What Well-Trained Women Can Learn from a Mischievous Pup

Willie knows exactly when to cuddle up or do the good-dog sit—and when he can get away with doing his own thing. But women never seem to get away with it for long.

Inefficiency Can Save You

Tiny, incapacitating acts of rebellion can keep you human. Or is this masochism?

Was St. Louis’s Hamlet to Be, or Not to Be?

After a string of near-disasters, Hamlet emerges unscathed.

Zora Neale Hurston Holds Up

"It’s so easy to make yo’self out God Almighty when you ain’t got nothin’ tuh strain against but women and chickens.”

How to Restore the Art of Conversation

“We are at our most stupid in our self-hatred.”

The Ideological Brain

The best explanation yet for the maddening rigidity on the far right—and the far left.

Take This Sugar Pill and Call Me in the Morning

How much of a placebo's efficacy is in the brain, and how much in the heart?

What Makes Abraham Verghese Such a Great Storyteller?

Is it his cosmopolitan background? His stint at the Iowa Writers Workshop? His knowledge of human suffering?

The Spanish I Lost in Translation

La persona, a person, is feminine even if referring to a man. El vestido, the dress, is masculine, though la falda, the skirt, is feminine. Why do this to us?

Should AI Flatter or Play Devil’s Advocate?

The AI with the calm, reflective voice, encouraging us to think? They scrapped it for a fast-paced sycophant.

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