It’s said about a lot of people, but true of only a few: There was something special about Edie.
death
Posted inScience & Nature, Story
Atomic City
On January 3, 1961, a nuclear reactor the size of a small grain silo exploded in the Idaho desert, causing one of the only recorded nuclear fatalities on U.S. soil.
Posted inReading List, Unapologetic Women
The Unknowable Diana, 20 Years On: A Reading List
Why were we personally affected by a woman few knew and even fewer ever understood?
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
American Sphinx
Civil War monuments in the North erased an emancipated Black population. But the Sphinx looked to a new world: an integrated Africa and America.
Posted inQuotes, Unapologetic Women
Hilary Mantel’s Eulogy for the Unfinished Diana
“As Diana was a collective creation,” Mantel writes at the Guardian, “she was also a collective possession.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quote Posts, Science & Nature
What the Future of Death Looks Like
A look at the process of alkaline hydrosis, a more eco-friendly type of cremation, and the growing movement behind it.
Posted inEditor's Pick
In the future, your body won’t be buried…you’ll dissolve
For humans over the centuries, our dead have been embalmed, buried, and cremated. Now, a process called alkaline hydrolysis — using a machine called the Resomator — is being called a more environmental, less expensive, and attractive alternative.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
Why the Most Beautiful Poems Defy Understanding
“In a poem, we feel what is there, but also what is not.”
Posted inFiction, Nonfiction, Quotes
‘This Place, This Moment, Unplanned’: On Surviving a Heart Attack
Jeff Sharlet on how recovering from a life-threatening event takes place moment by moment.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Telemetry
After a heart attack (perhaps two heart attacks), Jeff Sharlet searches for meaning in his own mortality, “This brilliant darkness, with which I am coming to terms.”