Alex Burns

Audiences want romance. Stars want romance. We have a formula for romance that works when given the benefit of strong direction, witty writing, charming leads, a slightly unexpected soundtrack (Maggie Rogers, what are you doing here?!), and on occasion, a lithe and spirited British muse.

It would make sense to say that, despite appearances, third-order vanity ratchets up the neuroticism, rather than quiets it down. But what I find most interesting about third-order vanity is that often its most prolific purveyors seem so lost in their role that they’re almost unaware they’re performing at all.

It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself.

The Coffee Beans Procedure is a way of doing what psychologists call unpacking . Our imaginations are inherently limited; they can’t include all details at once. (Otherwise you run into Borges’ map problem—if you want a map that contains all the details of the territory that it’s supposed to represent, then the map has to be the size of the... See more

Sip your coffee in peace

We usually pair coffee with speed-of-light emailing. But it goes better with: porches, stoops, sidewalks, parks, friends, dog walks, phone calls, books, newspapers.

Since its founding in 2012, A24 has consistently been on the upswing. The company’s success doesn’t come down to one thing, but a variety of factors: the championing of up-and-coming auteurs (Ari Aster, Greta Gerwig, Robert Eggers, the directorial duo known as the Daniels), which has established the studio as a reliable tastemaker; the execution of... See more

What’s important to the third-order vain is that they’re avoiding the pitfalls of the second-order vain, who refuse to admit just how hard they’re trying. The irony is that the third-order vain are trying too, just to achieve different ends.

I’ve spent decades writing and editing; I know the feeling — of reward and hard-won clarity — that writing produces for me. But if you never build those muscles, will you grasp what’s missing when an L.L.M. delivers a chirpy but shallow reply? What happens to students who’ve never experienced the reward of pressing toward an elusive thought that... See more