Dispatches

Office Space

By Jeannette Cooperman

Workwise, I find myself in an odd place. I have never been happier than I am now, working from home. Yet I am desperately sorry for young people who have to work from home.

The fluffy sort of news—by which I mean anything that does not include death counts, death…

The Either/Ors That Box Us In

By Jeannette Cooperman

This culture has not trained us to lightly move in and out of categories, emotions, attachments. But all-or-nothing can be childish, and in many situations, it has ceased to be sustainable. Gradual, intermittent, partial, tempered, blended, some of each, a bit of both—these are the gray places waiting for us.

The Meaning of Years

By John Griswold

One of my old friend’s names is a synonym for king. I have known him since we were maybe eight, when his mother placed him in my mom’s Cub Scout den. We were all rascals, but he and I were fatherless and poor. Due to the authority of his size,…

How Trump Has Encouraged the Witches

By Jeannette Cooperman

Once you have done everything else you can think to do to shift the “molecular weight,” you have only three choices: resign yourself to the unbearable, lose your mind, or cast a spell.

Everything I Have is From Disaster

By John Griswold

Scholar Mark Edmundson says, “[Harold] Bloom once told a seminar I was in that he used to ask people he’d just met what was the worst thing that ever happened to them. Cuts to the chase, doesn’t it? I’m more inclined to ask about the best.”

Why can’t we…

Everyday Saints

By Jeannette Cooperman

The morning that I woke—grateful all over again for the new ease in life, the new job, the reprieve from what I had expected to be a year of anguish and mourning—and decided my mother was a saint, an absurd and delightful thought came to me: I, the long-fallen-away Catholic, could pray to her!

Dropping Clues to Your Socioeconomic Class

By Jeannette Cooperman

It is obnoxious, ridiculous, and a waste of breath and semiotics. But we live in an invisible hierarchy of, if not class in the British sense, advantages, privileges, access, or the lack thereof. And they have shaped us.

How a Dog Would Want a Politician to Behave

By Jeannette Cooperman

Willie is part of our family, and we know he hates us to be gone, and leaving without acknowledging that feels as though we are brushing those feelings aside. I would rather he know that we know, plus give him a treat so he gets something that acknowledges his suffering. That feels more like a family: All of us aware that we treasure one another’s company, tender when we part, and thrilled when we return.

Pretend You Are Doing Research in Antarctica

By Jeannette Cooperman

Antarctica suits my mood; it is, psychologically, what I fear this winter will be for all of us. No burble of conversation on outdoor patios, no meeting for wine with neighbors, just quick shuddery nods and a dash back inside. However will we find the patience? How do researchers in Antarctica endure it?

The Zoo of Human Quarantine Behavior

By Jeannette Cooperman

The zoo was open again. How had those guys managed?I imagined them all breathing a huge sigh of relief. Puttering around in their habitats with no watching eyes, no screaming children. And then, reopening? Was it a shock to their nervous systems?The next day, I called to check.