The Rise of CliffsNotes Cinema
Oversimplified literary remakes miss the point of the works they are adapting.
Culture
Why Justin Bieber Played YouTube Onstage for Thousands of People
The pop star transformed the normal act of browsing your laptop into something interesting—and unsettling.
The New Age of Performance Anxiety
With the rise of screen culture, all the world has stage fright.
Where Did ‘Let Them’ Come From?
Years before Mel Robbins published her best-selling self-help book, a struggling writer posted a poem with a similar message.
Dear James: I Love Going Naked on the Beach
But I’m experiencing Catholic guilt.
What to Read When You’re Ready to Say No
Purposeful refusal, far from depriving us, can make way for unexpected bounty.
Money Is Ruining Television
Depictions of extreme wealth are everywhere on the small screen and, well, it’s all quite boring.
Looking Up
What we see when we stare at the night sky
Fast Times and Mean Girls
What the great teen movies tell us about American adolescence
Wes Anderson Lets the Real World Filter In
The Phoenician Scheme is the director’s latest film to let modern life seep into his high-concept worlds.
What Hula Taught Me
Keeping a culture alive, one step at a time
What Happens When People Don’t Understand How AI Works
Despite what tech CEOs might say, large language models are not smart in any recognizably human sense of the word.
An Innocent Abroad in Mark Twain’s Paris
My quest for a true literary experience resulted in choucroute, a surprise organ feast, an epiphany at the Louvre, existential dread, and a rowboat.