From the Blog
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Chinatown: I Don’t Belong, But I Feel Like I Do
The only way I can describe this week so far is breakneck. I feel like I’ve seen more of California in a week than some Californians do in their lives. On Sunday we went to Big Trees, where we saw towering California redwoods. On Wednesday, we drove to Lake Tahoe and hiked a mountain. And…
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Cheeky Trip to Utqiaġvik
The most expensive and weirdest trip I’ve ever taken, or will ever take, is probably Utqiaġvik. America’s northernmost settlement used to be called Barrow, to make it easier for Anglophones to pronounce. But in 2016, the Iñupiat majority of the town were finally able to reclaim the village’s original name, Utqiaġvik, whose meaning is unclear…
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Happiness & Art
“Happiness is better than art.” So says a music teacher at the beginning of the 1944 movie Gaslight, urging his student to abandon her singing in favor of getting married. As an artist, the line caught my ear, and I’ve remembered it ever since. Is happiness really better than art? With so many tortured and…
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ProHERbition — Feminist Beef with Snopes and WHO
“WHO calls to ban women from drinking alcohol!” watchdogs shouted today. Though it’s 2021 and most of us are traumatized beyond the point of being surprised, such a headline should shock us. If we bring back prohibition—specifically aimed at women—what comes next? Passports and bank accounts frozen? Then red cloaks and white bonnets? In fiction,…
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Alaska
I’m in love. The west coast has always been special to me, although I never knew why. Now that I live here, I finally understand it. If you’re from New England, you’ll be able to imagine Alaska. All you have to do is make a few basic changes to the east coast. First, you’ll want…
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