From Criminal to Artist, From Father to Son

Hands Up, Herbie! delves into the lower depths, where criminality is anything but abnormal. At the same time, it is a portrait of the artist as a young man.

Whose Problem Is Lake Charles, Louisiana?

Lake Charles, Louisiana, is a particularly sensitive canary in the coal mine of global warming. Not only is southwest Louisiana low-lying in the age of sea-rise; the land is also subsiding faster than just about anywhere on earth, and water courses through everything.

Why We Need Touch

Aristotle called touch the most universal of the senses, wrapping around both mind and body. All the other senses work by some form of touch, he pointed out, striking our receptor cells with light, sound, flavor, or fragrance.

Sometimes Symmetry Is Overrated

Symmetry is “the quality of being made up of exactly similar parts”—and when is that realistic?

Steinbeck Could Not Save to the Cloud

The Cloud has transformed our relationship to physical information. We no longer have occasion to be brave, to at least pretend nonchalance. We have no reason to make a fresh start.

Whacked Out Sports: A Cultural Clue?

This show is so White, so retro-male, so ripe for scathing dismissal by the snooty elite. There is even a class overlay.

The Vanishing, Civilizing Art of Marginalia

Notes jotted in a margin carry on a conversation with future readers. Not with the authors themselves, mind, and often it is lucky for them that they remain oblivious.

The Woman Who Taught Us Not to Trust Our Memories Has Some Doozies of Her Own

Many of us are vulnerable to suggestion, our memories blurry and uncertain. But intense emotion can also etch an experience in memory with every detail intact. Overly involved therapists can push a certain narrative until their client believes it verbatim. But the mind can also shelter us from pain and release it back to us little by little, as we can handle it.

What Bloodshed in Haiti Means for Us

(Photo by Patti Gabriel)     When I learned that Jovenel Moïse, president of Haiti, had been assassinated—after riots and demands that he resign—something inside me crumpled. Again? I was in Haiti during its 2010 presidential elections, along with the professional photographer who shot the image above, Patti Gabriel. We…

Invitation to the Dance

Dancing in groups can strengthen social bonds, researchers have found; it brings a feeling of connection and unity. Why? Because when we are all moving in the same way at the same time, swept up by rhythm and melody, the boundaries of our lonely little separate selves blur.

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