Thoughts are pricy these days; a penny will only buy ambivalence. Should our nation’s tiniest coin be preserved or officially abandoned? It has shaped our figurative language, our notions of thrift, our attitudes toward money. Yet we are a practical people, and it costs well over one cent to mint a […]
“A respected novelist while alive, in death Bolaño has soared to cult status.” Whoever wrote that for Newsweek was not exaggerating. Though Roberto Bolaño’s name does not glide off most Midwestern tongues, those who know his work are fervent in their praise. Now Picador intends to expand that cult by reissuing Bolaño’s books, […]
Friends give me tiny Eiffel towers, and my husband knows he is safe if he buys me any object, garment, wine, or pastry said to be French. I have always been drawn to French culture, by which I of course mean French literature, art, music, and philosophy—but mainly, because I am a shallow […]
In front of me sits a gorgeous book titled Way Beyond Bigness. It is lush with photos and foldout schematics and a tour de force comparison of the Mississippi, Mekong, and Rhine river basins. Derek Hoeferlin, professor and chair of landscape architecture at WashU’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, pulled […]
“There aren’t many bees in here,” Jim says. I gulp. His wife and honey-marketer, Amy, did tell me to wear long sleeves and long pants, but where is my beekeeper costume, with the fancy netting-draped hood? I start to feel tiny pinpricks down my arm, as though I am already being stung. I […]
Hose in hand, I turn to water the autumn joy sedum, covered in frilly mounds of that gorgeous faded-brick pink. Every single blossom is serving as a dance floor for a bee. They hover, spin, dip, and suck nectar, which they will hold in their “honey stomach” (I want one of those) until […]
Stare at a Rembrandt every day, and it will fade into wallpaper. Habituation, a cruelty of the human psyche. Luxuries, awards, and pleasures lose their zing once we are accustomed to them. Married couples soon need a date night to remember why they fell in love. And Missourians need a date night with […]
The other day I interviewed a woman who had been evicted—after being laid off from work in the aftermath of the 2008 recession and receiving a cancer diagnosis two days later, newly uninsured. She lost all her savings because not even McDonalds would hire her (too skilled, might leave soon). She said many […]
The first little piggy to leave for market is the big toe. It is the first toe stubbed, the first stepped on by your first, inevitably clumsy dance partner. And it was the first feature that distinguished us from the rest of the hairy apes. Yet poets rhapsodize about elegant hands, […]
I feel chastened. For years I have been gnashing, fretting, and scolding about What We Are Doing to Mother Earth. My proud, smug recycling and various slight sacrifices were tiny Band-Aids of apology. I regret none of them and will continue until I die. It was the attitude, the phrasing, that went amiss. […]
