“You MUST see The Lion King.” The last time you were in New York, Michael Bloomberg was mayor and nobody knew what a cronut was. “Why not try kayaking on the Hudson?” You do not actually like living in New York City. “Corner bodega bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.” You haven’t be … | Continue reading
“The Supreme Court hears Trump’s claim to ‘absolute immunity.’ The justices are considering whether the former president must face trial on charges that he tried to subvert the 2020 election.” — New York Times, 4/25/24 - - - Hwaet! It has been over three years since Grendel smash … | Continue reading
A 2023 Column Contest grand-prize winner, Laurence Pevsner’s Sorry Not Sorry investigates why we’re sick of everyone apologizing all the time—and how the collapse of the public apology leaves little room for forgiveness and grace in our politics and culture. - - - This summer, Mi … | Continue reading
Hey there, Kinzleigh. Take a seat by my desk, crisscross applesauce. As you may know, this year’s Take Your Child to Work Day coincides with our annual performance review period. We felt it would be right for all employees to be reviewed, no matter how long they’ve been with us o … | Continue reading
Writing is an often solitary process, but it rarely happens alone. This brief email, which I hemmed and hawed over for seven weeks before finally dashing it off and sending it in a thoroughly uncharacteristic burst of un-self-conscious productivity, could not have happened withou … | Continue reading
Ha! A mistaken vocal inflection produced by the waitress when you mentioned you have a boat. Oh! Often produced involuntarily when you realize you are much kinkier than you thought you were. Wham! Your drunk uncle describing the impact of his 2018 Dodge Ram during his first DUI. … | Continue reading
Dear valued customers, Here at Weird Sisters Soups & Brines, our top priority has always been to prepare nourishing, ready-to-eat soups, enjoyable alone or with the whole clan. After a long day with kinsmen slaughtering foes in an odorous peat bog, there’s nothing like returning … | Continue reading
When COVID struck Rebecca Saltzman’s family, the virus unmasked a life-changing discovery: her husband and two of their kids had genetic heart disease. The kind where people drop dead. As their healthy wife and mother, Saltzman had a new role too—guiding her family through what S … | Continue reading
1. Patience is key. 2. Remember to take breaks for self-care. 3. And don’t forget to go to the bathroom. 4. It’s better to make slow progress with the pieces than no progress on the puzzle at all. 5. Accept the pieces the way they are. A turtle piece can never be a camel puzzle. … | Continue reading
Well, look at you. You’re all so brand spanking new, shiny, and gleaming. The world was made for the likes of you as you are now. Young. Supple. Idealistic. Yes, even the goths with their cloaks of (imaginary? performative?) sorrow, black as their black kohl-rimmed eyes. Yes, you … | Continue reading
Sega fanatics and pancake aficionados rejoiced last week as the International House of Pancakes dropped their latest collab. These six foodstuffs, inspired by America’s favorite blue hedgehog, are sure to make Sonic players curl up in a little ball and spin around really fast in … | Continue reading
He’s your current employer, and you live in his house. Not a red flag. Not for you at least. As the person in the higher class, he is the one with the most to lose. For you, there is nowhere to go but up. He lies to you about who he is when you first meet. Not a red flag. This is … | Continue reading
In this column, Kristen Mulrooney writes letters to famous mothers from literature, TV, and film whom she finds herself relating to on a different level now that she’s a mom herself. - - - Dear Alison, I am forever thinking about the time Katherine Heigl made some negative commen … | Continue reading
The LiveJournal community, circa 2005 The university café where English adjuncts hold their office hours My tenth-grade ELA class when I ask them to write one (1) poem The subject line of Submittable email notifications Bard College Any and all bars named after Oscar Wilde Litera … | Continue reading
Hi, sweetie. Remember how you told me that your childhood crush was Laura Ingalls Wilder? And that you think America is in the toilet? Well, you’re about to have all your home-churned-butter dreams come true, because I’ve decided to become a tradwife. Like the other pretty, milk- … | Continue reading
- - - In August 2022 I received an email asking if I would like to read Sam Sax’s debut novel with an eye towards possibly becoming the book’s editor. I said yes immediately, and read Yr Dead later that day in a single sitting. The book, which takes place entirely in the span of … | Continue reading
