Cryptocurrency Will Not Die
A close look at a global force that can’t be dismissed as a passing fad, but can’t be fully trusted either.
My Life Cleanse: One Month Inside L.A.’s Cult of Betterness
For one month, one man embraced a number of so-called woo-woo self-improvement practices in his adopted Los Angeles, from crystal healing to “prayer power batteries.” His journey led him to a controversial program called Mastery in Transformational Training, or M.I.T.T.
Will Roger Federer Ever Be Done?
A profile of tennis great Roger Federer, who won the Australian Open in January after five years without a Grand Slam title, and at 35 is showing no signs of retiring any time soon.
Welcome to Camp Midlife Crisis!
Around one million adults went to camp last year. The author spends time at an adult sleep-away called Camp Grounded, which prohibits booze, phones, the internet, time-keeping devices and talking about work in order to give participants a “digital detox,” because only when we can step away from technology can we learn to reconnect with each other.
Scout’s Honor
“It might have been the Friendliest Place on Earth.” The writer visits a national Jamboree for the Boy Scouts of America.
An American (Working) in Paris
A New Yorker with limited French skills gets dropped into an advertising agency in Paris:
“In French class, I did well in spoken tests, but my written French was appalling. The conditional tense confused me, and the French loved the conditional tense, French conversation practically being founded on relativity—perhaps, maybe, I don’t know. In kissing, some people were ripe, others were not. Whole groups could be off-limits.
“It definitely wasn’t appropriate to kiss your boss, except when it was, though it was correct to kiss your underlings, except when it wasn’t. Young men generally didn’t kiss other young men, unless they were friends outside work. But older men did, sometimes. You never knew. Also, these kisses were intended not to touch the cheek but to glance it. People kept their eyes locked on the middle distance and seemed, while kissing or being kissed, very bored.”