Stanley Crouch on 'Reasons of the State'

Bookmarks

For decades, Stanley Crouch has cut a singular path through American culture. Once an aspiring jazz musician and later a noted cultural critic, he was friends with Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, and later an intellectual mentor to Wynton Marsalis. For all of his intellectual virtuosity, we were still surprised to discover the book that Crouch wanted to recommend: Alejo Carpentier’s “Reasons of State.”More

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Ancient Grains, Native Corn, And The Doomsday Seed Vault: How Growing Food Might Survive Disaster

Clockwise: Wheat in a field, flint corn, kamut grains, and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
Articles

Most of us get our food from the grocery store, not the fields where it grows. But if you really want to understand where our food comes from — and the potential threats to the food supply — you have to think about seeds.

'You Smell Death': Being A Mortician In A Community Ravaged By COVID-19

Tyrone Muhammad
Articles

Tyrone Muhammad, also known as "Muhammad the Mortician," is the funeral director at Newark’s Peace and Glory Home for Funerals. He spent decades trying to stop the epidemic of gun violence in the black community he serves, but nothing prepared him for a pandemic.

Length: 
9:59

Why Camus' 'The Stranger' Is Still a Dangerous Novel

Albert Camus in the 1950s
Audio

Albert Camus’s first novel, "The Stranger," speaks strongly to the search for meaning. It’s the story of an alienated man who commits a senseless murder. Literary critic Alice Kaplan calls it "the perfect Black Lives Matter book."

Length: 
14:41

Grief Is A Natural Response To The Pandemic. Here’s Why You Should Let Yourself Feel It.

Window man
Articles

David Kessler is one of the foremost experts on death and grieving. He’s written many books on the subject, and worked with Elizabeth Kubler Ross on famous five stages of grief. He recently added a sixth: finding meaning.

Length: 
11:35

Does Philosophy Still Matter In The Age Of Coronavirus?

light in the dark
Articles

Philosopher John Kaag discusses how the 19th century thinker William James might help us seek meaning and purpose in a confusing time.

Length: 
10:36

Chris Ware on 'Society Is Nix'

chris ware on "society is nix"
Bookmarks

When he’s not drawing, Chris Ware likes to read and look at vintage comics. He highly recommends a book that defies even his powers of description — a folio-sized reproduction of some of America’s first newspaper cartoons, made long before super-heroes and adventure stories took over the medium. Back then, he says, the medium could be anything — and was.

Length: 
3:30

The Most Boring Video Game Ever Made

Screenshot from "Desert Bus" playthrough by Phrasz013.
Sonic Sidebar

A simulated eight-hour bus drive earns you one point. Why would anyone want to play a game like that?

Length: 
3:04

I Went To The Woods To Level Up Deliberately

Mark on own personal "Walden Pond" in Animal Crossing
Video

Game developer Tracy Fullerton tells us why Henry David Thoreau would play her new game. It’s called “Walden.”

Length: 
8:46

There's No Pandemic In Animal Crossing

Mark and Anne in front of Mark's home in "Animal Crossing"
Video

Mark just built a new house. In fact, he built a whole town. And it's the one place we can actually visit, because it’s inside a game. He’s been taking refuge from the grim reality of a global pandemic...in Animal Crossing.

Length: 
8:35

How We Fool Ourselves With The Concept of 'Reality'

The many realities
Video

How do you know what’s real? Start with your senses — if you can see, touch, hear or taste something, it’s real — right? Not necessarily, according to cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman and neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan.

Length: 
18:13