Fighting with the Buddha
Why would I not desire a good Camembert, or a sweater soft as a lamb?
By Jeannette Cooperman
The Call of the Wild
More than ten thousand species are now critically endangered. Humans have clear-cut forests, paved grassland, overharvested, overfished, and overhunted. Much of the existing ground is being strangled by honeysuckle, kudzu, vetch, cheatgrass, and various exotics. Can we get a second chance?
Cast Your Fate to the Wind
Wind itself can drive you crazy. Sometimes there is a hysteria to it, a shrill tirade that goes on for days, relentless, unappeasable. Sometimes it is angry, as though Zeus sucked in his breath to roar at us. Invisible and unpredictable, wind can stroke us with a lover’s tenderness in the morning and topple our home that afternoon.
The Lie I Tell Myself Daily
It is the most underrated virtue in this culture....
Dig Out Your Crystal Ball
My friend is a little witchy, a little woowoo. She gets “feelings” before something happens.... Does precognition exist?
Are Flash Mobs Over or Just Ruined?
I fall for these every time. Did we really have to commodify spontaneous joy?
Anselm Kiefer: Becoming the Sea
Anselm Kiefer begged SLAM not to dust, fuss, or try to explain his work. Then he handed them five new canvases created just for this extraordinary exhibition.
My Mother the Griefbot
Do we want to bring our loved ones back?
Your Therapist Could Use Some Help
And our choice of words reveals us.
The Psychological Beatitudes
Stop prioritizing.
How to Meet the Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes
Reverence, serenity, and compassion, courtesy of a mushroom? Well, what would be wrong with that? Humans are a broken species. Negative emotions wired into us for survival have run amok in times we call civilized, and now we hunt, or at least hurt, one another. It would be lovely to think we could all meditate our way to wholeness. But why not speed the process?
The Reinterpretation of the American Dream
However you interpreted the American dream, it was all that held us together.