Jed came downstairs. He worked mostly in the sleeping loft, writing serious journalism. His current project was about a friend’s imprisonment on charges related to terrorism. He said, “Laurie.” “What?”…
In 1979, a catchy Kenny Rogers song called “Coward of the County” made it to the top of the country charts. It’s about a man named Tommy, whose father, a…
Number of U.S. states that include cursive writing in their educational standards : 24 Portion of U.S. college freshmen who are required to write papers longer than 11 pages : 1/4 Who spend an…
By Bruno Latour, from The Great Regression, a collection of essays edited by Heinrich Geiselberger that will be published next month by Polity. Latour is a philosopher and the author, most…
From a test given to applicants for the position of emoji translator at Today Translations, a language company based in London. The job description, which was posted in December, asks…
From a CIA memorandum entitled “Homosexual Investigations” that was written in 1980 for the purpose of investigating colleagues. The document was published in March by Muckrock.
From a transcript of radio transmissions and cockpit conversations that took place during a drone strike in Afghanistan in 2010. The strike killed twenty-three civilians. At Nevada headquarters, Pilot is…
By Anaïs Nin (1903–77), from diary entries written in March 1947 in New York City. Trapeze, an unexpurgated section of Nin’s diaries spanning from 1947 to 1955, was published this…
From actions committed by women that were cited as constituting “mental cruelty” against their husbands in divorce cases in India since 2014. Mental cruelty is grounds for divorce under the…
From descriptions of trees that Henry David Thoreau noted in his journals. The journal entries are included in Thoreau and the Language of Trees, by Richard Higgins, which was published…
By Antonio di Benedetto (1922–86), from Nest in the Bones, a collection of his stories that was published this month by Archipelago Books. Di Benedetto was an Argentine journalist and the…
By Susan Howe, from Debths, which will be published next month by New Directions. Howe is the author of more than a dozen volumes of poetry. In January, the Poetry…
studs terkel: Your name is known to quite a few Americans these days. You let the country and the world know about a series of documents called the Pentagon Papers.…