What Happens When an AI Jesus Steps in for the Clergy
A young pastor said, “I was positively surprised how well it worked.” All he missed, he added, was emotion and spirituality.
Dispatches
An Engaging Christmas
It was not hard to ask my sons if they would like to forgo Christmas gifts this year and travel together instead—to make memories instead of buying things because the season dictates.
Flat Out of Luck
Listening to a brilliant man who is living in his car, I have, in rapid succession, every reaction I deplore in others.
This Is No Time for Cynicism
The Great Capitulation has begun. A cynical shrug could entrench it.
How the Candyman Films Examine the White Savior Complex and Exploitation Through Art and Collective Trauma
The “Candyman” films have a vision for their critiques of exploitative art. For those overcoming experiences with trauma, art immortalizes both pain and healing. These films have messages to tell the world about both, but they also want to have messages about many things.
When the Wheel Came Off
The truck’s left rear wheel came entirely off the vehicle, which then scraped to a stop on its naked rotor. My passenger noticed this phenomenon at the same moment, then we watched what followed in silent but shared wonder.
Snow Daze
Remember folding white paper again and again, then snipping it with blunt scissors to make a snowflake? The magic never ends.
The Frangible Beauty of Ceramics
The resemblances of ceramics with human life are poignant. People too get fired in the kilns of experience, and often we emerge flawed or get broken in time. Some are dun, some glazed or crazed, some repaired with stripes of gold. We are all sensuous as pots.
What Lies Beneath “Dignity”
Why the French value dignity and the United States despises it. (Only a slight exaggeration.)
Why Can We Not Admit That the 1990s Was The Greatest Decade?
We seem unable to acknowledge the greatness of the 1990s not because we cannot remember its halcyon spirit but because we refuse to.