What Are You Planning to Do with That?
For many college and university graduates, this is not a brief phase but a long-term reality, one that turns the job market into something that feels less like a promise and more like a gamble.
Dispatches
Our Gamified Lives
Duolingo. The best way to learn Spanish, right? Gamified so thoroughly that even I—who loathe competition in any form—got hooked. The characters were fun, and the constant invisible pressure had me coming home tired and rushing to do my Duolingo, worried that I would finish past midnight and lose…
The Improbable Museum of Winston Churchill
Finding a museum dedicated entirely to Churchill, in Fulton, Missouri, two hours west of St. Louis, seems as odd as it would be to find a Charles de Gaulle museum in Brooklyn (the one in lower Alabama), just north of Rome (in Alabama’s Conecuh National Forest).
What the Pets of the Presidency Reveal
There are big political questions that prompt citizens to decide whether we agree with our president. But then there is the human question: what sort of person is this president? And what sort of person do the times allow him to be?
One way to begin answering the…
Why Music Sounds Better in Old Churches
Years ago, thrilled to be wandering through Oxford, I heard strains of classical guitar and peeked into a gorgeous old stone church. The music lifted me; we soared together, joining the apostles on the vaulted ceiling. No wonder Sir Neville Marriner conducted in St. Martin-in-the-Fields church rather than a…
The Coat You Wear to Fight, Spy, or Seduce
I have always wanted to be naked under a tightly cinched trench coat. Maybe the appeal is the contrast: soft, ready flesh, buttoned in and belted with military precision. I had never thought about this coat’s history until I read Trench Coat by Jane Tynan, part of Bloomsbury’s…
My Secret Crime, Aired at Last
In my teens, I made, on delighted impulse, a mistake that has haunted me ever since. My grandmother’s name had been bestowed upon me as a middle name, and I loathed the woman. She was a cool and inventive schemer, clever but not gentle, disappointed with her life and…
How Charles Dickens Panned the United States, Then Paused to Laud It
Taken together, “American Notes” and “Martin Chuzzlewit” reveal not only the fun of laughing at ourselves as Americans, but also the folly of how painfully ridiculous we look when we fail to acknowledge our faults and the collective injustices of our history that we would rather walk past. There is no virtue in unyielding, unquestioned “patriotism,” much less iron-clad nationalism. There is only material for ridicule, waiting for the next outsider with literary acumen to describe and document in cold-eyed prose.
The Uncomfortable Reality of Now
“The lights are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.” ~Sir Edward Grey, August 1914
It is hell living with a historian. I talk about Venezuelans’ opinions. My husband talks about an end to the international order. I wonder aloud whether…
Coming to Our Senses
We live in a sensory desert in which rooms are deodorized, soundproofed, and painted in neutral colors. But “sensehacking" can transform experience.