CATEGORIES

PARIS FRIEND - SHUANG XUETAO

Xiaoguo had a terror of thirst, so he kept a glass of water on the table beside his hospital bed. As soon as it was empty, he asked me to refill it. I wanted to warn him that this was unhealthy - guzzling water all night long puts pressure on the kidneys, and pissing that much couldn't be good for his injury. He was tall, though, so I decided his insides could probably cope.

WILD SIDE

Is Lake Tahoe's bear boom getting out of hand?

GETTING A GRIP

Robots learn to use their hands.

WITHHOLDING SEX FROM MY WIFE

In the wake of [the] election, progressive women, who are outraged over Donald Trump's victory at the ballot box, have taken to social media with public, vengeful vows of chastity. - The Free Press.

DEADLINE EXTENSION

Old age, reborn.

THE TEXAS EXODUS

Amid stringent abortion laws, ob-gyns are fleeing the state.

GET IT TOGETHER

In the beginning was the mob, and the mob was bad. In Gibbon’s 1776 “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the Roman mob makes regular appearances, usually at the instigation of a demagogue, loudly demanding to be placated with free food and entertainment (“bread and circuses”), and, though they don’t get to rule, they sometimes get to choose who will.

GAINING CONTROL

The frenemies who fought to bring contraception to this country.

REBELS WITH A CAUSE

In the new FX/Hulu series “Say Nothing,” life as an armed revolutionary during the Troubles has—at least at first—an air of glamour.

AGAINST THE CURRENT

\"Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!,\" at Soho Rep, and \"Gatz,\" at the Public.

METAMORPHOSIS

The director Marielle Heller explores the feral side of child rearing.

THE BIG SPIN

A district attorney's office investigates how its prosecutors picked death-penalty juries.

THIS ELECTION JUST PROVES WHAT I ALREADY BELIEVED

I hate to say I told you so, but here we are. Kamala Harris’s loss will go down in history as a catastrophe that could have easily been avoided if more people had thought whatever I happen to think.

HOLD YOUR TONGUE

Can the world's most populous country protect its languages?

A LONG WAY HOME

Ordinarily, I hate staying at someone's house, but when Hugh and I visited his friend Mary in Maine we had no other choice.

YULE RULES

“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”

COLLISION COURSE

In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.

NEW CHAPTER

Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?

STUCK ON YOU

Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.

HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG

Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.

REPRISE

Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.

WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?

Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.

COLOR INSTINCT

Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.

THE FAMILY PLAN

The pro-life movement’ new playbook.

President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.

On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.

LIFE ADVICE WITH ANIMAL ANALOGIES

Go with the flow like a dead fish.

CONNOISSEUR OF CHAOS

The masterly musical as mblages of Charles Ives

BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS

How the Brothers Grimm sought to awaken a nation.

THE ARTIFICIAL STATE

A different kind of machine politics.

THE HONEST ISLAND GREG JACKSON

Craint did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.