The new debut record by American Pirates of Bloomington, Indiana, “What a Friend,” artfully blends so many different kinds of folk music that it comes across as an anthology or a variety show, yet with kindred themes and a unifying sound.
I asked a friend which of two things she thought true: Are our lives narratives? Or are they many quick stories/events/incidents that pop up, one damn thing after another, which are tied together only by the meanings we assign?
Something dark and sharp must live deep inside me, because when I read “There Are No Psychopaths,” I am disappointed. Psychopaths explain so much. The twisted little smile that crosses someone’s face, quickly hidden, after they cause pain. The impulse, spreading fast these days, to watch the world burn.
When I asked for a curator at the Saint Louis Zoo who would educate me about animal communication, I was hoping for chatty, irreverent primates or soulful, wise elephants. Instead, I was sent to Dr. Ed Spevak, the zoo’s acclaimed curator of invertebrates. Brilliant, fired with enthusiasm for his subject…
There are films easily ruined by spoiler details, and then there are films that sound almost like a joke when spoilers are revealed. ‘Sirāt,’ whose title comes from the Arabic meaning “way,” or “path,” or the perilous connection between paradise and hell, is both.
A meeting on Zoom sounds like a relief until I remember I hate it. Texting keeps me in touch with friends so swiftly and constantly, I forget how much I miss them.
Some of us need to be in a certain place, or with certain kinds of people, or in a certain emotional climate....
Saint Louis Art Museum’s Art in Bloom, now in its twentieth year, is the museum’s most popular event, a long weekend of activities centering around the pairing of specific works of art in the galleries with flower arrangements, which reimagine them, by mostly professional floral designers and garden club members.
Like war in the Middle East, military-grade weaponry, partisan enmity in politics, and utility trucks and RVs, the hamburger endures because it delivers recombinant flavors in huge doses of fat and salt that land in the stomach like a firm, reliable handshake.
Last week, I read a delightful story on a friend’s Facebook page, full of specific details about a farmer who realized that someone was taking eggs and potatoes from his farm stand without plunking any money into the honor jar. She was hungry and broke—times were increasingly hard—and too proud…