The Vanishing Act
Author’s note: Please excuse the great length, late arrival, and wooly wandering of this column; I have given David some extremely well-deserved days off,...
Notes on Rock Books
Welcome to Culture Club, a series where Talia and I share what we’ve been reading, playing, artistically admiring, watching, and listening to. This is a...
Notable Sandwiches Special: Now They Spin
Welcome to Notable Sandwiches, where Talia and I trip merrily through the bizarre document that is Wikipedia’s List of Notable Sandwiches in alphabetical...
The Collectors
Harlan Crow’s library Harlan Crow, as much of America has recently discovered, is a Dallas developer with a comic-book villain name and a suspiciously cozy...
Culture Club: Tears of a Funny Girl
Welcome to Culture Club, a feature where my editor David Swanson and I talk about what we’ve been reading, playing, artistically admiring, and—this...
Notable Sandwiches #59: Doubles
Welcome to the latest installment of Notable Sandwiches, where Talia and I trip merrily through the bizarre document that is Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
Happy Trump Indictment Day!
Why is today different from other days? Donald Trump is off to lower Manhattan for crimes, Wisconsin and Chicago voters are off to the ballot box for...
The Gangster as Tragic Hero
Welcome to Culture Club, a feature where my editor David Swanson and I talk about what we’ve been reading, playing, artistically admiring, and—this...
The Gangster as Tragic Hero
Welcome to Culture Club, a feature where my editor David Swanson and I talk about what we’ve been reading, playing, artistically admiring, and—this...
Stormy With a Chance
As a nation, we owe a lot to Stormy Daniels. I personally owe her more than most. Five years ago, the erstwhile porn star, progressive hero, and Donald Trump...
Stormy With a Chance
As a nation, we owe a lot to Stormy Daniels. I personally owe her more than most. Five years ago, the erstwhile porn star, progressive hero, and Donald Trump...
On the Rights of the Child, Part I
Author’s note: this is the first installment of a series on right-wing attitudes in the U.S. towards the notion of children’s rights. Part two will follow in...
On the Rights of the Child, Part I
Author’s note: this is the first installment of a series on right-wing attitudes in the U.S. towards the notion of children’s rights. Part two will follow in...
Culture Club: On Tetris
Welcome to Culture Club, a feature where my editor David Swanson and I talk about what we’ve been reading, watching, artistically admiring, and—this...
Notable Sandwiches #58: Donkey Burger
Welcome to the latest installment of Notable Sandwiches, where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the bizarre document that is...
Hope is a Discipline
“Spring Beauty” by Andrew Wyeth, c. 1953h Yesterday was a lot of things: the twentieth anniversary of America’s invasion of Iraq; another day in the bans on...
Culture Club: Boston Noir
Welcome to Culture Club, a new weekly feature where David and I (and sometimes both of us!) talk about what we’re reading, watching, and listening to each...
Notable Sandwiches: St. Patrick's Day Special
Welcome to the latest installment of Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my stalwart editor David Swanson, nibble my way through Wikipedia’s...
There Will Always Be Blood Money
Strike-busting troops gathered in Colorado in 1914, after the Ludlow Massacre It was spring in Colorado when the National Guard killed the strikers: April,...
Culture Club: In Praise of the Genre Mash-Up
Welcome to Culture Club, a new weekly feature where David and I (and sometimes both of us!) talk about what we’re reading, watching, and listening to each...
Notable Sandwiches #57: Doner Kebab
Welcome to the latest installment of Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my stalwart editor David Swanson, nibble my way through Wikipedia’s...
In Praise of Righteous Vengeance
Scenes from “The Book of Esther” by Arthur Szyk Today is Purim, a Jewish holiday that you’re either intimately familiar with or know nothing about. Few...
Culture Club: Beef Broth with Joseph Roth
Welcome to Culture Club, a new weekly feature where David and I (and sometimes both of us!) talk about what we’re reading, watching, and listening to each...
Notable Sandwiches #56: Denver
Author’s Note: As of this Sunday, I’ll be debuting a new feature, Culture Club, where David & I share the latest stuff we’ve been reading, watching and...
