The Lost Joys of Flying a Kite
Flying a kite is the simple pleasure of celebrating, in the quietest but most glorious way, winter folding into spring.
Arts & Letters
How a Science Fiction Writer Reinvented St. Louis
In Eric von Schrader’s books, St. Louis remains a colossus of bricks, careful not to destroy its solid and elegant legacy. And Cahokia! It has been rebuilt by a pair of archaeologists, one Osage, the other White, who were fired from Washington University for their absurd insistence on the site’s significance.
Listening to Mussorgsky’s “Great Gate of Kyiv” during the Ukraine War
Mussorgsky’s music represents a tsarist, imperial vision of what Hartmann, and no doubt other Russians, wanted to see constructed so that it could adorn the capital city of Ukraine for generations. When we listen to Mussorgsky’s music we can instead, for now, call to mind the Golden Gate of Kiev that still stands.
Why the Trial over the Eagles’ Lyrics Epitomizes Boomer Rot
Ever since it was filed in 2022 this was a case shoved into the headlines by boring egos, sloppy legal work, and with the anemic celebrity appeal of America’s most blasé, greedy 1970s rock band lounging sleazily at the center of it all.
Why Must We Keep Hearing About the NATO Inch?
Ivan is a nationalist in the Putin mold and during our visit mistook me, at least, to have some American equivalent of his native love for authoritarianism.
The Latest Chapter in the Reading Wars
Phonics was my nemesis, and later, I heard it as Phyllis Schlafly’s battle cry. Why, I wondered, was reading instruction political?
A Surprising Museum in Washington, DC
Despite some overlaps, military branches do in the end have their own histories, traditions, and, in particular, things, which set an emotional tone. Marines are “Leathernecks” for their stiff collars, originally meant to prevent cutlass wounds. Sailors were “swabbies” for their mops, or “tars” for the tar used on old ships. Navy cadre at the dive school called us “trees” for our camouflage-patterned army uniforms.
Five Years Since Scott Walker’s Gone
The story of Scott Walker is the story not of making it big, but making it big the right way across an entire career, including even the long breaks in between.
A Young Artist Fleshes Out Philosophy
Philosophy needed some rebranding, if people were not to relegate it to grumpy old men. But Becky Moon was just a freshman, so she shrugged off the question and contented herself with doodling fresh, playful little pictures about the thought experiments.
Bill Watterson’s Wisdom Literature
“Calvin & Hobbes” ended in 1995, and Bill Watterson was not seen or heard from much since—until last year, when he and caricaturist John Kascht published “The Mysteries,” a (very) brief graphic novel.