January 2015 Archives
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Personal Histories
The Books
A couple’s decision to combine bookshelves supplies a series of revelations.
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Breaking the News Cycle
Kiss From a Mall Cop
Your party-conversation brief on the most important stories that no one’s talking about anymore—the plight of the Segway, internet child exchanges, Ebola, the current fortunes of Seal, and more.
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The Night Desk
The End Isn’t the End
When insomnia and technological convenience collide, a lifetime of binge reading reaches its full potential.
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Letters From Tokyo
Three Feet by Six Feet by Three Feet
A visit to the granddaddy of Japan’s capsule hotels—with cot-sized individual spaces and shared amenities—and a lesson in different methods of getting along.
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Gallery
Tales From the City of Gold
Photographs of communities existing around the mine dumps of Johannesburg, South Africa—defunct mines that were closed decades ago being re-mined for any traces of gold.
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News From America
Work Is Pretty Scarce Around Here
Just before and right after President Obama’s State of the Union address, an editor telephones complete strangers around the country, to find out what’s really going on.
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Science in Fiction
Do You Believe in Ghosts?
Ignore the critics: Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is not only a serious, complex comment on space policy, it’s a heartbreaking, philosophical look at the value of time.
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Spoofs & Satire
Kafka’s Kickstarter
The latest works from the author will be given with pleasure, and received with thanks, but we need your support.
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Realpolitiking
They Are Charlie
An American in Dijon, France, brings his country’s grasp of recent terrorism to a nation enthralled by theory, traumatized by attack.
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Explainers
The Marriage Defense
The Supreme Court will soon deliver a definitive ruling on same-sex marriage, a subject that has roiled the United States since the colonial era—or not. A brief illustrated history.
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Spoofs & Satire
The Pitch
Idea for a television show: a teenager has the power to turn fantasy into reality—but she doesn’t know it. It’s Amelia Bedelia meets Quantum Leap.
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Close Reads
It Made Me Feel Like More Than One Person
You can learn how to read a poem, but you can’t choose how it will affect you. Here, a little cough launches a journey through a reader’s mind.
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Gallery
Night Divers
Paintings of divers, ships at sea, and Superman—wearing underpants or not—find common ground in quiet mystery.
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Personal Histories
The Gambler
In which the novelist and magician Tim O’Brien makes the author disappear, and a family funeral puts a father’s sleight of hand on full display.
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Gallery
Farce and Sensibility
Paintings of peculiar worlds where butterflies sizzle in frying pans. The more you pay attention, the less you’ll understand.
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The Rooster
Announcing the 2015 Tournament of Books
The Rooster begins to stir from his hibernation, and he is hungry. Introducing the judges, shortlist, and Zombie poll for the 2015 edition of the Tournament of Books.
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Spoofs & Satire
This Will Be the Year That Was
If you can’t wait to find out what 2015 will bring—from John Galliano’s Cosby sweaters to Jenny McCarthy getting polio—wait no longer. (Spoilers ahead.)