Two Spirits interweaves the tragic story of a mother’s loss of her son with a revealing look at the largely unknown history of a time when the world wasn’t simply divided into male and female and many Native American cultures held places of honor for people of integrated genders.
Fred Martinez was…
Jorge Luis Borges , as any reader of his stories knows, had a lot of ideas. Some of his ideas must have seemed pretty fantastical when he wrote stories around them from the 1920s to the 1950s. But their mythic qualities have made them endure, and now Borges’ imaginative, technology-rich 21st-century…
in History | May 13th, 2015 6 Comments Charles Guiteau , the man who assassinated James Garfield , tried to argue in court that he just shot the president – the doctors actually killed him. Though Guiteau was ultimately hanged for his crime in 1882, he did have a point. Garfield’s doctor, William…
Polly Brown: Little Deaths Open Little Deaths , the sweet new publication by photographer Polly Brown (the very same who photographed office plants in the world’s biggest companies ), and if you’re not at home with French euphemisms you might believe you’re looking at photographs of places where a…
in Photography | July 21st, 2015 Leave a Comment How to take photographs like Ansel Adams did? The question dogs many who’ve recently picked up the camera, especially those directly inspired to do so by he whose black-and-white landscapes practically defined the American West for the 20th century.…
This short story is from Jack Livings's collection The Dog , winner of the 2015 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for a debut work of fiction. Set in the shifting landscape of contemporary China, these stories explode the country's cultural and social fault lines, revealing a nation accustomed to rations,…
Watch Artbound's "Bukowski Reads Bukowski" episode tonight, November 13, at 9 PM PST. Find KCET in your area. Artbound presents a KCET flashback episode offering a rare, intimate look at iconoclastic…
It’s 2015, the year of the Bullshit Centenary. One hundred years ago a young immigrant poet submitted his poem “The Triumph of Bullshit” for publication in a London…
I often say that, if you want to vastly overestimate your own capabilities, you need only do one of two things: (a) get coked out of your mind, or (b) get behind the wheel of a car. But what if the…
A wide angle lens can be a powerful tool for exaggerating depth and relative size in a photo. However, it's also one of the most difficult types of lenses to learn how to use. This page dispels some…
University professor, writer, tattoo artist, pornographer Samuel M. Steward spent the final years of his life in the East Bay and donated an extraordinary collection of Stein/Toklas…
For the past three years or so, at least one stranger has sought me out pretty much every day to call me a fat bitch (or some pithy variation thereof). I’m a writer and a woman and a feminist,…
A decade ago, Philadelphia’s outdated sewer system—like much of the nation’s infrastructure—was crumbling, causing a nasty brew of storm-water, raw sewage, and pollutants…
The last post in the series featured literary oddities that share the same form as Choose Your Own Adventure books. But there are other interactive works of literature that explore the physical form…
Surveys conducted by analyst firm Superdata Research have found that in the US, women play more PC games overall than men. They also play more RPGs on PC than men, while men outnumber women in the…
So much for Hagar the Horrible, with his stay-at-home wife, Helga. Viking women may have equaled men moving to England in medieval invasions, suggests a look at ancient burials. Vikings famously…
"Facebook is so annoying." How many times have you heard that sentiment this past year? We bet a lot, because more and more people seem to be getting tired of the social media platform, especially…
The scalping of Edward Robinson (not pictured) would shape the future of the American West. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Library of Congress “So maybe you two can tell…
Okea/ThinkstockWhen my in-laws moved from India to the United States some 35 years ago, they couldn't believe the low cost and abundance of our milk—until they developed digestive problems.…
Certain words should not be tossed around lightly. Persecution is one of those words.Religious right leaders and their followers often claim that they are being persecuted in the United States. They…
They’re not much larger than lentils, but size doesn’t minimize the potential significance of nine newfound Dead Sea Scrolls that have lain unopened for the better part of six decades.…
On 5 January 2011, at 8.30 p.m., I was messing about at home when the phone buzzed on the sofa. It was a text from Jamie Byng, the publisher of Canongate. ‘Are you about?’ it said. ‘I have a somewhat…
The same week that Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, helped start a campaign to ban the word “bossy,” so as not to discourage women from being assertive, the…
Today, we continue our series covering the Basics of Photography with the letter J, and which subject would be more fitting than everyone’s favorite file format, JPEG. The file format which is…
What does a tax-avoiding, polluting, privatising corporation have to do to get its way with the British government? "We all know how it works," said David Cameron of lobbying. But do we? Lobbyists…
Anthropologist Joe Henrich and colleagues have studied the American mind, and comparing it to the rest of the world, their findings suggest that the nation’s citizens are the…
Maybe it’s best to begin in 2007, with an article in the New York Times about a “new, free communications service called Twitter.” It’s one of those delightful Times tech…
BE WHO YOU ARE. By: FRANK More Quotes | Submit Quote Ghana is one of the most religious nations on earth, it is also a beacon of hope for humanism and freethought in the region. The image of a deeply…
Los Angeles is a big place—0ver 400 square miles. Even though it's home to the country's largest urban park many of its residents do not have easy access to a public green space. A new…
A page from a GCHQ top secret document prepared by its secretive JTRIG unit One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are…
LOS ANGELES — I DIDN’T expect to become a porn star. People rarely do. I was 19 years old, and my photographer roommate had an offer from a website to buy some nude pictures. We did a…
Ukraine is sliding into anarchy. The President, Viktor Yanukovych, was planning to build closer ties with the European Union. Then at the eleventh hour, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin,…
Sydney Strickland Tully The Twilight of Life, 1894 She was painted by a Canadian artist at the end of the 19th century. She used to be strong and decisive. She had lovers once; she put her make-up on…
The following is an edited transcript of remarks given by Noam Chomsky via Skype on 4 February 2014 to a gathering of members and allies of the Adjunct Faculty Association of the United…