Editors' Choice
Luxor Cafe, After Dark
People are crowded around tables, playing cards, Connect 4, Othello, and other games taken from a nearby communal shelf. One wall is decorated with Egyptian hieroglyphics, another with a span of Polaroids.
An Inhabitable Archive
What stays behind isn’t paint or plaster; it’s the way we’ve marked each other when the walls themselves were the only witnesses.
Critique of Pure Criticism
From rhapsode to New Yorker critic, why are we so bad at defending the humanities?
Planting a Seed
It seems unfair to say I love someone who I never knew completely. It’s hard to understand how it could even be possible. I have no evidence, no explicit reason why I should love him aside from the blood we share and his undeniable part in giving me life. Yet, I do love my dad and I miss the chance I had at being his daughter, blooming in his image.
The 16,000 Generation Yeast
Michael M. Desai, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and of Physics, hopes to leverage the common fungus to answer an age-old question: How did we come to be?
Contingency
Most predictions are contingents: over a hundred species will go extinct tomorrow; Mexico City will run out of water in the next decade; I will witness climate collapse within my lifetime. All statements about the future, neither inevitable nor impossible.
What I Didn’t Learn From Quitting Coffee For a Week
I sincerely believed this week would lead me to some incredible Reason Why You Need to Quit Coffee Now — you know, one of those things that makes a good headline. At the very least, I figured it would give me something to brag about while the semester took its toll.
Pinching Paper: On Self and Medium
Nothing weighed down dust besides what it symbolized to me.
Are We Doing Friendship Wrong?
Alex Chueh wants to turn to anyone anywhere and strike up a conversation. Which is exactly what he’s done — over 1,000 times since 2022.
For Sara Jane Ho, Etiquette is Everywhere
An etiquette expert, Ho is best known as the host of the Netflix series “Mind Your Manners” and for founding Institute Sarita, China’s first finishing school.
What If?
In the New York Times’ building in Times Square, there is a front-page story that will never see the light of day. All that was left was the headline: “Madam President: Clinton Defeats Trump In Historic Victory.”
Rainbow Suits and Riot Gear at the Boston Men’s March
The participants of Boston’s Men’s March to Abolish Abortion and Rally for Personhood had only made it a few steps down Commonwealth Avenue when nearly 100 clowns arrived.
On My Admissions File
When I learned that I could request to view my admissions file, I seized that opportunity. Amid the whirlwind of settling into life at a new college in a new country, I hoped that the comments on my file would help me make sense of my place here.
