Artificial Intimacy
“He trusts a bot with no experience of emotions because it doesn’t care,” she notes. “It’s a redefinition of truth, in which it can only come from a lack of human experience."
By Jeannette Cooperman
James Merrill: The Poetics of Place
A lesser poet would never have won a National Book Award with poetry that claimed to be a transcription from the spirit world.
Even Our Corn Is Sweating
I had never even heard of corn sweat. But God do I feel it.
Why We Need the Loch Ness Monster
“It turns out that the one who destroys—at least in this case—doesn’t believe in anything but himself."
Sensory Gratification Is Free (and Freeing)
Ian Bogost reminds us that we are not yet disembodied—and can fight the trend.
That Spoonful of Sugar….
The old apothecaries were far more efficient, and far kinder, than our streamlined mail order and national chains.
Put a Time Machine in Your Closet
Why has clothing gotten less practical, less sustainable, and less comfortable?
Board Games and Human Nature
Like comic books and animation, board games became more artful, more expensive, more interesting to adults. For millennia, games had been folk culture, passed down for generations, the play communal. Now they are a craft, sometimes even an art, designed and authored, often with a deliberately niche appeal.
World Cup Tourists Gushing About the U.S. (Really?)
My poor friend. She sent me this nice article from the BBC about how travelers to the World Cup “are discovering little-known slices of Americana away from the host cities.” The word “triggered” would be apt. I had already seen the social media reels and posts—and in my…
Busload of Faith to Get By
I took a Flix bus to Chicago, determined to be there for the Juneteenth opening of the Obama Presidential Center.
“You took a what?” friends said, bemused that I did not fly, drive, or even take the train. But I love buses. I love the way everybody shows…
How Shopping Became Miserable
One foot on a tangle of tree root, I looked down at my beloved Merrell hiking boots and noticed big, frayed holes on both sides. Time to spring for a new pair. To be loyal, I went—in the flesh—to REI, but they had only waterproof hiking boots. “Tariffs,” muttered…
The Man Was Not Talking About Fancy Food!
“Those poor brutish Epicureans that have nothing but the meer husks of fleshly pleasure to feed themselves with.” ~John Smith, 1660
How did we get Epicurus so wrong? Foodie websites, luxury magazines, gourmet shops…he would be aghast. His goal was to remove pain and fear, not pile up…