Disquiet on the Western Front
Felix Kammerer as Paul Bäumer in the Netflix production of All Quiet on the Western Front It’s common sense that any piece of art should be judged on its own...
Notable Sandwiches #55: Deli
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the baffling document that is Wikipedia’s...
How to Fight a Holy War
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Thanks so much for staying patient during the two-week break I took to try to quit smoking. Let the record show that as soon as I had to write...
Notable Sandwiches #54: The Dagwood
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the baffling document that is Wikipedia’s...
How to Conquer the Devil
Edited by David Swanson The first thing you have to understand about America is the devil is real here. Not a metaphor or a corny Halloween costume or some...
Notable Sandwiches #53: Cudighi
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the baffling document that is Wikipedia’s...
Kind of a Crazy Story
Edited by Talia Lavin The author in the Gubbio Studiolo at the Met, 2016 A manic episode begins with a stirring, followed by a spark, like seemingly dormant...
Notable Sandwiches #52: Cucumber
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the series in which I, alongside my editor David Swanson, stumble through the strange and ever-shifting document that is...
Thank You For Not Smoking
Edited by David Swanson Robert Redford and Paul Newman on a cigarette break during the filming of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Hi all, I’m trying once...
Notable Sandwiches #51: The Cuban
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the series in which I, alongside my editor David Swanson, stumble through the strange and ever-shifting document that is...
Anatomy of a Con: The Mark
Edited by David Swanson The scene this week in Brasília Last week was the anniversary of one failed coup, and the beginning of another. As the angry crowds...
Notable Sandwiches #50: Le Croque Monsieur et Le Croque Madame
Welcome to the latest installment of Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the bizarre document...
The Great Right-Wing Con Job
It’s 2023—once again I find that the 2020s feel like sci-fi dates to me and lament that we don’t have a Galactic Federation yet—and I’m so delighted to have...
Notable Sandwiches #49: Crisp
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the baffling document that is Wikipedia’s...
Gilt by Association
Edited by David Swanson A panel from the Arch of Titus in Rome It’s Chanukah, day two of the Festival of Lights, where we celebrate the victory of heroic...
Notable Sandwiches #48: Corned Beef
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the series in which I, alongside my editor David Swanson, stumble through the strange and ever-shifting document that is...
The Man Who Would Be King
Edited by David Swanson The Waidmannsheil hunting lodge in Bad Lobenstein, Thuringia, where Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss planned his coup The man lived a...
Notable Sandwich: Editor's Note
The Notable Sandwich Team has been hit by a series of maladies this week, and rather than deliver a half-hearted column, we’ve opted to marshal our resources...
Emma Goldman Book Club: Can a Revolutionary Enjoy Beauty?
Emma is all about free love. And men… men are digging it. In a remarkably chaste and innocent way! The would-be suitors: Sasha Berkman, an uncompromising...
World War I, Part II: The King and Apis
The assassination and autopsy of Serbia’s King Alexander I and Queen Draginja (left) and the aftermath (right), 1903 In 1903, more than a decade before a...
Notable Sandwich #47: the Club Sandwich
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the series in which I, alongside my editor David Swanson, stumble through the strange and ever-shifting document that is...
Emma Goldman Book Club: Bad Sex at the Corset Factory
Previously: Chapter 1 Welcome back to the Emma Goldman Book Club, as we go through Emma Goldman’s juicily frank memoir, “Living My Life,” one chapter a week....
Thanksgrieving
This is a specific story. A specific small giant has gone, a woman possessed of a certain kind of midcentury glamor that has largely passed from the world,...
Notable Sandwiches: Post-Thanksgiving Special
In lieu of our regularly scheduled sandwich content, Talia and I decided to honor America’s post-Thanksgiving eating traditions—and satisfy our own...
Curtained with Fire: World War I, a Century On
Edited by David Swanson The destruction of Ypres, France, 1917; the destruction of Bilohorivka, Ukraine, 2022 There’s a land war going on in Europe—millions...
Notable Sandwiches #46: Churrasco
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the series in which I, alongside my editor David Swanson, stumble through the strange and ever-shifting document that is...