The Linguistics of Cooties (and Other Weird Things Kids Say)
The game of cooties lets children learn about the idea of contagion, but kid culture and wordplay aren't meant for adults.
Remembering Craig Gilbert and An American Family
The twelve-part documentary chronicling a family's dissolution was one of the most talked-about TV shows of the past fifty years.
America, Lost and Found at Wounded Knee
Stephen Vincent Benét’s lost epic “John Brown’s Body” envisions a nation sutured together after the Civil War, but fails to reckon with the war’s causes.
Yvonne Rainer, Postmodern Dance, and You
In the 1960s, a group of artists started experimenting with choreography based on ordinary movement and improvisation. Now your living room is the stage.
Casa Malaparte Is a Strangely Awesome House
Built by a fascist-turned-communist writer in the 1940s, it belongs to no one architectural style. But the views!
Marijuana Panic Won’t Die, but Reefer Madness Will Live Forever
Originally produced as an exploitation film that drew on racial stereotypes, the ironic revival of Reefer Madness made it a cult classic for stoners.
“Grangerization” Made Beautiful Books Even Better
But the eighteenth-century readerly hobby angered critics, who saw it as a “monstrous practice.”
Robert Hayden’s Relatable Fatigue
There’s a constant attention to the burdens of history in Robert Hayden’s poems. Even amid the beauties of life, the ghosts of the past linger.
Sick of Streaming? Try This Really Long Cult Novel
Marguerite Young's Miss MacIntosh, My Darling is a dense fusion of poetry and prose. One critic says it's unjustifiably forgotten.