No matter your stance on the war, your opinion of American soldiers, or the amount of other Iraq war blogs you've read, all I ask is that you at least read these few entries. I've used too many words already, when the journal does more than enough to speak for itself. A Soldier's Thoughts. (via) [more inside]
posted by wander on Feb 7, 2007 - 13 comments

Dear Mrs Bergman,
... I want you to know how deeply I wish to translate those ideas into images, just to quiet down the turmoil of my brain... Yours very truly and devoted,
R. Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini writes to Ingrid Bergman.
The Swedish movie star had written a fan letter to the Italian Neorealismo director Roberto Rossellini, expressing her desire to work in one of his films: "If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well, who has not forgotten her German, who is not very understandable in French, and who in Italian knows only "ti amo", I am ready to come and make a film with you".
This is how he responded -- by writing a part for her in his 1949 film "Stromboli." It was the beginning of one of the most famous love stories of the twentieth century. More inside.
posted by matteo on Oct 31, 2005 - 14 comments