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The Cunning Reason of Manuela
On the subtle dissidence of design shown by Eduardo Muñoz Bachs. It was around 2009, living in a tiny duplex in midtown Memphis with my new wife, that I began the hunt for some vintage art to hang in our first home together. Perusing eBay for original print editions, I stumbled across the work of
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Echo:
“Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.” —JESUS (JOHN 8:43) “Dad? Can I have the Chick-fil-a song?” My 4-year-old son, Peter, is referring to “Jesus Is King” by the artist formerly known as Kanye West. He believes the album begins with the third track, “Closed on Sunday,” which
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The Strenuous Life
Photos by Lindsay Connors
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A Writer’s Complaint
An introduction to Created from your editor. I’ll never forget when Philip Roth quit writing. “I did what I did and it’s done,” the award-winning novelist announced in a 2014 interview. His reason for abandoning the writer’s art? “There are no readers left.” “The concentration, the focus, the solitude, the silence, all the things that are required
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Arizona Futurism
A blaring yellow taxi horn. Oozing black garbage bags. Disorderly street walkers. Vacant office skyscrapers of a bygone era. Such are the sights and sounds of New York City. Now picture this. Beams of energizing sunlight. An abundance of open land and shiny new real estate. Hearty small businesses buzzing next to tech factories of
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ROOM TO FAIL
In the 2014 film Whiplash, J.K. Simmons triggered viewers—especially musicians—with his portrayal of a perfectionist, verbally abusive jazz orchestra conductor at a Juilliard-esque conservatory. In one of the film’s most intense scenes, Simmons hunts through the rows of his players like a Gestapo officer, seeking the lone woodwind that was slightly out of tune. Berating the
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Lone and Level Sands
A photo journal from my family trip to Lake Powell, Arizona.
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The Museion Fellowship
The best way to make change is to make the professionals who drive it.
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Trauma and the City
America’s urban centers are being consumed by a mental health grift.
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Just a Minute: a micro-interview with Marian Petrov
The Bulgarian Grandmaster shares his thoughts on deep thinking. Marian, what does it mean to “think hard” as a chess player, and how can people train themselves to think hard in other endeavors? Chess is a thinking man’s sport—yes, a sport, even though there isn’t much moving around. It requires strategic thinking, and sometimes it
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Wielding Inspiration
Film director Philippe Gosselin contends that stories and archetypes have the power to reawaken wonder and transform culture. Throughout my childhood, the popular culture industry was central to my life. As our family albums show, I was obsessed with everything Winnie the Pooh as a child. When I was around five years old a little
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Whose Forum? Which Conspiracy Theory?
Outlining a hermeneutic for the digital age of mythmaking. One day in geometry class, a classmate who could not have been older than 13 gave me a book called None Dare Call it Treason by John A. Stormer. The earnest kid said it was “very important” and offered me several copies so I could hand them out
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Who Killed Latin?
Making a dead language come alive. In middle school we had to choose one elective, so I signed up for Latin. I may have been the only one—whatever the case, it didn’t run because of low enrollment, so I settled for French since that’s what my friends were doing. We landed in a class taught
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Uncivilized Recreation
How Wagner missed the mark on hunting. For a tract titled Art and Religion, Richard Wagner was curiously preoccupied with vegetarianism. This is because Wagner thought that the ethical crux of true religion is milted or compassion, and compassion towards animals—i.e., not killing them—was both practice for and the outward sign of the compassion we should have for
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The Unbreakable Skull
Photo by Dave Herring
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The Rest of Us
A clarion call for more Z’s. In the winter of last year my daughter was diagnosed with ADHD. The diagnosis was jarring—and it was no small issue, as she landed fairly high on the spectrum. As I write this, my mind’s eye watches the skeptical roll their eyes and groan that ADHD doesn’t exist, that
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Suffering from Success
It seems like Hollywood has nothing new to say, Kevin Xu notes.
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Progress Comes for the Wordsmith
Analyzing the threat of ChatGPT for those who toil in the salt mines of strategic communications. Being replaced is at the core of our insecurities as human beings. When another person is preferred over us at work, in our relationships, in the public eye—it strikes at the core of who we are. When that “person”
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On Being Right
“I’ve always felt that a person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.” –Abigail Adams Despite the “post-truth world” we’re often told we live in, most people only have room to understand one point of view. Society has evolved to be black and
