Why Dawn of the Dead is the Seventies’ Ultimate Coming-of-Age Movie

“Dawn of the Dead” turns life and death upside down. Life is a stress-soaked struggle to survive, while death is a lurching, subconscious walk through old, submerged impulses until you die again—by firearm, machete, or blunt force. And why do people refuse to die? Because they want to go shopping.

Visiting the Apple Orchard a Return to Eden—With Donuts

Gathering food locally at a local pace with local technology may not be quite as convenient in some cases, but it roots us more firmly in our own lives. This, I think, is the subconscious delight of visiting a local apple orchard in fall.

When Coral Reefs Die, Even the Midwest Loses

If one of us goes days without food, the blood drains from our face, and we collapse. Without a meal, soon, we will die. Coral’s widespread bleaching signals the same fate.

Yesenia Montilla; Matt Sedillo

How Marginalized Voices Break Barriers

On Thursday, October 12, The Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity will welcome Latine poets Roy Guzmán, Yesenia Montilla, and Matt Sedillo to Washington University in St. Louis for a panel discussion in celebration of Latine Heritage Month. The evening will focus on the poets’ use of poetry to fuel social change and how their work addresses race and identity. Ahead of the event, we were delighted to speak with two of the featured guests, Yesenia Montilla and Matt Sedillo, to learn more about their relationship with poetry.

I Wish I Had the Discipline to Fast

Fasting has been accorded such power, and it has taken so many forms, there must be something to it. Denying oneself can be salutary. It is fun, now and again, to stay up all night.

Pumpkin Spice Sums Up What Ails This Nation

The suite of pumpkin spice stuff comes out earlier each year, weakening the magnetic pull of scarcity that originally made it exciting.

How a Millais Painting Wages Elegant Battle against Climate Change

A painting cannot give us back days of fall lost. But if we gaze at a painting capable of imparting its own unique sensations, we can at least travel to a different place of mind, a consciousness that might move us forward or even shake us to action.

Miles Davis Showed Us How Taking Risks Was Cool

It takes self-assurance to throw yourself or your plans away in the belief there is no wrong path, only other opportunities to exercise mastery. It is not a game without risk.

Why the Clothes of My Past Stay Closeted

The idea of resurrecting clothes of my youth half a century later, redeeming the hot sting of embarrassment with carefully chosen accessories, intrigued me. Until I remembered what I would be resurrecting.

Burying Carbon Dioxide Sounds Clever But….

New carbon capture technologies may be “a dangerous distraction” from the real reforms needed to wean us off fossil fuels altogether.

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