Lonni Sue Johnson was a successful illustrator, when the herpes simplex virus attacked her brain; she lost almost her entire lifetime of knowledge, along with the ability to form new memories. Michael Lemonick describes how she’s invaluable to neuroscientists working to understand how we make and store memories.
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Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
The Boundless Possibility and Boundless Boredom of the Open Road
Jacob Hoerger, in The Point, pens an essay on cars, road trips, and how they force us to create our own meaning.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Failure to Cooperate
The indignity and discomfort of being accused of theft: a short story about a long shift at the coffee shop everyone loves to hate.
Posted inEditor's Pick
House of Cards: The Politics of Calling Card Etiquette in Nineteenth-Century Washington
In the early republic, social media had its own crucial importance — although what the media employed was not the tweet, but little bits of pasteboard.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Driving America
“Liberated by technology and disillusioned of the road-trip myth, the latter-day road tripper must face directly the fact that traveling in itself is phenomenally boring.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Eastern Europe: Beyond the Cold War, and Beyond the Stereotypes
The homogenizing force of globalization means that a shopping center in Budapest doesn’t look all that different from one central Turin, or York, or Cleveland. Is “Eastern Europe” as an idea disappearing? Try Jacob Mikanowski’s essay in the LA Review of Books for some suggestions (and some objections).
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
Eating In Public Is a Spectator Sport When You’re Fat
After navigating a lifetime of being fat (and ashamed) in the US, Jonatha Kottler moved to the Netherlands and found a whole new universe of exclusion.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Goodbye, Eastern Europe!
Is “Eastern Europe” disappearing? Was it ever real, or just a figment of Cold War imaginations?