Selected pieces:
“Nostalgia Fact-Check: How Does Murphy Brown Hold Up?” (Vulture, New York magazine, May 2012)
“In a moment when TV is overflowing with girls, Murphy Brown is unmistakably a woman.”
“Why Ellis from Smash Is the Worst Person on TV: He’s a Textbook Millennial” (Vulture, New York magazine, May 2012)
“Why do we faithful Smash fans (Smash-heads? Smash-holes?), who cheerfully put up with so much other crap, like Katharine McPhee’s vacant acting and Debra Messing’s terrible wardrobe, reserve such a particular animosity toward Ellis?”
Interview with “For Better or For Worse” cartoonist Lynn Johnston (the Grindstone, April 2012)
“What Anne Sexton Told Her Therapist” (the Boston Globe, March 2012)
“[Sexton's] poetry wasn’t the only thing to survive her death: Her therapy did, too. Starting when Sexton was 28, a young mother struggling with mental illness but not yet a published poet, she began seeing a Boston psychiatrist named Martin Orne two or three times a week. In 1960, he began tape-recording their sessions.”
“A Shunning in Seattle” (Slate, February 2012)
“Now, as even fellow evangelical Christians express concern about how Andrew was shunned, [Mars Hill Church] must confront questions about whether its disciplinary practices are misunderstood and biblical, or disturbingly controlling. Is Mars Hill’s PR drama a lesson in how even the best institutions will have disgruntled critics, or a case of an increasingly powerful organization abusing its members’ trust?”
“Margaret Fuller, lost Transcendentalist,” (the Boston Globe, February 2012)
“Fuller is in the midst of a revival. The last five years have brought several biographies from university presses, including the second volume of Boston University intellectual historian Charles Capper’s definitive biography. Special issues of several journals and a collection by top Fuller scholars, ‘Margaret Fuller and Her Circles,’ are forthcoming, and prize-winning biographer Megan Marshall’s ‘The Passion of Margaret Fuller’ will appear early next year. What is being unearthed is a portrait of one of the most powerful intellects of the 19th century.”
Q&A with Yale neurobiologist Gordon Shepherd: “Smell: The Undervalued Sense” (the Boston Globe, January 2012)
“In fact, however, smelling engages huge regions of the brain — not just memory and emotion, but also our systems for language and higher cognitive processing. Breathing in an odor creates a complex pattern in the brain, comparable to the one we use to recognize faces. In contradiction to Aristotle, we’re not just good at this; our powerful brains make us uniquely skilled.”
Review, Jean H. Baker, “Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion” (the Wall Street Journal, December 2011)
“[Sanger's] project was to decouple sex from pregnancy. She didn’t want only to liberate women to say no to sex, which was the goal of many suffragettes. Instead, she wanted to allow them to enjoy it, a project that was nearly impossible with the specter of pregnancy as a chaperone.”
“Adventures in Baby-Sitting: From Marilyn Monroe’s former mental patient to Jonah Hill’s bawdy caretaker, a brief cultural history of the American sitter.” (Slate, December 2011)
“Even if a baby sitter avoids seduction or violence, she’s still an embodied reminder that mother isn’t doing her job. As far back as 1924, a guidebook called Wholesome Childhood rebuked mothers who were ‘prone to hire young girls to take charge of their little ones, every afternoon, so that the mothers may play Ma Chiang, run into the near-by city, shop, gossip, or even sew, bake, and clean house to their hearts’ content, with no children on their minds.’ Horrors! Replace Ma Chiang with Words With Friends, and you’ve got yourself an entry in the 21st-century ‘mommy wars.’”
“The Fading of Fall: Why the bright red leaves of New England are in danger” (Slate, October 2011)
“Foliage tourism is routinely estimated to bring well over $1 billion to the region each year. Tourism is the top industry in northern New England. … That’s partly why the specter of declining foliage tourism is so worrisome to New England scientists and tourism leaders these days. Both climatologists and phenologists—who study the effects of seasonal changes on plants and animals—are becoming increasingly concerned about the effect of rising temperatures on Thoreau’s spectacular ‘autumnal tints.’”
“A Year of Biblical Womanhood” (Slate, September 2011)
“[Rachel Held] Evans is not a Biblical literalist, and even fundamentalist Christians no longer hew to the Old Testament’s specific laws for daily life. (That’s kind of the point of the New Testament.) But she is an earnest evangelical, with a serious influence within the insular world of conservative Christianity. Her Easter weekend in the tent was part of a project called “A Year of Biblical Womanhood,” in which she is following all the Bible’s instructions for women as precisely as possible for 12 months.”
