The Cooper Hewitt: Peace, by Design

Moving through the exhibit—pausing, stunned, at one project after another—you realize just how powerful design can be, and how many ways it can work.

The Elevation of the Penis

Why? Why, why, why, would men put themselves through such a risky surgery, inserting something static into an organ that expands and contracts? What made size the ultimate measure of a man?

New York Jazz, Serendipity, and Vijay Iyer

Iyer’s introduction is low-key, almost diffident, and he starts softly, his fingertips barely brushing the piano keys. There is a thoughtfulness in his demeanor, a gentleness.

On Returning to a Quiet Life (with Virginia Woolf’s Help)

“The Common Reader” honors Woolf with its very name, so I let myself pause and read the essay slowly. At the start of this forgotten diary, I learn, she was staying at her country home in rural Sussex, with “men mending the wall & roof” of the house.

Terminal Baggage Claim

This essay is a transcontinental flight with several stops—from Harriett Quimby’s 1912 flight across the English Channel to the 1981 PATCO strike that nearly brought American aviation to its knees. In between we learn about a Tuskegee airman who became a POW and a bit about children’s books that deal with aviation.

How Trash Transformed into a Tangible Metaphor

The desolation that troubled T.S. Eliot comes from a soulless industrial greed that has yet to explode into wanton consumerism. He is mourning spiritual and intellectual decay. I am mourning the trash we then generated to fill that emptiness.

An Adventure in Vintage Flying or the Long Way Home for a Martini

In layman’s terms, there were only six airworthy Jennys in the United States; now there are five.

Soft Serve

Soft-serve is a synthetic miracle. Satiny in texture, smoother than any smoothie. Cold white, with none of that buttery cast you find in fresh-churned ice cream.

The Brilliant Dr. William Beaumont: Unethical or Just Aloof?

The Missouri State Medical Association describes Dr. William Beaumont as “beloved by all who knew him.”Except perhaps the man in closest proximity.

Illinois’s Perplexing, Quirky, Venerable Tully Monster

This small prehistoric creature puckered just as we do. It hoped, hunted, mated, suffered, died. And it left a wonderfully baffling legacy.

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