Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction by Zadie Smith Zadie Smith’s consideration of the broad field of fiction storytelling, published recently in The New York Review of Books is dazzling, provocative, cerebral, emotional, and deep as the ocean. Smith … Continue reading Outside Reading — Profound-Other-Fascination edition
The “Cancel Culture” Con by Osita Nwanevu Prompted by Dave Chapelle’s wrong-headed defense of Michael Jackson in his new Netflix special and the immediate dismissal of a new Saturday Night Live cast member after the exposure of his blatant, repeated, … Continue reading Outside Reading — Using Words Wisely edition
Why I Love Kids’ Books in Translation by Rivka Galchen I recently listened to a podcast segment that was almost entirely comprised of the wonderful writers Rivka Galchen and Jia Tolentino chatting excitedly as they browsed through children’s’ section of a … Continue reading Outside Reading — No Room for the Baker edition
‘NO EXCESSIVE BARKING’: A Chevy Chase dog park divides the rich and powerful by Jessica Contrera Writing for The Washington Post, with a strong sense of playfulness fully engaged, Jessica Contrera examines a social skirmish taking place in a … Continue reading Outside Reading — The Twilight Bark edition
The Popeyes Chicken Sandwich Is Here to Save America by Helen Rosner In a divided age, when every day brings a new flurry of reasons for exhausting outrage at the crumbling norms of the republic, it was nice to have … Continue reading Outside Reading — Chicken Run edition
Americans Are Sad About Politics. Who Could Blame Them? by Clare Malone Writing for FiveThirtyEight, Clare Malone explores the exhausting nature of the current culture for politically attuned citizens, defined by a cascade of norm-shredding outrages and out-and-out criminal actions … Continue reading Outside Reading — Red and White and Black and Blue edition
Meet the people fighting for health care access for disabled kids detained at the border by s.e. smith The grotesque immorality and abject cruelty currently being perpetrated against human beings attempting to immigrate into the U.S. — most of them … Continue reading Outside Reading — Life, Liberty, Etc. edition
I can’t pinpoint the precise moment when I became completely enamored with Colson Whitehead’s writing, but I’m fairly certain it happened in New Orleans. I was there for a relief trip in 2006, less than one year after Hurricane Katrina … Continue reading My Writers — Colson Whitehead
Banned: The song deemed ‘too dangerous’ for the BBC by Stephen Dowling In a marvelous act of research and wry summary, Stephen Dowling provides the details on around a dozen different songs that have received official bans from the BBC … Continue reading Outside Reading — When She Squeezed Me Tight She Nearly Broke My Spine edition
An Oral History of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Perfect Men in Black ‘Sugar Water’ Scene by Rachel Handler Look, it’s probably a stretch to call this article an oral history, since it’s really comprised of nothing more than two interviews — with … Continue reading Outside Reading — I Want a Little Sugar in My Cup edition
Coffee for Two 