Reading Time: 5 minutes The alien races of sci-fi and the magical races of fantasy capture our imaginations because they reflect aspects of human nature back to us. The creative, peaceful side and the short-sighted, destructive side of humanity are mirrored in the fantastical races of elves and orcs.
Arts & Culture
Posted inHistory
The ghosts of Vesuvius awaken in newly deciphered scrolls
Reading Time: 4 minutes The eruption of Vesuvius buried the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, including one of the greatest ancient libraries ever found. Almost 2,000 years later, modern technology is making it possible to read its scrolls again.
Posted inThe Future
What would you write to the future?
Reading Time: 5 minutes The Future Library Project is collecting books that won’t be published in our lifetime. It’s an antidote to temporal near-sightedness and a motivation to contemplate what the future needs from us.
Posted inMyth & Folklore
Forgotten gods: When we buried Summanus’s lightning
Reading Time: 9 minutes He was at one time a god so widely respected and feared that Romans went to great lengths to escape his power. But by the first century BCE, he had fallen into such obscurity that Ovid could refer to “a shrine dedicated to Summanus, whoever
he is.” What can the followers of other gods learn from his fate?
Posted inArts
The priceless gift of attention
Reading Time: 4 minutes We writers aren’t just competing with our peers, but with all the greatest masterpieces of the ages. How’s a reader to choose?
Posted inMusic
The irrational love of music
Reading Time: 2 minutes Some of us crave classical music with a raptured obsession that defies logical explanation.
Posted inPinn Drop with Anthony Pinn
A serious sense of play | Jamal Cyrus
Anthony Pinn talks with critically-acclaimed artist JAMAL CYRUS about his process, his values, and the place and purpose of art in our culture.
Posted inArt
A ‘City’ in the Nevada desert shows the glorious human-ness of art for its own sake
Reading Time: 6 minutes A colossal work of art called City recently opened for viewing in Nevada. Over a mile long and a quarter-mile wide, taking 50 years to complete, this installation makes a huge splash even when seen from high overhead. It’s a statement that speaks to one of the most human things about us: our desire to […]
Posted inArts
Can a multi-sensory ‘extended reality’ story change our planet?
Reading Time: 4 minutes When I got a press release inviting me to fully immerse myself into a multi-sensory extended reality (XR) story, I almost circularly filed it. Yes, the title “U.S. Premiere of a Multisensory XR Story Symbiosis at PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow” sounded intriguing. But after experiencing an overabundance of screen time for […]
Posted inSocial Media
What next? Twitter’s complicated role in the literary world
Reading Time: 11 minutes Not long after Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, another exodus of site users began—and with it, discussion about the people who aren’t ready, or able, to leave. Transitioning to a new platform isn’t easy for everyone: for many disabled people, for instance, leaving Twitter means learning all the ins and outs of yet another system […]