SPOTLIGHT

A Splendor Wild and Terrifying

Lost in the woods, a writer confronts the duality of nature

By Mark Phillips Thursday, July 17, 2025

SPOTLIGHT

A Splendor Wild and Terrifying

Lost in the woods, a writer confronts the duality of nature

By Mark Phillips Thursday, July 17, 2025

Asturias Days

Flummoxed

Read Me a Poem

“Parachutes, My Love, Could Carry Us Higher” by Barbara Guest

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Portrait of the Artist

Jeanne F. Jalandoni

Weaving past and present together

Smarty Pants Podcast

Michael Douglas Explains It All

Jessa Crispin on what the actor’s roles tell us about the crisis of masculinity

Article

On (Middle-Class) Frugality

Does cutting costs mean robbing oneself of life’s small delights?

Asturias Days

Snake in the Grass

Read Me a Poem

“Daddy” by Sylvia Plath

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Next Line, Please

Why Go On?

Article

America the Beautiful

The poem that became a hymn to the nation came about in troubled, polarizing times

Web Essays

November 1

Asturias Days

Los Inocentes

Web Essays

October 29

Web Essays

Apocalypse Then and Now

Last in a series of half-century reflections

Web Essays

October 26

Web Essays

A Symphony of Sounds

The surprising storytelling powers of background noise

Web Essays

October 24

Web Essays

October 21

Web Essays

October 14

NEWSLETTER

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Jeremy Spoke in Class Today

On guns, MTV, Stephen King, and the nightmare from which we cannot awake

Book Reviews

The Rascal of Pont-Aven

Reassessing a renowned painter’s troubling life

Article

Who Killed the Mercy Man?
loading

An obscure murder keeps resurfacing in Black story and song

Article

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Why shouldn’t America’s federal buildings speak to us in a language encompassing the old as well as the new?

Tuning Up

A Fight With Cudgels
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Meditations on death, Goya, and the immutability of art