What Do Women Want? Ask Colleen Hoover
The success of Hoover’s books reminds me how prissy and bourgeois I am. Hoover’s fans say her work leaves them speechless, in tears, happy wrecks.
Dispatches
Evil Finds Horror in the Everyday—Then Laughs at It
The show’s first stroke of genius is the team’s camaraderie. In a time when we dare not even hint at our beliefs to a stranger, “Evil” gives us three people with entirely different world views who—here is the miracle—respect one another’s points of view.
Why Dawn of the Dead is the Seventies’ Ultimate Coming-of-Age Movie
“Dawn of the Dead” turns life and death upside down. Life is a stress-soaked struggle to survive, while death is a lurching, subconscious walk through old, submerged impulses until you die again—by firearm, machete, or blunt force. And why do people refuse to die? Because they want to go shopping.
Visiting the Apple Orchard a Return to Eden—With Donuts
Gathering food locally at a local pace with local technology may not be quite as convenient in some cases, but it roots us more firmly in our own lives. This, I think, is the subconscious delight of visiting a local apple orchard in fall.
When Coral Reefs Die, Even the Midwest Loses
If one of us goes days without food, the blood drains from our face, and we collapse. Without a meal, soon, we will die. Coral’s widespread bleaching signals the same fate.
I Wish I Had the Discipline to Fast
Fasting has been accorded such power, and it has taken so many forms, there must be something to it. Denying oneself can be salutary. It is fun, now and again, to stay up all night.
Pumpkin Spice Sums Up What Ails This Nation
The suite of pumpkin spice stuff comes out earlier each year, weakening the magnetic pull of scarcity that originally made it exciting.
How a Millais Painting Wages Elegant Battle against Climate Change
A painting cannot give us back days of fall lost. But if we gaze at a painting capable of imparting its own unique sensations, we can at least travel to a different place of mind, a consciousness that might move us forward or even shake us to action.
Miles Davis Showed Us How Taking Risks Was Cool
It takes self-assurance to throw yourself or your plans away in the belief there is no wrong path, only other opportunities to exercise mastery. It is not a game without risk.
Why the Clothes of My Past Stay Closeted
The idea of resurrecting clothes of my youth half a century later, redeeming the hot sting of embarrassment with carefully chosen accessories, intrigued me. Until I remembered what I would be resurrecting.