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Articles

Antisocial Media

From a letter by Agafya Lykova, a seventy-year-old hermit living in the Siberian province of Khakassia, to Vladimir Pavlovsky, editor in chief of the Krasnoyarsk Worker newspaper, which published the…

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On the Nose

By Muriel Spark, from The Informed Air, a collection of essays to be published this month by New Directions. This essay originally appeared in the Observer, as “Eyes and Noses,”…

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In the Cage

By Colin Richmond, from “Deliberation and Precipitation: Fresh Eggs, c. 1890–c. 1910,” published in the Winter 2014 issue of Common Knowledge. Richmond is professor emeritus of medieval history at the…

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Teacher’s Pets

From Walter Potter’s Curious World of Taxidermy,

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Artful Dodger

From a note sent in 1917 to the Appeal Tribunal in Middlesex, England, which reviewed requests for exemption from military service during World War I. The note is included in…

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Buzzkill

From the 500 least popular lectures out of the more than 1,600 available on the website of TED, a nonprofit organization that aims to “bring together the world’s most fascinating…

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Family and Others

By Nadezhda Teffi (1872–1952), an author of short stories, poems, one-act plays, a novel, and a volume of memoirs. This story was first published in book form, in 1912. Translated…

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Road to Wigan Ear

From a November 25, 1848, article published in the Norfolk News, Eastern Counties Journal and Norwich, Yarmouth, and Lynn Commercial Gazette and included in Purring: Sport of the People, an…

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The Terrace

By Gary Indiana, from A Significant Loss of Human Life, one of twenty-two pamphlets published by Semiotext(e) for this year’s Whitney Biennial, which is currently on view at the Whitney…

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The Office and Its Ends

By Nikil Saval, from Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace, out this month from Doubleday. Saval is an editor of n+1.

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The Grave-House

By William T. Vollmann, from Last Stories and Other Stories, to be published by Viking in July. Vollmann’s last article for Harper’s Magazine, “Life as a Terrorist,” appeared in the…

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New Books

John Florio — lexicographer, raconteur, and supposed model for Shakespeare’s schoolmaster Holofernes, in Love’s Labour’s Lost — was born in London in 1553 to an unidentified Englishwoman and an Italian Protestant who’d…

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The Vampire

The fickle career of Carl Van Vechten

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Kennan Kvetches

Discussed in this essay: The Kennan Diaries, by George F. Kennan, edited by Frank Costigliola. W. W. Norton. 688 pages. $39.95. Pity the man’s poor wife. To peruse this generous selection from…

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Twofers

Correction to this month’s puzzle: In 15D, the right-hand letter count was reversed; it should have read “(3,4).” We regret the error.

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The Toast

Last week I received, via Priority Mail, a card inviting me to a wedding that I’d very much like to attend. After eighteen years of partnership, the card said, Ms.…

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Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Predicting murder on Chicago’s South Side

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The Trees Step Out of the Forest

By Barbara Ehrenreich, from Living with a Wild God, out next month from Twelve. Ehrenreich, a longtime contributor to Harper’s Magazine, is the author of many books, including, most recently,…

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Nothing Left

The long, slow surrender of American liberals

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Dodge the Draft!

Ever since the last draft was ended, in 1973, a small but devoted chorus of pundits, legislators, and retired military men have been stumping for its return. These are not…

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Findings

A compromised refrigerator was sending out spam, and electronic tongues tasted the grapes of Valencia, where engineers created yogurt from the milk of nuts. Cashew cheese from Sacramento was recalled…

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Harper’s Index

Estimated value of goods and services distributed for free on the Internet in 2011 : $376,000,000,000 Portion of the content streamed on Pornhub, the world’s largest pornography website, that is viewed on…

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April 2014

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