The Dubious Art of Death Cleaning
In the slog of cleaning out the most intimate possessions of someone you loved, you remember who they were, what habits anchored them, what delighted them, what mattered to them.
Uncategorized
Bridging the Gap
The construction of two new bridges to replace an existing bridge joining Illinois and Missouri, on the north edge of St. Louis, is midwifed by expertise, daring, and trudging drudgery.
America’s Anxiety About Anxiety: a Q&A With Dr. Rebecca Lester
Spidery, creeping, impossible to ignore, anxiety spins uncertainties that cling no matter how frantically we brush them away.
The Doting Baby Book Kept by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Mom
A quirky kid, Robert Louis Stevenson had a mum who watched over him tenderly and noted each illness in his baby book
Home Is Where One Starts From
Lynette Ballard first read Eliot as a sophomore at a small rural high school in Dixon, Missouri. “Oh, my goodness,” she remembers thinking. Modern poetry went straight to the core of her. By the time T.S. Eliot died, she was a freshman at Mizzou, planning to become an English professor.
Jammed Keys and Snarled Ribbons
Why is it unthinkable to design a laptop with a glossy enameled black surround, brass edges, beautiful keys, an elegantly framed monitor? Because we want no friction, no weight, no reminders.
Jerry Springer’s Opera Buffa
Jerry Springer deliberately performed a public service (an admittedly lucrative one) by reminding those of us he shocked that people behave in ways that make us cringe
Let Your Soul Catch Up to Your Body
We are creatures whose machines overpower them, and we want the machines’ clarity, information, and ease because we are soft-bellied, emotion-ridden creatures. The division is internal, not civil.
On the Draining of Swamps
Agree or disagree, there is literal truth in his quote. Our nation’s capital was built on swampland.
Joseph Heller at 100
In Joseph Heller’s writing no one games the system entirely, but in Catch-22, one unlikely person, by cunning, ingenuity, and hardship, wins a temporary stay.