‘HD 11964 d’ by Any Other Name

What to call the planets we find beyond our solar system?

The Most Important Election in History

Is it possible to elect a president without invoking that phrase?

A Most Interesting Young Man

Was that Bob Dylan my sister met on a weir above Woodstock?

Exit No Exit

Whatever happened to existentialism?

Sign Language

At their best, pictograms tell us clearly where to go and what to do; at their worst, things can get interesting

Inshallah

The war in Iraq might leave us a new word to match a new sense of our own limitations

The Patron Subjects

Who were the Wertheimers, the family that sat for a dozen of John Singer Sargent’s paintings?

A Giant of a Man

The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark

Adventures With Jean

Striking up a friendship with an older writer meant accepting the risk of getting hurt

Feels Like Coming Home
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The wonders of the coastal redwood

Free
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The knowledge of approaching death may allow some of us to experience time in new and liberating ways

Riding With Mr. Washington

How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction

Bards Behind Bars

Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison

Just When You Thought It Wasn’t Safe …

How Wilbert Longfellow turned America into a nation of swimmers

Corona Chasers

You never forget your first solar eclipse

For Whom Do We Create?

The conundrum facing so many American artists today

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