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Hours after I gave birth to my first child, my husband cradled all five pounds of our boy and said, gently, “Hi, Sweetpea.” Not “Buddy” or “Little Man.” Sweetpea. The word filled me with unanticipated
In among my notebooks I jot down weird ideas that I may turn into projects (but frequently don’t). One idea reads: ‘A young woman looks in the mirror and sees she has the reflection of Ronnie Corbett.
At first glance, the Cornish mallow ( Lavatera cretica ) is little more than an unprepossessing weed. It has pinkish flowers and broad, flat leaves that track sunlight throughout the day. However, it’
First, let me tell you how smart I am. So smart . My fifth-grade teacher said I was gifted in mathematics and, looking back, I have to admit that she was right. I’ve properly grasped the character of
Relative positions of distant spacecraft. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech As an astrophysicist, I am always struck by the fact that even the wildest science-fiction stories tend to be distinctly human in ch
Margot met Robert on a Wednesday night toward the end of her fall semester. She was working behind the concession stand at the artsy movie theatre downtown when he came in and bought a large popcorn a
December 22, 2017 — 3.22pm , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. The media feed us a regular diet
You saw the pictures in science class—a profile view of the human brain, sectioned by function. The piece at the very front, right behind where a forehead would be if the brain were actually in someon
I n the spring of 2014, Jordan Younger noticed that her hair was falling out in clumps. “Not cool” was her reaction. At the time, Younger, 23, believed herself to be eating the healthiest of all possi
It used to be limited to sci-fi fantasies and futurist predictions: one day, went the story, humanity would discover how to divorce meat production from livestock-raising and simply grow meat without
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm When J.J. Abrams and writers Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt rebooted the Star Wars film franchise in 2015 with The Force Awakens — the first in a sequel trilogy, following
The invention of the chilled packaged sandwich, an accessory of modern British life which is so influential, so multifarious and so close to hand that you are probably eating one right now, took place exactly 37 years ago. Like many things to do with the sandwich, this might seem, at first glance,…
It is insufficient to state the obvious of Donald Trump: that he is a white man who would not be president were it not for this fact. With one immediate exception, Trump’s predecessors made their way
Even as machines known as “deep neural networks” have learned to converse, drive cars, beat video games and Go champions , dream, paint pictures and help make scientific discoveries, they have also co
“Russian women, especially on the first date, expect you to rape them.” Journalist Mark Ames said this to an interviewer all the way back in 2000, when he and his then-colleague Matt Taibbi were busy
The era of the story is upon us. No longer confined to our lounge rooms, cinemas and nightstands, the connection economy sees fit to thrust stories in our pockets, hands and newsfeeds every hour of th
Still from Woody Allen’s Manhattan Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, William Burroughs, Richard Wagner, Sid Vicious, V. S. Naipaul, John Galliano, Norman Mailer, Ezra Pound, Caravaggio, Floyd M
When I was very young, before I was on the internet — even before the internet was really a thing you could “go on” — I would dial into BBSs (bulletin board systems). BBSs were kind of like private ,
In 2005, Isabelle Dinoire received a partial face transplant after being mauled by her dog. Although Dinoire had her procedure less than seven months after her disfigurement, the operation was a long
The title itself has become the perfect pun — Stranger Things . Stranger things certainly happened when the unknown Duffer brothers sold their TV show to Netflix after a heartbreaking period of reject
Interviews David Fincher: ‘Moviemaking is a rat f*ck, every day is a skirmish’ 12 Nov 2017 Words by Matt Thrift The alchemist behind Fight Club and Zodiac discusses his newest true crime saga, the Netflix Original series MINDHUNTER. Netflix has come a long way since the launch of its flagship…
There’s a moment in every geek’s life when one goes for the ‘communal hug’ on a pet-subject and finds oneself unexpectedly out in the cold. The piano player stops playing. The landlord shakes his head
It would have been newsworthy if Michael Brea, a young actor from the television series Ugly Betty, had killed his mother with a gun. But when he slashed her to death last November in Brooklyn, N.Y.,
An Iraqi soldier walks past the site of a suicide bombing in Baghdad’s Sadr City, February 2016. (Reuters photo: Wissm al-Okili) Systems disruption, networked gangs, and bioweapons Editor’s Note: The
Why Your Criticisms Of Intersectionality And Identity Politics Sound Ridiculous Why do so many frame demands for accountability and sociopolitical inclusion as ‘divisive?’ “Demilitarize the Police, Bl
Reporting from New York — One day in the fall of 2015, Matthew Weiner was wandering a rarefied block on the Upper East Side when he saw a construction worker leering at an adolescent girl in a school
Illustration by Andy Friedman. In 2013, Jessica Bruder set out in a van (nicknamed “Halen”) to chronicle the wanderings of a new and growing class of American migrants: a community of older people who
By Rob Hunter · Published on June 30th, 2016 Welcome to Commentary Commentary , our long-running series of articles exploring the things we can learn from the most interesting filmmaker commentaries a
One night when I was riding home to New York City’s Brooklyn borough on the C train, an older man started smiling, making kissy faces and, eventually, miming sexual acts at me. I pointedly tried to ig
A Reporter at Large In the course of a ten-month investigation, thirteen women interviewed said that, between the nineteen-nineties and 2015, Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them. October 10, 2017 Illustration by Oliver Munday; Source photograph by Raymond Hall / GC Images via Getty This…
STUDIOGRANDOUEST via Getty Images Hi, my name is Claire, and I am a recovering overthinker. What does that mean? That means I have spent far too many years thinking far too often and far too long abou
E very morning, Monday to Friday, I get up at 7am and make my wife breakfast in bed. She always wants something salty. I enjoy doing it because the rest of my day may be self-interested. I then walk f
In the fall of 2016, Harvey Weinstein set out to suppress allegationsthat he had sexually harassed or assaulted numerous women. He began tohire private security agencies to collect information on the
Laurie Penny | Longreads | November 2017 | 12 minutes (3,175 words) “I’m sick of being asked to suffer so a man can grow.” – Alexandra Petri “Everyone. Fucking. Knew.” – Scott Rosenberg This is actual
In August, after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville ended in murder, Steve Bannon insisted that "there's no room in American society" for neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, and the KKK. But an exp
Photo: Merrick Morton/Netflix There are plenty of films about serial killers, but very few filmmakers who have shown as consistent an interest in them as David Fincher. Since his second feature, 1995’s Seven, established him among our major directors — and provided one of the most disturbing…
(Photo By Blade Runner 2049) Some films taste sweet and then go sour in the mouth as you walk away from the cinema. With others, the flavour develops like a single malt, and they reveal more of themse
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