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Carol Burnett knows funny stuff. She has made enough of it on Broadway, in film and, for 11 seasons, on her eponymous award-winning variety... Read More

It’s the Fourth of July 2025, in Hannibal, Missouri, and what appears to be the town’s entire population has gathered in the... Read More

Ask about the unconscious and most neuroscientists will acknowledge its existence, grudgingly, before going on to explain that consciousness... Read More

Mass culture has been around since mass media, so there’s nothing new about large groups of people doing the same thing at the same... Read More

When most people think about female rock stars and punk heroes, they do not think about conservative broadcast journalists or opinion makers.... Read More

The last thing we should want to do with accounts of mystical or transcendent or contemplative experiences is send them to the taxidermist... Read More

If it seems odd to call Steven Spielberg a 21st-century filmmaker, that’s surely because Steven Spielberg has had an odd 21st century.... Read More

I I’ve spent too many hours in my life fighting the art populism wars, impotently feuding against the dominant cultural impulse of our... Read More

What should a summer book provide? Escapism, sure—no one wants to sit on a sun lounger reading about a sweaty commute. Also,... Read More

In the summer of 2020, Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, was very close to becoming vice president of the United States.... Read More

Tomorrow is July 4, 2026, and if you’re a student of American history, you know what that means: It means I’ll be trying to... Read More

It’s America’s 250th birthday, and I just got back from the Great American State Fair in D.C. Everyone seemed in good spirits,... Read More

Grocery tourism is the hot trend of 2026 according to Condé Nast Traveler. This is all well and good, but also a bit late to the... Read More

Cycling is not an easy sport to get into as a fan. Unlike most team sports—and you learn quickly that cycling is a team sport—you... Read More

Being in Britain around the Fourth of July is always an odd experience for an American. It was especially awkward to be at the Alliance for... Read More

China controls key chokepoints in some of America's most critical supply chains, including rare earth minerals, semiconductors,... Read More

FOX News contributor, Samizdat Prize winner, and author of "Rage and the Republic," Jonathan Turley reacts to the Supreme Court's decision to... Read More

Eyes deceive in Steven Spielberg’s latest blockbuster. Disclosure Day, the storied director’s fifth film in which humans... Read More

The rise of Civic Thought programs and the demise of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs are two of the main hallmarks of this... Read More

The Declaration of Independence is not something to be taken for granted. Even in rebellion, Americans might have chosen to remain in the... Read More

They say it was bat shit that almost did him in, something he might have breathed in while riding his motorcycle on a gusty spring day, or... Read More

The art was way too heavy. In mid-March, the artists Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst were preparing an installation to coincide with the... Read More

In November of last year, I had a conversation for Zona Motel with the brilliant Emmalea Russo about her debut novel, Vivienne. Russo is... Read More

Jon Fosse, whose work I’ve been translating for twenty-five years now, is not only a writer – he is a language activist. He... Read More

After writing more than a dozen stories on America’s 250th, and with July Fourth nearly here, where else would I go but Monticello?... Read More

THERE ARE FEW DISREPUTABLE GENRES I unironically love quite so dearly as the vigilante flick. Putting a random man or woman into a maelstrom... Read More

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on a flea, though many... Read More

DAVID FISHKIND’S DEBUT novel Don’t Step into My Office (2026) is a suspenseful, enigmatic murder mystery that winds across two... Read More

Earlier this year, I decided to pay a visit to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, lately in the news for all the wrong... Read More

“Toy Story 5” has struck a nerve. Since its release on June 19, it has become the highest-grossing “Toy Story” movie... Read More

I sat in front of a blank Word Doc on the patio of my corner coffee shop, sweating and chain-smoking Marlboro Reds. Anthony Bourdain had been... Read More

TIC founder Brad Birzer’s title is a bit misleading. While the Declaration of Independence is treated in detail, The Declaration of... Read More

The show-within-a-show has always been a generative plot device. The audience gets to witness the mounting of the performance that we... Read More

Today’s post is a conversation with Scott McClanahan, author of The Sarah Book, Hill William, and others. Scott has been my favorite... Read More

Just a few years ago, wearing a sombrero on Halloween could get you banished from polite society for the social crime of “cultural... Read More

What indignities those poor magisters suffered at the cathedral school of Paris late in the twelfth century. In these medieval centers of... Read More

Tonio Guajardo’s twenty-one-and-a-half-minute YouTube video, “I Took America’s Worst Possible Train,” is a rare... Read More

After writing for publication for nearly 70 years, I ask myself: Have I ever committed the sin of plagiarism? I hope I haven’t, but I... Read More