“Members of Congress Whom I Would Have Preferred to Have Tweeted Photos of the Nouns in Their Last Names,” (The Awl, June 2011)
“I Prayed Myself Slim” (Double X blog post, April 2011)
“The New York Times reported this week on the apparently growing problem of eating disorders among young women in Orthodox Jewish communities. Some of the struggles depicted, such as rigorous rules about feasting and fasting, are specific to the Orthodox. But just as many reminded me of issues faced by another devout religious group: evangelical Christians.”
“The Next Queen of Magic: Does magic need more female performers to be cool again?” (Slate, March 2011)
“When a magician named Horace Goldin first demonstrated that he could saw an assistant in half in front of a 1921 meeting of the Society of American Magicians, the crowd was so unimpressed that the event didn’t even make the meeting’s minutes. Sure, Goldin’s box apparatus was clumsily obvious. But perhaps worse was that a bus boy served as his assistant. … The boy was switched out for the lady during magic’s heyday, from the end of the 19th century through the arrival of the movies. These days, Harry Houdini’s name lives on, synonymous with daring and virility, inspiring artists and writers from Matthew Barney to E.L. Doctorow. Yet contemporary magicians have lost their cultural swagger. Why isn’t magic cool anymore? And could it have something to do with that damsel in distress?”
Review: Ruth Brandon, “Ugly Beauty: Helena Rubinstein, L’Oréal, and the Blemished History of Looking Good” (the Wall Street Journal, February 2011)
“[Brandon] examines the personal and corporate histories of two cosmetic businesses—Helena Rubinstein, a giant in the first half of the 20th century, and L’Oréal, which began around the same time and is now the world’s biggest cosmetic conglomerate. Their conflict, as the author portrays it, was driven by two of the foremost business advances of the eras: sophisticated marketing and chemical wonders devised in the laboratory.”
Review: Anne Trubek, “A Skeptic’s Guide to Writers’ Houses” (the Wall Street Journal, January 2011)
“Anne Trubek’s wry tour of about 15 literary house museums across the U.S. was born out of loathing: She writes that she first conceived of it as a “reverse travel guide, a guide to places you shouldn’t bother to visit, to mis directed spiritual quests and middlebrow, wrongheaded approaches to reading and writing.” By the end of her journey, her view softens to tolerance, even affection. It turns out middlebrow pleasures have their place.”
“Archie Gets Married and Goes to Hell” (Slate, December 2010)
“As the Archie brand expands, a new monthly magazine series sold in major bookstore chains and Wal-Mart, Life With Archie: The Married Life, has been quietly ripping apart the fabric of life in Riverdale. The recession looms large and disease and infidelity intrude on longtime friendships and young marriages.”
“The Nancy Grace of Her Time?” (Slate, November 2010)
“It takes nothing away from [Jane] Addams’ progressive bona fides to conclude that her views on peace, poverty and womanhood weren’t as tidy as we assume today. But maybe that makes her all the more a modern kind of saint. As she once told a ‘rough-looking’ heckler during a speech in Chicago, ‘while I did not intend to be subsidized by millionaires, neither did I propose to be bullied by workingmen.’ That would be a fine motto for independents everywhere.”
Review: Susan Cheever, “Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography.” (The Wall Street Journal, November 2010)
“It’s true that Alcott never married and had only fleeting romances, but the idea that she agonized over her spinsterhood is a contemporary projection.”
“TheDC Review: Rick Sanchez’s ‘Conventional Idiocy’ Is Idiotic” (The Daily Caller, October 2010)
“’Conventional Idiocy’ is a pile of gibberish so unreadable that we must consider the possibility that Rick Sanchez wrote it himself.”
“Read My Furry Lip: Is America ready for a mustachioed commander in chief?” (The Wall Street Journal, October 2010)
“The United States has not had a president with facial hair since a clean-shaven Woodrow Wilson won the election of 1912 and replaced the mustachioed William Howard Taft. Enter former United Nations ambassador John Bolton, who has hinted he may run for office in 2012. Is America ready for its first hairy-lipped commander in chief in a century?”
