New York Jazz, Serendipity, and Vijay Iyer
Iyer’s introduction is low-key, almost diffident, and he starts softly, his fingertips barely brushing the piano keys. There is a thoughtfulness in his demeanor, a gentleness.
By Jeannette Cooperman
On Returning to a Quiet Life (with Virginia Woolf’s Help)
“The Common Reader” honors Woolf with its very name, so I let myself pause and read the essay slowly. At the start of this forgotten diary, I learn, she was staying at her country home in rural Sussex, with “men mending the wall & roof” of the house.
How Trash Transformed into a Tangible Metaphor
The desolation that troubled T.S. Eliot comes from a soulless industrial greed that has yet to explode into wanton consumerism. He is mourning spiritual and intellectual decay. I am mourning the trash we then generated to fill that emptiness.
Soft Serve
Soft-serve is a synthetic miracle. Satiny in texture, smoother than any smoothie. Cold white, with none of that buttery cast you find in fresh-churned ice cream.
The Brilliant Dr. William Beaumont: Unethical or Just Aloof?
The Missouri State Medical Association describes Dr. William Beaumont as “beloved by all who knew him.”Except perhaps the man in closest proximity.
Illinois’s Perplexing, Quirky, Venerable Tully Monster
This small prehistoric creature puckered just as we do. It hoped, hunted, mated, suffered, died. And it left a wonderfully baffling legacy.
The Purloining of the Pink Flamingo
The whimsy was born in New England, not the Florida it conjured. Don Featherstone had designed the first pink flamingo yard ornament in 1957, naming the bird Diego and his species Phoenicopterus ruber plasticus.
Trapped in the Wrong…Species?
Therians feel themselves less than 100 percent human—and most prefer their internal species. Rare, new to the rest of us, and at first glance bizarre, the subculture is following the usual trajectory.
SCOTUS Makes Room for Pregnant Pigs
On May 11, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a California law—supported by 62 percent of California voters back in 2018—that bans the sale, in California, of pork from mother pigs so tightly caged or penned in that they cannot stretch, lie down, or turn around. The new law gives them an extra ten square feet. Not much, but if you are pregnant, any breathing room helps.
A Diary That Crossed the Battle Line
Ted Engelmann thinks a lot about memory—the traumatic sort, but also the historic, cultural, and sociopolitical memories that should never be erased.
Word Choice
During the First Indochina War, reporters filed stories using cable, and each word cost money, so it made sense to condense Viet Nam, Ha Noi, Sai Gon, and other names. But those days are long gone. Using the correct spelling is more than courtesy; it lets us see the place fresh, as a country with a rich history and culture, not a war we lost.
Why Kids (and Adults) Need Philosophy
Like feisty academics or a team of investigative reporters, philosophers work together to solve problems, but as they do, they challenge and oppose each other, oppose the orthodoxy, in order to reach a new synthesis.