Notable Sandwiches #117: Mettbrötchen
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, marching alongside my long-suffering and brilliant editor David Swanson, bring you the ups and downs...
How to Stay Alive and Horny Under Authoritarianism
Sophia Parnok (1885-1933) was born in Taganrog, Russia—Anton Chekhov’s hometown, on the sea of Azov—two decades or so before her country exploded. Born into...
When the Roman Empire is your Roman Empire
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where Talia and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers. —...
Notable Sandwiches #116: Melt
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, led gently by my brilliant and long-suffering editor David Swanson, wade through the rough waters of...
Women's Freedom Is On The Ballot
Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where David and I discuss our preoccupations for premium subscribers. Tonight, a slight change of pace:...
Notable Sandwiches #115 (Spooky Edition): Medianoche
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, creep through the haunted garden of Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
Make Way For the Feminist Backlash: A Chat with Moira Donegan
This whole election smacks of gender. It's a referendum on women's humanity and bodily autonomy, up against the crudest misogyny on offer—primarily from the...
TLDS October Culture Klatsch
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
The Best American Grilled Cheese Sandwich Essay
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where David and I travel the world on wings made of bread, chronicling Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
Sword & the Sandwich x Know Your Enemy
Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where Talia and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or...
Notable Sandwiches #114: Meatball
By David Swanson Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where Talia and I travel down the trail of Wikipedia’s List of Notable Sandwiches, in...
Wild Faith is Here
Today is a big one for the team here at S&S Industries: at long last, Talia’s new book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America, is out in...
Roy Cohn: A Deep Dive Into a Piece of Shit
By David Swanson Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid...
Notable Sandwiches #113: Marmite
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where David and I travel the world on wings made of bread, chronicling Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
Grief Music
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Countdown to Wild Faith
With Talia celebrating Rosh Hashanah this week, and a busy stretch ahead for both of us, team S&S is taking today off, before we return for our next...
Dispossessed: An Excerpt
Today we're honored and delighted to run an excerpt from Désirée Zamorano's recently published novel Dispossessed, a work of historical fiction that is...
TLDS September Culture Klatsch
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Notable Sandwiches #112: Marmalade
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, led gently by my brilliant and long-suffering editor David Swanson, meander down the path of...
Children of the Revolution
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Notable Sandwiches #111: The Luther Burger
Welcome to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the ever-evolving document that is Wikipedia’s...
Anatomy of a Pogrom
Members of Blood Tribe outside City Hall in Springfield, OH How does ethnic violence start, and how does it spread? Who uses it, and for what purpose? The...
Television is Dead. Long Live Television
By David Swanson Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid...
Notable Sandwiches #110: Lox
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, along my patient editor David Swanson, trawl the waters of Wikipedia’s List of Notable Sandwiches...
The Making (and Sanewashing) of Donald Trump
By David Swanson Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where Talia and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading,...
Notable Sandwiches #108: Lobster Roll
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my noble editor David Swanson, wade our way through the treacherous shoals of Wikipedia’s...
Raw Milk and the Collapse of Consensus Reality
Louis Pasteur didn’t set out to make milk safer. A scientific jack-of-all trades, born in 1822 in eastern France, Pasteur pioneered fields from...
Bell Riot Day
Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where David and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or...
A Summer of Notable Sandwiches
By David Swanson Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where Talia and I tiptoe through the tulips of Wikipedia’s List of Notable Sandwiches, in...
TLDS August Culture Klatch
Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where David and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or...
Notable Sandwiches #107: Limburger
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my noble editor David Swanson, trudge our way through the moors of Wikipedia’s List of...
Begone, Panty-Sniffing Ghouls of the GOP
I am a feminist. Am I militant? Is there any other way to be a feminist right now? Am I strident? Am I unlikeable? Am I mean? Do I give you unpleasant...
Conventional Wisdom
By David Swanson Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where Talia and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading,...
Notable Sandwiches #106: Leberkäse
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my noble editor David Swanson, slough through the marshes of Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
Hannibal, or: How I learned to stop worrying and love my Murder Husbands
Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where David and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or...
Notable Sandwiches #105: Lampredotto
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature in which my editor, David Swanson, and I track our prey through the underbrush that is Wikipedia’s List of...
On the Late, Great Hannibal Lecter
Brian Cox, Anthony Hopkins, Mads Mikkelsen, and Donald Trump as Hannibal Lecter About a year ago, Donald Trump started referencing Hannibal Lecter in his...
Lords of the Rings
By David Swanson Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where David and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading,...
Notable Sandwiches #104: Kumru
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, plunge into the strange waters of Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
TLDS July Culture Klatch
Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where David and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or...
Notable Sandwiches #103: Kottenbutter
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the series where I drag my long-suffering editor David Swanson through the bizarro, shifting sands of Wikipedia’s List of...
You Cannot Predict the Future
I thought Hillary Clinton would win in 2016. I really did. And I wasn’t alone. Most of us did, including the people paid to predict such things. I was...
“I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party as your President.”
Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where Talia and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or...
Notable Sandwiches #102: Kokoretsi/Kokoreç
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the series where I drag my long-suffering editor David Swanson through the bizarro, shifting sands of Wikipedia’s List of...
Missed Connections: A Brief History of Assassination Attempts
Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where Talia and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or...
Notable Sandwiches #101: Khao Jee Pâté
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the series where I drag my long-suffering editor David Swanson through the bizarro, shifting sands of Wikipedia’s List of...
On Feeding My Graphomania
“Il Pleut” by Apollinaire, 1916 I have a half-baked, non-scientific theory about how writing works—not for everyone, of course, just my writing, the thing...
Chefs & Grub & Rock & Roll
By David Swanson Welcome back to Culture Club, the weekly feature where Talia and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading,...
A Look Back at 100 Notable Sandwiches
By David Swanson Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the series where Talia and I wade through the bizarro, shifting sands of Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
On the Gastronomy of Eating the Rich
Two years before I started a column about the cross-pollination between food and politics, I wrote for GQ about the origins and literal interpretations of...