I’ll start this at the beginning. Recently Friend of LWON, Chris Arnade, posted a picture of himself — which itself was not unusual because Chris is, among other things, a photographer and posts pictures of himself right along with pictures of other people. But the picture was unusual. Chris is a very serious guy and always […]
This post originally ran on November 11, 2013. I rerun it now partly because I liked it and mostly because it’s a conversation with Hope Jahren and Ben Lillie. Hope has a new book out, written with her usual brilliant, nail-gun verve; Ben runs an on-going travelling theatrical anthology that’s like nothing else I’ve heard of. […]
April 4 – 8, 2016 “I must have caught this from that coughing bastard on the plane.” “Obviously, my husband’s little cold mutated into this nasty flu.” You feel like hell, you look around for something to blame. Christie reduxes a post about why you’re wrong. Xenotopias are those weird places that aren’t anything else, […]
Have you ever read a book where someone had pleurisy, or gout, or hysteria, and wondered…how come I never hear about anybody getting that anymore? Well, you’re in luck: It’s Outmoded Diseases Week at LWON, and we’re going to tell you. About some of them, anyway. We’re starting off with neurasthenia, a disease suffered by […]
Feb. 22 – 26, 2016 RadioLab doesn’t run climate change stories. Cassie asks her husband, who works for RadioLab, why not. Cassie’s husband explains about anti-stories. Cassie says, “what the hell.” Jennifer was out in the rain and cold, and was on the receiving end of kindness and empathy. She doesn’t care whether her kind […]
My husband died. He wasn’t young any more and was sick and weak but we weren’t expecting his death to come as quickly as it did, within a few days, almost overnight. He just went away. Maybe there are worse things than a quick, quiet death. Here’s what happened next. My brother and sister-in-law (who […]
February 8 – 12, 2016 C’mon, Hollywood, get real, says Erik. Even a 12-year old can get out of those rope knots, let alone some grownup damsel on the railroad tracks, let alone Indiana Jones. New era, new climate, so we need some new words. Michelle makes up some of such quality that they rival […]
The Great East Coast Snowstorm of January 2016 That Singled Out Baltimore left around 30 inches of snow, turning cars into snowhills and pausing civilized life as we know it. In the last big snowstorm, the the worst incivility was perpetrated by the neighbors themselves, this time it was by outsiders: two different jackasses parked for […]