False Endings
When you are the one doing the work, trying to fix or make or create, false endings cease to be fun. Instead, they are dangerous, because they hold out false hope.
By Jeannette Cooperman
The Peril of Naming Our Flaws
Naming our flaws is a cruel and sinister practice. Women with soft cheeks were fine until they were told they had large buccal fat compartments. I was fine having pink cheeks until a dermatologist called it rosacea and offered me a prescription. Actually, I am still fine; I turned down the drug so I could save money on blusher.
Jeanne Dielman As the Best Film Ever?
Back in 1976, Le Monde hailed “Jeanne Dielman” as “the first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of cinema.” Today, that seems a little wry. Three hours and twenty-one minutes of housework, a little invisible sex work, and a surprising, violent ending comprise our first masterpiece? Yet it is one.
The Softer Sex
Somewhere between cottagecore and the hardcore expectations of the work world, there is an invisible fulcrum on which we wobble. Why is it our fault that softness automatically equates to fluttered-lashes femininity?
The Authentic Imposter
The first woman to paint the official portrait of a U.S. president, Greta Kempton also painted Cabinet officials, governors, senators, the head of the Atomic Energy Commission, two Postmasters General, a Supreme Court justice, several university presidents, and a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. But what would have happened if she had painted a self-portrait?
An Atheist and an Agnostic Walk Into a Bar….
If I am searching for meaning, I am less likely to tumble into hedonism or overvalue stuff and money or use people for my own ends.
Holy Daze
I make my festive announcement. And then I hear myself. Holy days. What they were supposed to be in the first place. And with that, everything clicks into place.
Why We Hate the Poor
Those who do not have the most basic shelter and sustenance remind us how easily we could lose our own comfort. They remind us that mental illness and addiction can scramble the brains we rely on to succeed. They remind us that existence is precarious at its core.
Driving Is Better Than Most Brain Tests
DRIVES is one of the first studies to measure specific driving behavior over time. And what the team has already learned is that well before any cognitive signs of dementia show up, reckless driving—hard stops, sudden acceleration, speeding—indicates its future onset.
The New Bibliophobia
Bibliophobia surfaces when other people read certain books. The fear remains irrational and uncontrollable, leaving patients incapable of conquering it on their own. The affective tone is also unchanged, marked by avoidance of books, dread of their presence, and an associated guilt or shame—although in this iteration, the guilt and shame are projected onto the person who is reading, not the sufferer of the phobia.
Why You Have Never Heard of Mickey Hahn
If you stay in St. Louis, you write your own blues. I live across the river now, a negligible distance compared to my youth’s fleeting dreams of Boston, New York, or what the hell, Bhutan—but I use St. Louis as the excuse for my lack of ambition and adventure.So maybe I should be glad no one has heard of Mickey Hahn, whose life negates my excuse.
Is Your Soul Immortal?
I hate the idea of the soul as remote, separate from the body, sealed up in some holographic tabernacle inside us. But I am afraid to lose the idea of soul altogether.