Desperately Seeking Sebald
A writer’s quest.
Harper's
The Undiscovered Country
Can suicide be predicted?
“Put on the Diamonds”
Notes on humiliation.
To Be a Field of Poppies
The elegant science of turning cadavers into compost.
Good Mother
Child custody, colonization, and the choices mother make
Bad News
Selling the story of disinformation.
Eating the Whale
There is an alternate definition for meat, one that simply means the thing inside of the thing—i.e., the meat of a coconut or the meat of a problem. My inquiry aimed to understand the living, the dead, and the part in the middle as well, the thing inside of the thing. I’m trying to tell you why I had finally resolved to taste whale.
Hard Bargain
How Amazon turned a generation against labor.
History as End
1619, 1776, and the politics of the past
Prayer for a Just War
Finding meaning in the climate fight.
The Anxiety of Influencers
Educating the TikTok generation.
Sign of the Times
Caliphate and the perils of reporting online.
The Crow Whisperer
What happens when we talk to animals?
Playing the Flute
On oil spills in Colombia.
In Praise of Idleness
An argument for working less.
These Precious Days
The author’s chance encounter with Tom Hanks leads to a dear and lasting friendship with his assistant.
How to Rig an Election
The perils of voting in the modern age.
The Well-Tempered Synthesizer
Wendy Carlos’s music of the spheres.
The Sanctuary
In Minneapolis, a group of activists take over a Sheraton and open it to the homeless, banning police.
A Litany for Survival
Giving birth as a black woman in America.
To Catch a Terrorist
How the FBI manufactures phony crimes to arrest so-called terrorists.
In Plain Sight
The search for Syrian war criminals in Europe.
We Shall Not Be Moved
Collective ownership gives power back to poor farmers.
Detroit Arcadia
Wanders through the emptied post-American landscape.
Waiting for the End of the World
Apocalypse camp at the dawn of the Great Extinction.
