The change is definitive. My bangs are light yellow straw now, long enough that a few strands of scorched hair cover my eyes while most of it spikes above my forehead, in the cockatoo style Howard Jones sports. I’ve got on loose, light gray pants, with pockets on the sides of the leg. Black cotton [...]

Edward Hoaglund has written an “Opinion” essay in The New York Times–“Pity Earth Creatures”–about the human penchant for using other species of animals as metaphors to explain our weird behavior while we bully them into submission or extinction: By our own account we’re pigs, yet bearish, owly but mousy, catty and bovine. We beaver at [...]

I’ve noticed a recurrent phenomenon in contemporary literature: scenes in which brains (or other body parts) are  touched or explored for signs of immaterial elements of self: mind, consciousness, affect, emotion, imagination, desire–what the philosophers calls “qualia”–the subjective, ineffable qualities that characterize our perceptual responses to the world around us. This happens in a variety [...]

“Stephen has been diagnosed with a learning disability,” I hear our neighbor Brenda’s British accent on our doorstep. She’s talking about one of her sons. “It’s a problem with his brain. If Stephen looks at a tree in the distance, he’ll see one leaf, but not the tree. The rest of us wouldn’t see the [...]

At first, I thought I was hearing routine chicken squabbling. The hens get loud when they tangle with each other. But Dave (my beloved partner in life and domesticity) seemed to know right away this was something else. Within seconds, the screech was unmistakable: it had something to do with life and death. “Run outside,” [...]

The kid is on a bench, planted in overgrown grass. The canvas is thick with paint chunks, but the image is all hazy outlines, the kid’s hair the same soft greens as the grass and the bench. The kid’s wearing a smock painted in lavender textured with inky purple shadows. The view is mainly of [...]

“Ma’am, I’m Agent Brown and this is Agent Blonde. Secret Service.” They flash their badges at my mom. “Your dog seems to be in some distress.” Mona, our black lab, has been acting weird for a couple of weeks. We’ve all gotten used to the yelping, but you have to admit the lunging toward the [...]

It’s a delight to welcome my friend Scott Cheshire. For his californica debut, he and I decided to publish our conversation about a book that got under our respective skins, Sheila Heti‘s How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life. (Also, for a treat, check out the playlist of songs Heti devised to accompany [...]

I’ve been enjoying the “asap Science” videos, YouTube’s “weekly dose of fun and interesting science.” They’re brisk, brightly colored, fact-filled tours on topics like the power of music, the creation of pearls, or the physiology of orgasm. I’m curious about the making of the videos. Somebody’s doing some serious homework, which must involve sifting through [...]

My mom has married Stanley, and we are now The Messins. By 1974, Ralph has a new wife and is long gone. Midge is living in La Jolla, surviving on sporadic alimony and the sale of an antique or piece of art now and then. The Neves children—Gary, Craig, and Cathy—have dropped out. We’re all [...]