Spoilers throughout. Deserved spoilers, maybe even a tad vengeful, because Playground humbled me on so many levels at once. First and most happily, Richard Powers’s descriptions of the strange, almost unfathomable beauty beneath the sea are the most lyrical and engaging I have ever read. As a boy, he wanted to be an […]
A Sunday school teacher taught me as a child that the Apocalypse would be ushered in by—among other signs—seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls. A newspaper colleague once joked to me years ago that God had traded His seven horsemen for a phalanx of car stereos booming out bass-heavy hip-hop. Both […]
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 biggest digital growth market in the coming years will probably be artificial friends and partners.” ~The Guardian, July 22, 2024 I have a husband and plenty of friends. But before doubt, angst, and a few medical issues canceled our plans to have kids, I always thought I would want a boy. Eureka! […]
My friend Larry called to warn me about the “evil Robin Hood” he had discovered furthering “the degeneration of societal norms.” Larry owns an art gallery and is tuned in to all manner of associated subjects, from Braque’s congruence with Picasso, to prison art, to intellectual property issues. The thing he saw […]
Kindly allow me to apologize for my behavior Saturday morning. I now know there is a loud, throbbing machine that sends shock waves through the grass into the ground. I mistook this phenomenon for a love song from what surely must have been a fine male specimen—and promptly humiliated myself. A lady tried […]
In European folklore, a black cat was a dire omen and, later, a witch’s familiar. A white deer was an extraordinary creature, poised to shapeshift into someone’s lover or sister. Medieval myths—yet black cats are last to be adopted, even now. And in St. Ansgar, Iowa, a white deer so captivated the townspeople […]
