Flowers Have Mastered the Art of Seduction
The wild and crazy things a flower will do to get laid
Dispatches
The Man Who Saw Missouri’s Beauty
A fresh look at the Katy and Rock Island trails—and the difference they make.
Reading the Iliad in a Time of War
It is predictable, but also true, to say that the Iliad makes poetry out of war and conflict. It is more precise to say that the Iliad reminds us that war and conflict are always with us, whether in open conflagration and mounting body counts or simmering beneath the surface.
AI Illiteracy
If visual-textual AI literacy is this bad, what (else) will Americans believe about, say, politics, based on social media posts with altered or fictional material? I think we know but pretend not to.
The Death of a Tavern Keeper
When Bobby Kirksey bought Jacobsmeyers—already a legacy tavern in Granite City—he made it clear to his musician friends that his tavern was open to us. He meant it.
With Relentless Mischief, Life Surprises Us
No matter how tight your friendships, you cannot predict where you will find a burst of empathy and help.
The Curious Importance of the Big Toe
The big toe freed our hands to make art, use tools, carry babies, and write literature. Why do we mock it?
Searching for Debussy’s Cathedral, Behind the Wheel
Sitting in my idle rental car at various stoplights in rural Michigan, I felt the transcendent parallel fifths of Claude Debussy’s “La cathedral engloutie” wash over my ears all over again.
Our Hand-Wringing About the Planet Could Be Hubris
Robinson Jeffers thought even our angst was self-centered. “We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;/ We must unhumanize our views a little.”
The Heartland Student Journalism Fellowship Announces Second-Year Recipients for 2024
Washington University in St. Louis undergraduate student Alethea Franklin and St. Louis writer Marie Wenya Burns are the second annual recipients of the Heartland Journalism Fellowships.