Do We Have to Monetize Everything?
The monetization mindset extends far beyond hobbies. Taking the marketplace as our model, we cheerfully objectify ourselves and one another in all sorts of contexts.
By Jeannette Cooperman
Moths Are Not Romantics
The moth-to-flame metaphor lasted for good reason. It colors our attitudes toward saintly masochism, heroic idiocy, great and stupid loves, magnificent obsessions that sop up people’s money and leave their families starved for affection and bread. And it leaves us as confused as the insects.
Cahokia Jazz Revives Our Lost City—and Our Best Music
It took a South African to restore and transform Forest Park. Now an Englishman has given us a Cahokia in which three groups intermingle—Indian, Black, and European—with precarious harmony.
What Miniatures Can Reveal
In the world of miniatures, Kelly could make art that was comprehensive for her and for the viewer, tackling a topic that loomed large by shrinking it down to size, ordering, and controlling it. Thus she took the overwhelming, misunderstood, dangerous compulsion of hoarding, something nobody ever quite comprehends, and made it approachable.
How Esther Perel Figures People Out So Fast
Esther Perel knows both pain and resilience: her parents were the only members of their families to survive Nazi camps. She is not afraid, as I often am, to cut into the pain.
Oh God, What Will the Dogsitter Think?
The dogsitter, it turns out, is not the least judgmental—at least, he does not wince or smirk, and he sounds happy to return in March. The dog adores him. Relieved on all counts, we write a check and say goodbye. Pandora’s box has been safely entered and exited.
Digging into the Murder of Gallerist Brent Sikkema
Despite a ripple of shock and pity, default response to any stranger’s brutal murder, Brent Sikkema still feels remote to me. Then I read Vik Muniz, one of Latin America’s most acclaimed artists, admitting, “I have spent more than 30 years trying to pointlessly emulate his juggling of fearlessness, kindness, and sophistication.”
Should Emotional Labor Be Reimbursed?
Real emotional labor is not about fragility, just humanity. It does not make us snowflakes; it keeps us resilient. It should not require a false self, only a considerate one that refrains from inflicting its internal dissatisfactions on others. And if more of us did emotional labor, that extra compassion and thoughtfulness would become a lovely habit.
Learning How to Fall
Drunks and babies fall softly because they are not arrogant. The rest of us fall hard—in love, off the wagon, from glory—and fall so often, you would think we would learn how.
How St. Louis Admen Sold the Nation Its Spirits
How did our bland city become a hot spot for national ad campaigns? Overhead was low, flights were easy in any direction, and smart, creative talent was abundant. Between the two world wars, Winston Churchill himself, speaking at an international advertising conference, pronounced the St. Louis Ad Club “far ahead of other cities.” By midcentury, the Midwest was the obvious place to study middle America.
Magazines: Lively, Smart, Radioactive, Dead
Jarvis tells that story with no glee. He loves the form as much as I do, and as he recounts the lively history of magazines, he finds the story of larger cultural shifts. The first magazines, he writes, were coffeehouses, curating—before the word came into vogue—the best writing, criticism, poetry, advice, and images. Even the word “magazine” was a French derivation from the Arabic word for storehouse. Those smooth pages collected and preserved treasures.
The Beloved Poet-King Eddie Balchowsky
Eddie Balchowsky’s lifestyle had its romance. But it also meant periods of homelessness, nights curled up in a friend’s bathtub to sleep, periods of depression so deep he had to be hospitalized. None of that tore away his kindness.