Alex Burns

It felt like proof of something I’ve often sensed but have been unable to express, which is that trying too hard to control people’s impression of you is an insult to both your humanity and theirs.

Because right now there is someone

Out there with

a wound in the exact shape

of your words.

It’s fitting, then, that A24 and director Jane Schoenbrun have staked a large part of the movie’s experience on another relic of the pre-streaming era: the compilation soundtrack. The I Saw the TV Glow OST is the type of project you don’t see much of in 2024. It’s a who’s who of indie music mixed with a handful of rising artists, all providing... See more

A fan of both Herman Melville and long-forgotten archives, Grann landed on the journals of a 16-year-old midshipman who was stranded with his crew members on an island off the coast of Patagonia. It was not the document’s descriptions of typhoons, shipwreck, or mutinies, however captivating, that convinced Grann the story of The Wager was worth... See more

Neo-cities : When do people start new cities vs. reforming existing ones? Is Singapore an urbanist paradise or technofascist dystopia? What can the US learn from Special Economic Zones? Can you do urban renewal right? What’s the difference between Esmeralda and California Forever? Why do most charter cities fail? How might they succeed?

These habits help form what Hall and his co-author Andy Merolla, a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, call the social biome, a way of thinking about the entire range of your social interactions. A healthy social biome is one with variety — among the types of people we talk to and the kinds of conversations we have — as well as... See more