Lessons from Hitler’s Rise
Confucius said, “Study the past if you would define the future.” A good place to start is this newly translated biography of Hitler.
In the Shadow of a Fairy Tale
Leslie Jamison is stepmother to Lily, age 6. Lily’s mother died of cancer just before Lily turned three. Jamison explores fairy tale stepmothers both as the rare “port in the storm” and the much more common “stock villain” — stereotyped by cruelty, abuse, and withholding affection — as she reflects on her relationship with Lily and on navigating the fraught role of stand-in parent.
Margaret Atwood: The Prophet of Dystopia
At The New Yorker, Rebecca Mead profiles Margaret Atwood — Canada’s prolific queen of literature. Mead and Atwood cover the resonance of The Handmaid’s Tale in Donald Trump’s America, Atwood’s approach to feminism, and the purpose of fiction in today’s society. Beloved for her incisive mind along with her works, Atwood uses unlimited curiosity as her approach to a life well lived — whether that’s living in a tent while birding in Panama, engaging with her 1.5 million Twitter followers, or writing as a septuagenarian. “I don’t think she judges anything in advance as being beneath her, or beyond her, or outside her realm of interest,” says friend and collaborator, Naomi Alderman.
Who Gets to Own Black Girl Magic?
The phrase “Black Girl Magic” has become a point of pride for black female visibility in the way it acknowledges how black women are seen—and not seen—in culture. It’s become a valuable phrase as well, and is now at the center of a trademark dispute. But where, exactly, did black girl magic come from?
The Syria Catastrophe
You are not wrong for thinking the situation in Syria is complicated: The very essence of the proxy war is its complication. “It would be foolish to think of the conflict as one big Rubik’s cube in need of solving” writes Rich Beck in the latest issue of n+1, “because the complexity itself is part of the problem — the best thing to do with the Rubik’s cube would be to throw it against a wall.”
How an Indigenous Neighbourhood Patrol Is Fighting Overdoses in Winnipeg
After the body of 14-year-old Tina Fontaine was found in Winnipeg’s Red River in 2014, members of the community took action. The Bear Clan Patrol reformed in Winnipeg’s North End neighborhood and started to walk the streets at night. Nearly three years later, over 530 volunteers act as “boots on the ground,” focusing on harm reduction by handing out condoms, offering rides, diffusing violent confrontations, preventing opioid overdoses by administering naloxone, and protecting the vulnerable to “get that village feel back,” as co-founder James Favel says. They’re “Trying to inspire people to care more about one another.”
On Impractical Urges
An essay excerpted from Robin Romm’s forthcoming anthology Double Bind: Women on Ambition in which The Twelve Tribes of Hattie novelist Ayana Mathis considers the writing ambitions she often hasn’t felt entitled to–even after Oprah Winfrey chose her book as an Oprah 2.0 pick.
The Most Expensive Record Never Sold
Some people go to great lengths for fame and fortune, especially this Florida surfer who plays guitar.
How to Cross a Field of Snow
While on a trip hunting for bison on the Canadian tundra, Robert Moor recounts the uncanny horror of the blank, white landscape. It’s a familiar feeling for him, similar to the terror felt by any artist facing the blank white page: “The creative abyss is a snowy field”
Echt Deutsch
After officially welcoming Syrian refugees into Germany, a growing Nationalist movement has formed to limit immigration there, and opposing factions are struggling to determine who Germans are and who they can be.
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