Our 9 Favorite Feature Stories This Week: The Doodler Murders, Boogie Nights, And #YODO

This week for BuzzFeed News, Katie Heaney shadows a group of mortuary science students and contemplates the uncertain future of the death industry. Read that and these other great stories from BuzzFeed and around the web.

1. Can the Next Generation of Morticians Breathe Life Into the Death Industry? — BuzzFeed News

Photograph by Andrew Renneisen for BuzzFeed

The young, close-knit, predominantly female students in SUNY Canton’s mortuary school are fascinated with our most difficult, yet unavoidable, subject. But when it comes to changing attitudes about death and grieving, are educational programs like the one they’re in part of the problem? Read it at BuzzFeed News.

2. The Untold Story of the Doodler Murders — The Awl

theawl.com

Elon Green investigates a series of gay men who were brutally murdered in San Francisco — crimes that have never been solved. "From January 1974 to September 1975, The Doodler—or, as he was sometimes known, the Black Doodler, on account of his skin color—caught the eye of the Castro’s bar patrons by drawing caricatures and cartoons of them." Read it at The Awl.

3. Who Killed Eddie Snowshoe? — The Globe and Mail

Photograph by Fred Lum for the Globe and Mail

An investigation by Patrick White into the death of a man kept in solitary confinement, and the impact of solitary on inmates: "Solitary confinement is a counterproductive kind of harm prevention. Humans are social animals. We subsist on stimulus and response… It’s no wonder the suicide rate in federal prisons is seven times that in the public at large, with nearly half taking place in segregation." Read it at The Globe and Mail.

4. Livin' Thing: An Oral History of Boogie Nights — Grantland

Illustration by Alexander Wells for Grantland

Alex French and Howie Kahn unpack the Paul Thomas Anderson classic. Includes interviews with Anderson, Mark Wahlberg, William H. Macy, Alfred Molina, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and more. Read it at Grantland.

5. The Echo Chamber — Reuters

REUTERS/Molly Riley

A Reuters investigation finds that out of the thousands of lawyers who petition the Supreme Court, a group of 66 lawyers are significantly more likely to have their cases heard: "None of these lawyers is a household name. But many are familiar to the nine justices. That’s because about half worked for justices past or present, and some socialize with them." Read it at Reuters.

6. Roy Choi’s Master Plan — The California Sunday Magazine

Photograph by Brian Finke for The California Sunday Magazine

Jay Caspian Kang profiles chef Roy Choi of food truck and Korean taco fame who's now set his sites higher. "He wanted Kogi, the Korean taco brand that has turned him into one of the most well-known chefs in the country, and 3 Worlds Cafe, a health-food restaurant he helped open in the heart of South Central, to kick off a “revolution” in the ways Americans think about poverty, race, and food access." Read it at The California Sunday Magazine.

7. How the NYPD Is Using Social Media to Put Harlem Teens Behind Bars — The Verge

Photograph by Bryan Derballa for The Verge

Ben Popper brings a disturbing report about how authorities can use social media to indict large groups of men as being in gangs — in this case to incarcerate a younger brother of one such member. "Social media evidence was at the center of the older brother’s case, and the the family says online activity figured into the arrest of the younger brother as well." Read it at The Verge.

8. The Ice Breaker — The New Yorker

Illustration by Owen Freeman for the New Yorker

Ben McGrath profiles P.K. Subban, the polarizing Montreal Canadiens star defenseman: "There are thirty teams in the N.H.L., and eighteen black players. Yet only Subban, among them, is regularly booed by opposing fans when he touches the puck—a shaming honor reserved for a handful of villains in any given hockey season." Read it at The New Yorker.

9. The Day My Estranged Father Taught Me to Ride a Motorcycle — BuzzFeed News

Photograph by Randy Harris

David Amsden's life and career had been defined by his father's absence. Now in his mid thirties, he went to complete a bit of unfinished business, and ended up confronting not his father but himself. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

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