Eyes squeezed shut, I can still feel (or at least imagine) my mom’s arms around me, drawing me close to her warmth and rocking me back and forth, back and forth. A reliable rhythm, its arc never too far in either direction. In milky, dazed contentment, I no doubt dozed…
This long strange year yielded some gems....
“Why,” I asked my husband, “would anyone want to waste time watching a bad movie?” “Because it’s fun,” he replied, as though this should be obvious. “No. A good movie is fun, even if it is wrenching. A bad movie is just sad. Pathetic, even. An insult to filmmaking. It…
The St. Louisan who preserved Timothy Leary's work—and should have been famous too.
Neighbors who had always been kind, with food and celebrations shared, went cold overnight, then flamed into a murderous rage.
People worried sick about bigotry used to murmur, “Our hope is the young people.” Now the opposite is true.
Making sounds in unison tells the world we are united; it reminds us of what we share, not where we differ. It also releases enough endorphins to smooth over any doubts.
He understands “the impossible human experience of just trying to get through the day with everyone you love being somewhat OK at the end of it.”
There is one blissfully egocentric, thrilling moment: I am introduced as “the talent.” Granted, I ruin the moment by snorting and warning the sound studio team that I have never recorded anything before, let alone an entire audiobook. They nod; they are already braced for an amateur. “The talent” is…
Why would I not desire a good Camembert, or a sweater soft as a lamb?
More than ten thousand species are now critically endangered. Humans have clear-cut forests, paved grassland, overharvested, overfished, and overhunted. Much of the existing ground is being strangled by honeysuckle, kudzu, vetch, cheatgrass, and various exotics. Can we get a second chance?
Wind itself can drive you crazy. Sometimes there is a hysteria to it, a shrill tirade that goes on for days, relentless, unappeasable. Sometimes it is angry, as though Zeus sucked in his breath to roar at us. Invisible and unpredictable, wind can stroke us with a lover’s tenderness in the morning and topple our home that afternoon.