Cracking the cover of Aaron Becker’s Journey trilogy, from Candlewick Press, initiates a plunge into a gorgeous, expansive, and dreamlike world—a world so vivid that words become unnecessary before the grandeur of what’s offered.... Read More

Allegations of candidate infidelity, a circus atmosphere, and fact-free image over reality. Yes, you’ve guessed correctly. I’m talking about the presidential campaign of 1840 that pit Martin Van Buren against William Henry Harrison.... Read More

Somewhere in the course of history, the medieval practice of eating “soul cakes”—to represent the dead departing purgatory—morphed into the distribution to unsuspecting children little morsels of diabetes- and obesity-inducing... Read More

Brian Wilson’s music is ubiquitous. It thrums through our collective memory—with particularly strong reverberations in the consciousness of California girls; it recalls sun-soaked days, languid satisfaction, and, at its very best,... Read More

If you find yourself rearranging items on your desk, brushing your teeth with the exact same number of strokes every morning, washing your hands after you touch doorknobs, you may think you have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). But,... Read More

This Monday is officially Columbus Day, but a growing number of Americans are refusing to celebrate the life of the historically troubling lost sailor, replacing or pairing the holiday with Indigenous People’s Day. But this mainstream... Read More

It’s getting more difficult to use collective amnesia as an excuse to try the same thing over and over again. Current tensions between African Americans and the police did not spring from nowhere a couple years ago in Ferguson,... Read More

The climate doesn’t care about your political beliefs. Neither do the data that show human activity is causing it to change at an alarming rate. All else is commentary. But, speaking of commentary, there is much to be said about what... Read More