Our bubbly visuals director sheds light on her faves from 2018.

You can take the woman out of New York City, but she’ll never quite lose her Big Apple flair. This longtime lover of The New York Times, Time Magazine and Calvin and Hobbs was OZY’s first-ever photography director back in 2013, and she returned to OZY in 2018 as director of visuals, following stints with Rolling Stone and The Gray Lady.

While she now resides with her wife in Florida, Leslie’s colleagues sense her energy and enthusiasm from afar — she’s known internally for her bubbly nature and smiles — not to mention a killer “ugly” Christmas sweater. But it was on a far more serious note that Leslie was first drawn to journalism; she first got published in the Village Voice after writing a letter about how much she loved their cover of a heart made out of bullets following the Amadou Diallo shooting.

A lifelong photographer — she knew she loved capturing images at age six — Leslie loves OZY for its amazing coverage from parts of the world that are relatively unknown or rarely covered. She enjoys reading about new trailblazers in various fields, hidden treasures and, of course, Sex With Eugene.

A potential model for how to build cities in poorly governed states, Canaan’s future remains uncertain.

A short drive north from Haiti’s overcrowded capital of Port-au-Prince, a metropolis is rising from a previously desolate landscape. Some 250,000 people have flocked to Canaan in the eight years since an earthquake ravaged Haiti, destroying 100,000 homes. Born out of a disaster, it’s a city without a government, and for many, it’s an experiment in self-determination. But its future is increasingly uncertain.

Absent any authority, Canaan’s residents must settle disputes on their own. They form committees and negotiate with NGOs to solicit water wells, public plazas and schools. They’ve built houses, shops and small businesses from scratch. Without formal jobs, they work as part-time masons, motorcycle taxi drivers, midwives, handymen and street vendors. In one neighborhood, they’ve set aside space for a cemetery — indicating plans to reside here the rest of their lives, and then some.

But without roads, transporting goods across the city is a long, expensive trek. The American Red Cross and its partners are preparing to build a mile-long paved road that will connect Canaan to the national highway at its perimeter, but Haiti’s government isn’t funding it.

Henry V — yes, that Henry V, the king of England who conquered much of France and inspired some of Shakespeare’s finest battle speeches — heard a rumor in 1421 about an object of great power in one of the French villages now in his dominion. Henry’s new wife, Catherine of Valois, a daughter of the defeated French king, was pregnant with their first child when Henry learned of the holy prepuce of Coulombs.

A prepuce is a foreskin, and “holy,” of course, signifies one of divine origin, which meant that the holy prepuce of Coulombs was none other than the foreskin of one Jesus of Nazareth, whose body was elevated from earth to heaven, according to Scripture. Most of his body, that is — apart from those snipped folds of baby penis skin he left behind, which became known for easing the suffering of women in childbirth. Well, at least for those women with access to the centuries-old miracle flesh. And so, six years after Henry’s triumph at the Battle of Agincourt, he sent his cavalry back to France to retrieve the sacred relic (once more unto the breach, apparently for the sake of a baby in breech).