Slime Ball
Our forbears mistrusted slime. Back in the ninth century, a Chinese scholar named one specimen “demon droppings.” European folklore presents slime mold as witches’ work. Today, we seem to be redeeming the stuff.
Dispatches
James Bond Rides Again
The soap opera element made “No Time to Die,” at times, deadening to watch, as if it had come to a complete halt and the audience is asked to take a bunch of unserious characters seriously as if they are anchored in a reality where actual people live. This is simply pretentiousness.
Island Wisdom
Places we thought weak, isolated, cut off, backwater, and undeveloped have developed something very different: an understanding of interdependence. And that could reshape how we understand the world, how we live in the world, and how we make policy.
The Many Incarnations of the Bookmobile
Now that I have shed the self-consciousness of childhood’s fierce inner life and realized I am not the only one who cherishes books and I do not have to protect them single-handedly against bubblegum and mocking boys . . . my heart has softened toward the bookmobile.
Trucks Put to Other Use
Photo by John Griswold Of course a city garbage truck—big, dangerous, smelly—was the big hit at the local Touch a Truck event today, and both kids and parents enthused over it. My younger son had volunteered to help staff the event, and it was one of our first…
How Terrorists Think—and Why We May See More Events Like the Capitol Riot
Having read stories of heroes and martyrs when we were kids, we take it on faith that people should be willing to die for their beliefs. That, or we dismiss suicidal terrorists as deluded, brainwashed. But have we looked inside the brains of extremists to see what might have been happening when they made their noble or mad choices?
First Step Across A Line
Photo by John Griswold “How far, in any case, must one go back to find the beginning?” —WG Sebald, After Nature I know someone who used to say, at key life-moments: I’m going to just [do this one thing], and we’ll see what happens. If you looked…
Did the Italian Sculptor Sexualize?
Stifano says he wanted "La Spigolatrice," “to represent an ideal of a woman, evoke her pride, the awakening of a conscience, all in a moment of great pathos.” He cheerfully admits that he would have preferred to sculpt her nude but was not allowed.
Theme for Lester
For thirty-three years, until his death on November 8, 1999, trumpet player Lester Bowie was the face of the Art Ensemble, playing trumpet at center stage while wearing the white laboratory coat that marked him as the sound scientist in charge of the band’s musical experiments.
Leonardo Padura, the Great Cuban Detective Novel, and a Passion for Baseball
Padura has won more than two dozen international awards, the last, the Princess of Asturias prize. On that occasion, he wore a Cuban guayabera and held a baseball when he went up to the podium. First loves never die.