MinnPost Picks: on student loan secrets, the High Line, and the most mysterious song on the internet

“Our Student Loan Secrets,” Death, Sex & Money I'm part of the generation that's drowning in student debt. This podcast series by WNYC's “Death, Sex & Money” puts into perspective the shame so many millennials like me feel due to their financial decisions in college, and how mounting interest makes the debt near impossible to overcome. It's a two-part segment, and I recommend listening to both episodes. —Jessica Lee, local government reporter “The High Line at 10,” Architect Magazine The quickest way for an urban park plan to get approved, it seems, is to describe it as (City Name Here)'s High Line. Minneapolis even hired one of the architects — James Corner Field Operations — to design the rebuild of Nicollet Mall. As architecture critic Karrie Jacobs describes it in this Architect magazine article: “The High Line may have touched off a global movement to turn every neglected industrial remnant into an urban destination, but it also inspired a backlash.” While the High Line is often dismissed as a tourist highway that has encouraged the development of residential real estate few can afford, Jacobs reconsiders its value and comes away mostly approving, especially of the architectural design (“ ... there’s an attempt to relate somehow to the aesthetic demands of High Line proximity, a kind of unwritten zoning requirement for fabulousness.”) —Peter Callaghan, state government reporter “High in the Cascades, a lone fire lookout still keeps watch,” The New York Times Technology has rapidly changed the way government finds wildfires in the vast forests of the West. But a dwindling cohort of human lookouts still manage posts in the mountains. The New York Times follows one volunteer in Washington's Glacier Peak Wilderness who staffs an outpost at 6,210 feet over the summer. —Walker Orenstein, workforce and environment reporter "The Unsolved Case of the Most Mysterious Song on the Internet," Rolling Stone Have they tried “Shazaming” it? David Browne has the strange tale of a song that appeared online twelve years ago. A teenage music fan in the 1980s was recording songs off the radio onto his cassette deck. One New Wave song, possibly from a German public-radio station, featured no intro or other clues to its origins. The fan's sister posted a snippet of the song and amateur detectives have spent thousands of hours since trying to figure out where it came from. —Corey Anderson, creative director

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MinnPost Picks: on student loan secrets, the High Line, and the most mysterious song on the internet

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MinnPost Picks: on student loan secrets, the High Line, and the most mysterious song on the internet