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On Jean Strouse and the art of biography

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The AARP stands for nothing. In 1999, the group announced that its four-letter initialism, which for more than forty years had denoted the American Association of Retired Persons, would thenceforth…

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On Elden Ring

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Hare (Blue Eyes), by Valerie Hammond © The artist. Courtesy Planthouse, New York City Had I known that Aesop’s fables were so unhinged, I would’ve turned to them long ago.…

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On the Village Voice

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A photograph by Steven Ahlgren from his book The Office, which was published by Hoxton Mini Press © The artist I’ve never visited the office of this magazine. Oh, sure,…

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Fredric Jameson at ninety

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A Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony in Miami, 1922 © Bettmann/Getty Images One of the most jarring things about the Ku Klux Klan is the silliness of their rituals and…

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Seamus Heaney and the end of the poetic career

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Something about poetry—writing it, reading it, writing about reading it—begs to be postponed indefinitely. I don’t mean that I dread it, only that it calls for conditions that never quite…

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The death of the mythical method

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No one can torch the English language like a Beltway insider. A few years ago, phrases like “a feature, not a bug” and “saying the quiet part out loud” burned…

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On Eliot Weinberger

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I’m a father now. Please, hold your applause. As I write this, my son is fifteen days old, and I’m staring into the soft hurricane whorl of his hair, thinking…

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On Kafka

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Because I’ve written about government conspiracies, I sometimes hear from crazy people. “Only the intervention of AI can stop Man from creating Hell cybernetically,” one wrote recently. “It would be…

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When Guatemalan adoption became big business

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I was six the first time I recall setting foot in a funeral home, and I remember my confusion at the phrase—a home where none but the dead lived, and…

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Billie Holiday’s changeable shade

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Carrie Sun used to be on the side of Big Money. Her memoir, Private Equity (Penguin Press, $29), describes her disillusioning tenure as an assistant to Boone Prescott, the founder…

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The elusive fiction of Phyllis Paul

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The Wa State is an autonomous zone nestled in the highlands of Myanmar bordering China and Thailand. You won’t find it on United Nations maps, but it’s about the size…

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On Mary Beard’s lives of the Caesars

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On the enduring legacy of Marshal Pétain

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On May 21, 1991, in the third-floor men’s room at the University of Chicago Divinity School, a student noticed a hand dangling beneath one of the partitions, already turning blue.…

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The grand, gruesome theories of René Girard

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Did you get this message?, by Esther Pearl Watson © The artist. Courtesy Vielmetter Los Angeles So you’ve seen a UFO—great! May I suggest keeping a lid on it? The…

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