It’s the second day of March. This won’t go to print for more than a week. We all know what a week can bring. It was exactly a week ago that Ukrainians woke up to their country at war. But I am writing this now because the moment feels more important than a newspaper timeline. And because acts of aggression are timeless. Our friend Laura Kelly writes from...
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There sometimes arises a subject matter so unextraordinary, so taken for granted, that by its own pedestrian nature it becomes something of a rockstar. I hope you’ll agree with me that this is certainly the case with pockets. Pockets. Those rectangular appendages we’ve come to count on, those utilitarian bits of fabric we entrust our lives too, lives that...
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Among my mother’s possessions when she died was a wooden box, a box exactly the size of the one in which we buried her ashes. It had a sticky latch, a latch that seemed to tell us no, not yet, there are other tasks to take care of. So for weeks the box sat where it had always sat, under a table—a handsome mahogany table—beside a bookcase filled with dozens...
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The history of people gathering to protest, or marching to make their minds known, is a long one. Often peaceful by intent, and just as often the last stop before violence, every protest march is one side of a conversation, a monologue inviting dialogue. Or an act of extreme frustration, Not-Power speaking to Power and not being heard. Before this young...
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My neighbor took a panel of siding off his house a few days ago in order to replace an outdoor faucet. Because I’m a bit of a structural archeologist, I was curious and went over early in the morning to take a closer look. The first layer under the siding was stucco, and under that, chicken wire. It was old chicken wire, a different gauge than you see...
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