Everything feels like a bit of a scramble right now. That’s not a complaint, simply an observation. It’s definitely not all bad; in fact, some things are quite good. And it’s not even that I’m particularly overwhelmed right now, I…
A science article in The Atlantic a few months ago — “How Animals Perceive the World,” by Ed Yong — introduced me to a term I’d never heard before: Umwelt. Umwelt refers to the particular sensory “bubble” in which all…
A hundred and fifty years ago, a group of edgy outsider artists organized a renegade exhibition. These painters all had been soundly rejected by the Paris Salon. They weren’t even runners-up; no one took them seriously. Undeterred, they found a…
I was reading about the origins of “Goldilocks.” I’d never thought much about it. The story seems pretty timeless, always having been in my awareness. A precocious little girl who, lost in the woods, happens upon a cozy house in…