If you think a piece is 100 percent done, it’s actually 45 percent done. To get it to 100 percent done, you can’t. If you think you need “just a few more hours,” you really need a few more months. “I’ll send it by EOD”—no, the odds are 6-1 you won’t. 7-1. 17-1. “EOD” equals 5 p.m … | Continue reading
Guess who just got back today? Mothers, lock up your daughters, because after five long decades away raising our families and building careers of varying success, them wild-eyed boys are back in town to attend our dear friend Johnny’s funeral. It’s such a shame, and we all miss J … | Continue reading
1. My decision to spend sixteen dollars on these Mason jars would inevitably coincide with a sudden, inexplicable change in my personality, from someone who eats luncheon meat straight from the packet to someone who regularly uses fenugreek. 2. The twenty seconds I used to spend … | Continue reading
Dear valued faculty, In light of the recent budget cuts, the university administration thought it would be helpful to clarify a few things about our institution and our mission. We are not a “school.” We are a hospital system with a football team. We collect grants from the feder … | Continue reading
In this column, professional speechwriter Chandler Dean provides partly satirical, partly genuine “How To” advice focused on a hyper-specific subcategory of speeches—from graduation speeches to wedding toasts to eulogies, and all the rhetorical occasions in between. - - - Tick-to … | Continue reading
Dear Wyna Liu, Editor of Connections: My morning ritual used to be a time of peace and solitude. A sacred time in which I’d gather up the energy to face the day. I’d brew my coffee and eat my smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. And then I’d open up the New York Times Games App. … | Continue reading
Mom, Dad, we just wanted to assure you that your trust-fund son’s transplant was a success. We weren’t too concerned—transplants to Brooklyn have a 98 percent success rate—but there can always be complications. A transplant can reject its new host city in the event of a few condi … | Continue reading
1. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a grad school stipend, must be in want of a ceramics class.” 2. “Shall I compare thee to my yoga classes? Thou art more messy and more expensive.” 3. “Doubt thou the kiln will fire. Doubt that the gl … | Continue reading
“Meet the ‘pursuer of nubile young females’ who helped pass Arizona’s 1864 abortion law.” — Washington Post - - - We here at the GOP take values very seriously. We try to project a certain image to the public so that they’ll associate us with morality. So, it’s time for us to ask … | Continue reading
Mai Tran began catsitting in 2021 while Tran was on pandemic unemployment, often staying overnight in people’s homes. Tran has now cared for twenty-two cats and traveled to ten apartments all over New York City, observing the interior lives of cat owners and appeasing their neuro … | Continue reading
“The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a 160-year-old near-total abortion ban still on the books in the state is enforceable, a bombshell decision that adds the state to the growing lists of places where abortion care is effectively banned.” — NBC - - - 1. Property Statue … | Continue reading
Whaddup. It’s the flu your four-year-old brought home for spring break. Are you gonna let me in or what? You’re hoping I leave you alone? You booked a family trip to Wolf Lodge Water Park? The deposit is nonrefundable? Listen, I just KO’ed two dozen preschoolers like complimentar … | Continue reading
Callie Siskel’s Two Minds is neither minimalist nor maximalist, but the spareness and efficiency speak volumes—and sometimes speak in long lines, sometimes short—making an art of saying as little as possible, but crucially no less. What’s left out presses upon what remains, and w … | Continue reading
Millennials mill around a circle of chairs and a coffee station. They settle into seats and begin the weekly meeting of people whose friends have all moved to Los Angeles. This group is known as “We Have Yearning (for Those Who Moved to) Los Angeles” or WHYLA. FACILITATOR KERRY: … | Continue reading
My dearest one, my sweetheart, my everything, I call to you from the far right-hand side of the browser window. Well, not the far right-hand side, a little to the left of it, near the tab for “The Only Cheese Fondue Recipe You’ll Ever Need,” which is a white box with a red E in i … | Continue reading
A 2023 Column Contest grand-prize winner, Laurence Pevsner’s Sorry Not Sorry investigates why we’re sick of everyone apologizing all the time—and how the collapse of the public apology leaves little room for forgiveness and grace in our politics and culture. - - - Late last month … | Continue reading
