News
Oliver Sacks Put Himself Into His Case Studies. What Was the Cost?
As Sacks aged, he felt as if he were gazing at people from the outside. But he also noticed a new kind of affection for humans—“homo sap.”…
Tag
life and letters
Culture
V. R. Lang, a Forgotten Queen Bee of Modern Poetry
Candidly. The past, the sensations of the past. Now! in cuneiform, of umbrella satrap square-carts with hotdogs and onions of red syrup…
Culture
The Art of the Impersonal Essay, by Zadie Smith
If it were up to me, for example, I would very happily switch that rickety, always ill-fitting term “humanism” with something broader,…
Culture
Joan Didion’s Notes on Therapy
Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne met in the late fifties, when she was working at Vogue and he at Time. They married in 1964, and in…
Culture
The Aesthetic Empire of Alma Mahler-Werfel
The first challenge is deciding what to call her. She is encircled by famous surnames—men jousting over her identity. A lustrous scion of…