“I wanted him to understand my life—that I’d been caught in the local pattern and found the safest way forward, but if I’d lived somewhere else I’d be someone else and still could.”
Story
‘We Value Experience’: Can a Secret Society Become a Business?
Jeff Hull’s Latitude Society explores the possibilities of art, intimacy, experience, and membership.
The Radical Pessimism of Dashiell Hammett
The stories of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler once wrote, “gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse.”
How to Get SuperBetter
Game designer Jane McGonigal argues that playing games can help us develop skills for life.
How Mary Karr Teaches Her Students About Memory: A Short Excerpt from ‘The Art of Memoir’
The celebrated memoirist uses a little deception and a judicious ‘fuck’ to make a point.
The Walkable Multiverse According to Charles Jencks
On an abandoned mining site in Scotland, an architectural theorist attempts to bring the mysteries of the cosmos to life on Earth.
On the Other Hand
Twenty-five years after Jim Henson’s death, a glimpse of the man who kept his most iconic puppet singing: Steve Whitmire.
Yonkers, Housing Desegregation and the Youngest Mayor in America
The true story behind the HBO miniseries “Show Me a Hero.”
The Nine Lives of Cat Videos
Are cat videos mindless distraction or a radical form of pure entertainment? A visit to the Internet Cat Video Festival at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Franklin, Reconsidered: An Essay by Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore revisits the legacy of Benjamin Franklin, who in his time was “the most accomplished and famous American who had ever lived.”