Allium Cepa A homeopathic remedy used to treat symptoms of the common cold and allergies. It would also work nicely as the name of a kind, older woman in a YA dystopian novel who is deathly allergic to scientifically backed medicine. Arnica A homeopathic remedy used to treat musc … | Continue reading
You may have heard the news that high schoolers will have to take the SATs if they plan to attend college. The temporary break from standardized tests is over. The New York Times recently posted an interactive test featuring a few questions from the reading and writing section of … | Continue reading
- - - Swamp or bog? Guilt or shame? Club soda or sparkling water? From food to fashion, ethics to architecture, there are thousands of words and ideas that we tend to collapse, conflate, or confuse. For hairsplitters and language lovers, Tendency contributor Eli Burnstein’s Dicti … | Continue reading
From 2006 to 2016, Sarah Walker offered excellent and specific instructions for essential activities of everyday life, like bullfighting and performing tracheotomies. Thanks to her, our standards of living were improved by 100 percent. Today, to help celebrate our twenty-five (an … | Continue reading
From 2006 to 2016, Sarah Walker offered excellent and specific instructions for essential activities of everyday life, like bullfighting and performing tracheotomies. Thanks to her, our standards of living were improved by 100 percent. Today, to help celebrate our twenty-five (an … | Continue reading
For far too long, the streets of Gotham have been plagued by chaos. Crime never sleeps. Thugs hide in the shadows, waiting to strike like snakes. Never mind the capitalist structures that produce deep and devastating forms of poverty, forcing the desperate lower class to resort t … | Continue reading
Been There, Smelled That explores the aromas of places around the world. Travel writer Maggie Downs investigates some of the world’s most potent smells, looks at how odor cultivates a connection to place, and presents how humans engage with smells, from scents that have endured g … | Continue reading
1. If you give love, you will get love. But, no pressure—only if you want to! 2. Peace starts inside you. And if you can’t get it to start, I can give you mine instead. Would be happy to! 3. Love is the greatest gift, though I’m sure any gift from you would be amazing. And if you … | Continue reading
Hey man, welcome to our brewery. I’m gonna be your draft list today. The first thing you should know about me is this: I’m approachable. I believe beer is for everyone. If that means I’m a draft list without a single beer that tastes like beer, then hell yeah, brother—that’s what … | Continue reading
Though her family sometimes received food stamps and occasionally had their utilities cut off, Marcie Alvis Walker’s parents led her to believe that they were an average middle-class Black family. They encouraged her to pursue her dreams and told her that if she worked hard enoug … | Continue reading
Hello, It’s the Democrats. The 2044 election is fast approaching, and we need your support now more than ever. It is the most important election of our lifetimes. We know it feels like we’re always saying that this presidential election is the most important election of our lifet … | Continue reading
1. Spirit Week continues into perpetuity. No theme will ever be repeated, and your children will need unique costumes every day for the rest of their lives. 2. Out of nowhere, you have another child you have no memory of giving birth to. He’s in third grade, and tomorrow is the f … | Continue reading
Hi, I’m wondering if I could interest you in a brand-new sparkling water brand. I don’t have a name for it, because it doesn’t yet exist. Every aspect of this product is still very early in the planning stage. But I can assure you that the name will probably be something fun and … | Continue reading
Once there was a girl named Jenny. She was like all the other girls, especially for this one thing: she always wore a black hair tie around her wrist. There was a boy named Alfred in her class. This made sense, as names from the 1900s had cycled back into fashion. Alfred liked Je … | Continue reading
When COVID struck Rebecca Saltzman’s family, the virus unmasked a life-changing discovery: her husband and two of their kids had genetic heart disease. The kind where people drop dead. As their healthy wife and mother, Saltzman had a new role too—guiding her family through what S … | Continue reading
YOU’RE OVERDUE FOR A CLEANING! Jennifer at reception started having an affair with one of the dentists, and her husband will be storming into the office to confront them about it during your appointment. YOU’RE OVERDUE FOR A CLEANING! Our new latex gloves are churro-flavored. YOU … | Continue reading