My great great grandmother was also a Katharine Marie. I don’t know a lot about her, but I wish I did. I learned that when my parents were choosing names for their baby, they had settled on Katharine were I to be designated female at birth. I only found out when I brought up the […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
When a Successful Business Is One That Can Pay Employees a Decent Wage
At the New York Times, reporters Steven Greenhouse and Stephanie Strom look at businesses that pay their employees well over minimum wage, including In-N-Out burger, which starts employees off at $10.50 an hour, and Boloco, a burrito chain with 22 restaurants in New England: John Pepper, Boloco’s co-founder, said the strategy for his Boston-based company […]
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The Secret of Friendship
Support, salvation, transformation, life: this is what women give to one another when they are true friends, soul friends, what the Irish call anam cara. It’s what the Wrinklies did for one another, what the French resistance fighters in Auschwitz did for one another, what women do for one another in real relationships with real […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
A History of Scorpion Venom in Medicine
The new issue of Wired has a story about Jim Olson, a pediatric oncologist and cancer researcher whose lab is looking into whether a scorpion-venom concoction can help detect cancer cells in our bodies. Injecting our bodies with scorpion venom may sound somewhat outlandish, but it’s been used in medicine for quite a long time: […]
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David Rakoff on the Downsides of Childhood
I had a beautiful childhood and a lovely childhood. I just didn’t like being a child. I didn’t like the rank injustice of not being listened to. I didn’t like the lack of autonomy. I didn’t like my chubby little hands that couldn’t manipulate the world of objects in the way that I wanted them […]
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Why Tim Howard Doesn't Enjoy Soccer Games
“In goal, you’re taking in all the movement, all the runs,” Howard said. “You see everything. You’re yelling. You’re tense. You’re so wired-in. To tell you the truth, I don’t enjoy the game—I’ve never actually had fun within the course of those ninety minutes.” Because the object is always a shutout—a “clean sheet,” as the […]
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The Problem With Strong Female Characters in Hollywood Right Now
At the Dissolve, Tasha Robinson discusses why having a Strong Female Character in a film isn’t good enough if her presence is superficial. Robinson cites Valka from How To Train Your Dragon 2 as an example, as well as Strong Female Characters from other recent films: And Valka’s type—the Strong Female Character With Nothing To […]
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Philip Levine’s Advice for ‘Making It’ as a Writer
“Many young poets have come to me and asked, How am I gonna make it?”
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When Creativity Comes in Pairs—Then Comes Apart
What ultimately brought their work together to a halt was not creative disagreements but business ones. During his power grab, John was sweet-talked by a canny, dubious manager named Allen Klein, with whom he promptly signed. George and Ringo followed—pure primate politics there. But Paul would not. And so legend has it that the Beatles […]
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Falling in Love, 30 Years Later
At Vogue, Mira Jacob writes about watching her parents love 30 years after being paired up in an arranged marriage: The night before I went back to New York, I came home to a sight so disquieting that I stood outside in the dark for a full five minutes, just watching. It was late. The […]