The first episode was over, but I stayed on the edge of the ottoman, where I had moved to make sure I heard every word. My arms were folded tightly against the pain. Yet the next evening, I was eager to watch the next episode. I had waited to watch Adolescence, put off […]
I would call it a modest proposal, but Swift did not really mean his to be taken straight. I do think Harvard University, preeminent symbol of American education, intellect, striving, and continuity, should be prepared to go out of business. So should Columbia University, Princeton, Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, University of Pennsylvania, […]
Weird, that this global-trade-war market-crash thing feels a lot like five years ago. The cause is entirely different, yet I am feeling exactly the same disorientation and stomach-clenching fear I felt with the spread of COVID-19. And, given the abruptness, magnitude, and destructive power of the change, the same vertigo. There is a […]
This is not the story of a sweet, smart, oft-maligned breed of dog, the sort of dog you would expect to find curled at the feet of an expat in 1930s Paris. A dog with a sometimes wry, sometimes goofy sense of humor; a dog who would rather do tricks than hunt rats, […]
Curious about the psyches of two well-known men—their names are not necessary—I ask Chat GPT 4 to pretend it is their psychiatrist and analyze them. Which personality, I want to know, is darker? I am not even sure what I mean by “darker.” More malevolent in intent? Capable of doing more damage? The […]
Dr. Timothy Snyder, an American professor of history at Yale, has been much in the news for deciding as “a scholar of fascism” to (variously) “flee,” “escape,” or “depart” the United States for Canada as “a prominent critic…of President Donald Trump.” That certainly sounds bad for the rest of us. In truth […]
Last week, I was on a panel. This, for me, is the equivalent of a tax audit, triggering raw, unwarranted terror. I did my usual stupid thing: wrote out all my answers to the posed questions and tried to memorize them. Then the organizer encouraged us to ad lib, go off script, […]
I came of age walking around Northwest Plaza, a then-novel “outdoor mall” with a pebbly version of cobblestones and several courtyard fountains so hypnotic I had their shapes memorized. By “came of age,” I mean that I became a person who made her own choices. Not the early Montessori choices my mom cribbed […]
A loud curse from upstairs, vibrating the air like a tolled bell. The dog looks at me, alarmed. “Oh, don’t worry,” I say. “That’s just Daddy.” Punching a hole through his cuff buttonhole with a pen because it is Monday morning, he is about to be late to teach a class, and everyday […]
Elon Musk’s fourteenth child was born last month. The names of the previous thirteen are deliberately unusual words charged with personal significance for their papa. The fourteenth’s name is Seldon Lycurgus. Seldon, for Hari Seldon, a mathematician in Isaac Asimov’s science fiction Foundations series. First Minister of the Empire, he develops a new […]