Instand Pot: great. Dover eggbeater? Not so much.
History
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, History, Nonfiction, Story
The Corpse Rider
“I could see the ghosts,” recalled Lafcadio Hearn about his early childhood. Late in life, he became a celebrated chronicler of Japan’s folk tales: stories of strange demons and lingering visitations.
Posted inStory
‘I Was Interested in the People Who Are Stuck With These Memories.’
Steph Cha discusses her new novel “Your House Will Pay,” the LA Riots, the Korean American Angeleno community, her 3,600 Yelp reviews, and pushing back against gatekeepers in publishing.
Posted inStory
‘Writing This Book Was a Weird Séance ’: An Interview With Deborah Levy
“If you have the depth, the surface can be as light as it’s possible to make it…I don’t mind that ‘Swimming Home’ is sometimes described as a ‘beach read’ — actually that’s a triumph.”
Posted inStory
The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Orchids
Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and sometimes it’s a powerful vehicle for giving free rein to our worst colonialist and misogynist impulses.
Posted inNonfiction
Queens of Infamy: Njinga
The Portuguese colonizers of West Central Africa learned it the hard way: you mess with the Queen of Ndongo and Matamba at your own peril.
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“We’re All Still Cooking…Still Raw at the Core”: An Interview with Jacqueline Woodson
“When I look at that dress and how much intention went into the making of it…it’s like we want to have something that can’t be destroyed, because so much of the past has been destroyed…”
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, History, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Mathematics as a Cultural Force
Historian Amir Alexander on Euclidean geometry’s far-reaching effects.
Posted inStory
Downsizing the American Black Middle Class
Government jobs helped thousands of Black families move into the middle class. Now, increasing calls for government privatization are pushing them back out.
Posted inBooks, History, Nonfiction, Story
In the Age of the Psychonauts
Three psycho-spiritual “events” of the 1970s — involving Philip K. Dick, Robert Anton Wilson, and Terence and Dennis McKenna — had a strange synchronicity.