Merry Christmas … or the Wish for Something Like It
Season's readings, and a 2020 roundup, for a year that could never end too soon.
December 22, 2020
More by The Common Reader
College Interrupted, Part Two
Washington University students contemplate activism, the forces of the pandemic, and their futures as they return to school and working life.
“Black in the Time of Quarantine”
"The Common Reader," Washington University in St. Louis's Journal of the Essay, explores life and learning during the onset of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
Explore more Essays
Three on a Match, or How the Other Two Die
Though their lives wound up linked, these three men could not have been more different. Perry Smith was as poor as used-up dirt. Truman Capote sparkled like diamonds and partied with stars: Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra…. Philip Seymour Hoffman landed in the shy middle, living off his talent as simply as one can in New York. What they shared was a sensitivity too raw to hide, and pain that sent them running.
Inside the Crafted and Creepy Culture of Dolls
The tradition is an ancient one: long before people even learned to write, they were spontaneously crafting dolls from papyrus, straw, wood, leather, or etched stone, bone, or ivory. Along the way, there were dolls of rubber, papier mâché, glued sawdust, and always, stuffed cloth—first dressed in simple rags, later in satin and lace. Dolls became elaborate, became art. But all that really mattered was a limbed body with a suggestion of face.
Recipes for Rascals
The ginger nut (and by association other cookies of its type, such as those made with black peppercorns) has an aggressive presence but offers scant sustenance. It is meant to aid digestion of other things, to have a warming effect in winter, to relieve boredom, and perhaps to remind us we are alive in the sometimes dry, husky business of life.