Earlier this year, an op-ed written by members of Columbia University’s Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board argued that Ovid’s Metamorphoses should be taught with a trigger warning because the myths of Daphne and Persephone “include vivid depictions of rape and sexual assault.” Needless to say, a lot of people had thoughts about this. In a recent essay-cum-open-letter for Oregon Humanities, poet Wendy Willis issued an […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Before the Internet, Your Lies Could Only Travel So Far
“I’m sure there were phonies who claimed to be the sole survivor of Thermopylae,” [Don] Shipley says. “Guys that claimed service at Gettysburg, Valley Forge. But they could only project it down a couple of barstools at the village pub. Now with the internet, you can be anyone you want to be.” —Michael Gaynor writing for Washingtonian about […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Early Roots of Surgery
The first recorded cases of cancer show how the Ancient Egyptians used cauterisation (using red-hot instruments to burn off tissue and seal off wounds) to destroy tumours and to treat a variety of infections, diseases and bleeding lesions. Until the mid-18th century, surgery was the only effective option for addressing several conditions. But it was […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What Separated Los Angeles from Its River?
In the early twentieth century, a booming Los Angeles was separated from the river in three decisive steps. First, an aqueduct was built more than 200 miles north to water to the city from the Sierra Nevada—a move mythologized in the movie Chinatown. Then, the city took control of all water rights on the river. Finally, the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Billionaires Do Burning Man
Like all people who hate Burning Man, I enjoy nothing more than reading articles about Burning Man. In February, Felix Gillette chronicled the semi-clad class warfare at last year’s Burning Man for Bloomberg Businessweek. Despite being a festival based on radical self-reliance, Black Rock City is seemingly overrun with tech billionaires setting up their own exclusive festivals-within-a-festival; ultra-luxe camps that […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Nothing Beside Remains (of the Space Jam Website)
Last week, Rolling Stone came out with a fantastically detailed and weird deep dive into the history of the Space Jam website. While technically operating under the purview of one of the world’s largest entertainment companies, a ragtag group of unsupervised young coders built something really revolutionary. The site was a pioneering example of how a studio could […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Harsh Realities of Being a Woman in the Music Industry
On Monday, Jessica Hopper (music writer, culture critic, author of the recent and wonderfully titled The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic) asked her Twitter followers a simple question: “Gals/other marginalized folks: what was your 1st brush (in music industry, journalism, scene) w/ idea that you didn’t “count”?” Needless to say, […]
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Hollywood Gets Authenticity and the Pentagon Gets Publicity
Jamie Tarabay explored Hollywood’s relationship with the Pentagon in a recent piece for Al Jazeera America. The Pentagon has a devoted “entertainment-liaison officer” who acts as a Hollywood point person and helps decide which projects get Pentagon support (in the form of expertise, equipment, and locations). According to scholar Lawrence Suid, the Hollywood military relationship relationship dates back to […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Helen Gurley Brown’s Nemeses (and Collected Papers)
There is a fantastic piece on legendary Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown and her legacy (or more specifically, who owns Brown’s legacy) in today’s New York Times. Katherine Rosman unpacks the financial and cultural battle over Brown’s estate with nuanced, careful reporting, but she also doesn’t sacrifice any of the heightened details you’d expect from a Helen Gurley […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Nature of a Narrative Line
September 17 Annie Dillard talks about how the narrative line has been devalued by modern physics. The narrative line to me is like a Mexican mural: flattened in perspective so all is present; cramped by detail, erotic, various, the flat depth held up in the imagination, its transience, and impermanence nakedly apparent. The narrative does […]