Trying not to kill a mockingbird

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I doubt that death will come. Death? Could it be that the days, so long, will end? That’s how I daydream, calm, quiet. Could it be that death is a…

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Fighting for literature in an age of algorithms

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In August 1965, Andy Warhol popped two Desoxyn and set out with his Philips tape recorder to capture a day in the life of Factory superstar Ondine. (The two had…

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In the final seconds of Wolf Hall — the six-part BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s best-selling novels of high-stakes intrigue at the court of Henry VIII — the camera lingers…

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The dismal science of human optimization

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For every percentage point the foreclosure rate increased during the subprime-mortgage crisis, the average block in mixed black and white American neighborhoods gained 9.6 black residents and lost 4.5 white…

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By Lukasz Jarosz, from The Nature of Things, a collection of his poems that will be published this month by Liberodiscrivere. Jarosz is the author of several books of poems,…

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From the description of the Vajankle, a silicone foot produced by Sinthetics, an intimate-doll manufacturer. A single Vajankle, without a shoe, costs $175.

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From a list of gifts rejected by organizations since 2010. Compiled by Nicholas Nardini.

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From the titles of computer-science papers published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and retracted after it was discovered that they were written by software that generates fake…

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By Wolfgang Hilbig, from “I”, published in 1993 by S. Fischer Verlag and due out for the first time in English in July from Seagull Books. Hilbig was born in…

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From a debate in February in the Utah State Legislature about House Bill 74, which specifies that consent for sexual contact cannot be given in circumstances in which a person…

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By John Edgar Wideman. Wideman is a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine.

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From emails about an antigay protest organized by the Westboro Baptist Church in 2002. The emails were included in the FBI’s file on Fred Phelps, who founded the church in…

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By William M. Arkin, from Unmanned: Drones, Data, and the Illusion of Perfect Warfare, out next month from Little, Brown. Arkin is a former army intelligence analyst and the author…

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Mark Greif’s intellectual excavations

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Karl Taro Greenfeld and the novel of inequality

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With the arrival of Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix), we finally have a major sitcom heroine whom we definitely don’t want to dress like. Kimmy Schmidt…

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You never step in the same river twice, but a rival you step on constantly. “Everything flows” — including anger and resentment. According to Socrates, according to Plato, the original…

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Interesting fact: Toucan cereal bedspread to my plunge and deliver. It’s okay if you can’t make sense of that. I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t grasp it either. The…

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Percentage change in the rate of global carbon emissions in 2014 : 0 Number of previous years on record in which the global economy grew and the carbon-emission rate did not : 0 Percentage…

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Following the trail of BP’s oil in the Gulf of Mexico

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The medical ordeal no one wants to talk about

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A Tale of Two Citis Despite several requests from Citi’s public-affairs department, Andrew Cockburn and the editors of Harper’s refused to discuss Mr. Cockburn’s article [“Saving the Whale, Again,” Letter…

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Why one of Asia’s most open societies keeps turning to military rule

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Older U.S. kindergartners do better than their peers when they reach elementary and middle school but are more likely to drop out of high school and become felons. Approximately 3.6…

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