The Eternal Return of the Border Wars
“Lady Fortune and her Wheel” by Jean Pichore, c. 1510 Nietzsche had a theory of eternal return—drawn from Indian thought and his own fizzing and eloquent...
How to Live in a Female Body
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 #87: The Horseshoe
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my long-suffering editor David Swanson, wend my way through the ever-shifting document...
Magneto Was Right, Bub
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 #86: Har Cheong Gai Burger
By David Swanson Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where Talia and I trip merrily through the baffling and mercurial document that is...
Turning Away from Disaster
An illustration from Ovid's Metamorphoses, by Virgil Solis, 1569 It started, as great art often does, with a metamorphosis. Or Metamorphoses—specifically,...
A Super Bowl Sunday Syllabus
By David Swanson Welcome back to Culture Club, the recurring feature where David and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading,...
Notable Sandwiches #85: The Handwich
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the baffling and mercurial document that is...
Writing Under Water
"Quatre Arbres" by Egon Schiele, 1917 Faded the flower and all its budded charms,Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,Faded the shape of beauty from my...
The Truman Show: A Capote Reader
Welcome back to Culture Club, the recurring feature where David and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or...
Notable Sandwiches #85: Hani
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the baffling and mercurial document that is...
In Soviet Times
Welcome back to Culture Club, the recurring feature where David and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or...
Notable Sandwiches #84: Hamdog
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the baffling and mercurial document that is...
The Decline and the Fall
Note to subscribers:Talia has another big book deadline and is also dealing with some creeping burnout, so for the next while the Tuesday columns will be...
A Burns Night Reader
By David Swanson Welcome back to Culture Club, the feature where David and I talk about what we've been reading, watching, playing or thinking about lately....
Notable Sandwiches #83: The Hamburger
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the bizarre and ever-mutating document that...
Abortion, Underground
An abortion rights poster by Andréanne Quesnel Yesterday saw the shambolic and somewhat parodic Iowa caucuses; despite the lavish media attention devoted to...
On the Theory and Practice of Reading
Welcome back to Culture Club, the feature where David and I talk about what we've been reading, watching, playing or thinking about lately, for premium...
Notable Sandwiches #81: Ham Redux
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the bizarre and ever-mutating document that...
"What We Are Up Against"
Dear readers! I am a bit under the weather today with a virus, so we are re-publishingi an older column, from when this was a significantly smaller...