Stormwater: The Sexy New Design Challenge
The age of conquest is over. Today’s zigzag of droughts and deluges is forcing us to see water more humbly.
By Jeannette Cooperman
What the Black Exodus Says About Us
Nobody in the U.S. government is even counting the Black people who are emigrating, let alone seeing them as refugees. That would make us look like the countries we prefer to deride.
Prettying Up the Manhattan Project
Activist Denise Brock, who singlehandedly made it possible for more than 6,500 St. Louis uranium workers (or their widows) to receive $200 million in compensation, now has horrific medical issues herself.
An Opera That Ought to Terrify Us
The world premiere of "Awakenings" at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis was powerfully moving, and so were its three backstories.
A Film Crew’s Wistful Take on the Midwest
When the crew arrived, tumbling out of a giant van, they thanked us for opening our home. Fair enough; we seldom clean. But they kept talking about our home, which is cozy but hardly striking.
The Thunder and Gold of Horses Running Free
We have used horses to do our work, fight our battles, race for us, carry us. It is the few that still run wild, though, that send a thrill down our spines. We have no claim on them, yet a long and regrettable history has placed us in a position where we must “manage” them. Now, like newlyweds, we have to learn how to be part of their lives without changing who they are.
Aspic, Really?
Within its cool glop sit pieces of meat or fish, eggs or veggies. The original idea was to preserve them, sealing out air and bacteria. A liver pate, for example, turns crusty when exposed to air, but encase it in aspic and it will stay as fresh as a mummy.
There Be Demons
In modernity, that external force crawled into our skull; we speak of inner demons, including addictions, compulsions, and voices of doom or self-mockery. The shift is not as dramatic as it seems: in the second century, Clement of Alexandria was already noting how easily we can be possessed by our own appetites.
Has Life Ceased to Be Fun?
Craving fun is a miserable experience; you feel boring and old and bogged down. But realizing what I am craving and why—that is already helping.
The Difference Between Incels and Femcels
And now there are femcels, with their own online community and a symmetrical loathing of the men who do not want them.Would it be better to return to the stigma of “spinsters” and “old maids”? Hardly.
On the Vagina, Whose Ownership Is Currently in Question
Basic sex-ed should have straightened us out, but instead it took writers and artists to scrub off the shame. Half a century ago, Judy Chicago threw her now-legendary dinner party in honor of thirty-nine strong, famous women, designing porcelain plates with vulva and butterfly forms for the installation.
Writing About Nature While We Still Can
taking notice matters, these days. Maybe that is why nature writers often try too hard: they see the species dying away, the ground burning, and know they need to write about it—but there is no time left to fall in love with the facts, as the leisurely Victorians did.