What Buckminster Fuller Would Tell Us
He wanted to “make the world work, for 100 percent of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.” Seems so quaint now.
Dispatches
Into the Tallow End
“Tallow.” Say it carefully even once or twice and we notice instantly its phonetic advantage over the word “lard,” which sounds suspiciously like “lord” but falls just one vowel short of such esteem because no one would like to think of using God’s name in vain, much less as something we might cook with.
What If Harvard Went Out of Business?
Harvard, which has America’s largest university endowment, of at least $53 billion, might be seen as best-suited to defend its autonomy from federal demands, but then that is one of the very reasons it is a primary target.
Why Pamela Paul Annoyed NYTimes Readers
We are both White ladies who want everybody to be polite and nice so we can go back to reading our book.
The New Pandemic
Whoever thought a financial crisis would feel just like a pandemic?
The Nominal Joys of a Discombobulated Text
‘Tristram Shandy’ and ‘Riddley Walker’ stand as scurrilous hold-outs, novels that experiment with form, juggle your expectations, and even jangle your nerves.
The Vilified Elite…Poodle
Want to understand what tore this country apart? The fate of the poodle is your fable.
Remembering R.E.M. Explored by SLSO on Its One-Year Anniversary
Though St. Louis cannot claim the April 5 debut of “R.E.M. Explored” as the church in Athens can for the band itself, this performance featured a new sequence of the program that has become standard in subsequent concerts, not to mention the only time Mills’s compositions have been re-imagined by Marsh and Mallamud’s orchestrations and performed by a symphony orchestra on the iconic date of R.E.M.’s nativity.
A Parlor Game for the Times: Whose Psyche Is Darker?
Would you rather be manipulated or punched in the gut?
“Hands Off!” Rally in Illinois the Calm Before a Possible Storm
No one was protesting in downtown Champaign, with its popular restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. No MAGA believer showed up with an assault rifle, as someone did in Indiana, or with a Nazi flag, as a man did in St. Louis’s Metro East.