A Brief History of the Tournament of Books
You can’t kill the Rooster.
Angela Chen
Linguistics is trench warfare
All this frivolous debate underscores the ouroborosian nature of web discourse in 2016. Because who cares, really? How often do you even need to say “read receipts” aloud? Adrienne LaFrance on the state of language and pronunciation on the internet. ↩︎ The Atlantic, posted Nov. 8, 2016 How do you translate
The occult is a much bigger thing than Halloween
In time for Halloween, here’s some occult art history: The first known depiction of a witch on a broom is from the 15th century—and no, it’s not exactly a coincidence that the broom is a phallic symbol. ↩︎ posted Oct. 26, 2016 Our childhood was…weird, in a
War Plan Red
The quirky history behind the secret, full-scale invasion that the United States once planned for Canada, and vice versa.
Silicon Valley High
No one’s surprised in Silicon Valley when a 12-year-old runs the family e-commerce store. But going to the same high school as Steve Jobs and liking it are two different things.
The Übersinner
Reddit's “Ask Me Anything” interviews—edited for the seven deadly sins—provide an Idolatry of Self so big, it produces Zen koans.
The Unbearable Lightness of Declaring a Liberal Arts Major
Faced with a deadline to choose her major, our writer hunts down interview subjects to learn where their studies got them, no matter her mother's loathing of the liberal arts.