A decade ago, when my fiancée and I were living in a semilegal converted nylon factory in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and I’d just published my first book—a coming-of-age memoir into which…

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From Let Me Tell You What I Mean, a collection of essays that will be published next month by Knopf. The essay originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in…

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From postscripts of letters written by Robert Lowell to his daughter Harriet, collected in The Dolphin Letters, 1970–1979, which was published last year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. cat for…

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From a September town-council meeting in Swastika, New York, during which members discussed a request to change the town’s name. The name dates to at least 1913, when it appeared…

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From “The Secret to Chukjibeop,” an article published in the May 20 edition of Rodong Sinmun, a state-run newspaper in North Korea. Chukjibeop refers to the power to bend time…

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From a letter sent in August by the chairman of the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Greetings from our nation’s front…

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From the Everyday Objects collection by Tiffany & Co., which the company says was developed to turn “ordinary” and “utilitarian” objects into luxury “works of art.” paper cups Inspired by…

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From a 2017 conversation between Yoram Ne’eman, then chief superintendent of the Israeli police, and Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. The police were investigating whether Netanyahu had been…

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From remarks made by U.S. judges in 2019, which appeared in the Winter 2020 issue of the Judicial Conduct Reporter, published by the National Center for State Courts. These remarks…

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From marketing copy for Civvil, a technology company that connects gig workers with property owners and local governments seeking assistance with the eviction of tenants who have fallen behind on…

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From TikTok videos of customers ordering the Travis Scott Meal. The meal, which includes a Quarter Pounder, french fries, and a Sprite, is a collaboration between McDonald’s and Travis Scott,…

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From a decision issued earlier this year by the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board of Ontario. The board was responding to a complaint filed by a patient about the…

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From entries on Wikipedia written by the user AmaryllisGardener. AmaryllisGardener, a nineteen-year-old from North Carolina, has written more than twenty-three thousand articles for Scots Wikipedia but cannot speak Scots, a…

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From the anthology A Very German Christmas: The Greatest Austrian, Swiss and German Holiday Stories of All Time, which was published in September by New Vessel Press. Translated from the…

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From a speech delivered in September to the Boca Raton School Board, in Florida, by an elementary school teacher concerned about the behavior of parents during their children’s remote-learning classes.…

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From a manuscript in progress. I never doubted you’d return. You’re a man of your word And this is your kingdom. But recently I’ve feared you’d find me Looking like…

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“Modena, 1973,” by Luigi Ghirri, from The Map and the Territory, which was published in 2018 by MACK © The artist. Courtesy MACK It has been oddly comforting these past…

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The story of character

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On Alfred Hayes

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I See You and Holly Coming Home, by Rebecca Ness © The artist. Courtesy Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles The unusually cold, rainy autumns of 1917 and 1918 discouraged mallards…

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think back Say an idea is math without numbers. For instance, you could say that an idea distorts consciousness as a massive object distorts space. Such distortion is sometimes known…

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Chasing the aurora borealis

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It would be a bold writer who would attempt to have the last word on the much-­debated maternal instinct. But since so many men have had their say on the…

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Can America still afford democracy?

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Called out of retirement. Already onto other things. Netflix, Roku haiku, one patient Basho letter at a time. Onto berating the orange sun god, with his changeable guard of hagiographers…

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The mystery of a writer’s métier

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Wall Street’s answer to the student-debt crisis

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