“Onward Christian princesses” (Slate’s XX Factor, October 2010)
“Evangelicals, perpetually and endearingly behind the curve when it comes to pop culture, are going gaga for princesses. The latest evidence is My Princess Bible, a new book from Christian publisher Tyndale House that tells the story of 19 Biblical women with Disney-style illustrations. It’s a stretch: The women the book classifies as ‘princesses’ include Rahab, a prostitute who bravely hid spies in her home for a higher cause, and Lydia, a wealthy businesswoman active in the founding of the early church.”
“Was This Children’s Book About Sarah Palin Unfit to Print?” (Slate, July 2010)
“Viewed forgivingly, Speaking Up is a laudable effort—a biography of a woman for a young evangelical audience that focuses primarily on its subject’s professional accomplishments. Viewed less forgivingly, it’s a hilarious one. At one point, within the space of three paragraphs, Palin is compared favorably to Taylor Swift, the apostle Paul, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver—in that order. (It’s a rare passage that can make evangelicals, music fans, sports nuts, and policy wonks all cry ‘blasphemy.’)”
“Sew Tough: The real Betsy Ross was a hard-nosed, snuff-loving businesswoman” (Slate, July 2010)
“It’s an American habit to scrub clean the ones we love. In Betsy Ross’s case, however, there’s plenty to admire in the scruffier original. In fact, that pragmatic capitalist mom is more authentically American than any character a storybook writer could dream up.”
“Are You There, God?” (Slate, June 2010)
“If you look past the Bible-study scenes, young-adult novels from evangelical authors and publishers are offering their young Christian readers a surprisingly empowering guide to adolescence.”
“Abby Sunderland Deserves the Money” (Slate’s XX Factor, blog post, June 2010)
“Abby’s critics seem to pine for the days when only the already rich could embark on around-the-world adventures, as if anyone who dares to make money by selling the story of their travel doesn’t deserve to leave home.”
“Shopaholic at the White House” (Slate, February 2010)
“[Mary Todd Lincoln's] treatment in the press was a preview of the way modern first ladies are criticized: Like Nancy Reagan, who consulted an astrologer during her years in the White House, Lincoln was fascinated by faddish spiritualism. Like Michelle Obama, her bold fashion choices—colors too bright, necklines too low—drew constant commentary. (“She had her bosom on exhibition, a flower pot on her head,” one snide critic wrote after a White House party.) And like Hillary Clinton, she was said to meddle in her husband’s political affairs.”
“Jo March Was Born Here: A slide-show tour of sites from children’s literature”. (Double X, January 2010)
“What does it mean to visit a real place where a fictional event occurred? Do we know Anne Shirley better if we see her Green Gables with our own eyes? Does the building that occupies 221B Baker St. today say anything about the character of Sherlock Holmes?”
“Little Women, Big Sacrifices: Louisa May Alcott’s life of concession and depression.” (Double X, October 2009)
“‘I will do something by and by,’ Louisa May Alcott wrote as an adult in the voice of her youthful self. “I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t.” Alcott would indeed become rich and famous in her lifetime for writing Little Women. In the 141 years since its first publication, the beloved young-adult novel has never been out of print, and has inspired plays, films, TV series, an opera, a Broadway musical, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. … Now, with Alcott herself on the verge of a period of cultural ubiquity almost equal to her most famous novel, we can get better insight into whether she ever achieved that last goal: to be happy.”
“Church Review: Redeemer Presbyterian Church” (Perspectives, October 2009)
“Catching up with a few friends recently, I mentioned that I planned to attend Redeemer Presbyterian Church within the coming weeks. ‘Oh, I love Redeemer,’ one said. ‘The sermons are like a really good college lecture.” Another added: ‘Is that the church with all the really attractive people?’ One way or another, Redeemer’s reputation precedes it.”
“Jon and Kate Are Evil, but Supersized Families Aren’t” (Double X, August 2009)
“Since when is having an extra-large family in itself grounds for universal condemnation? There was a time, not so long ago, when these constellations of parents and children were to be envied rather than scorned.”
“Pennies Earned: A timely new reminder of the importance of thrift” (City Journal, January 2009)
“[Cotton] Mather was a classically severe Puritan, but advocacy for such financial restraint wasn’t a radical message at the time. His wary admirer, Benjamin Franklin, would soon translate this Christian idea of debt-free stewardship into a populist language of daily thrift and its rewards. Where Mather warned that debt encouraged self-indulgence, Franklin emphasized that it restricted autonomy and success. ‘Be industrious and frugal,’ he wrote, ‘and you will be rich.’”
“The Hallowed Ground of Lincoln(s)” (New York Sun book review, June 2007)
“Everywhere Mr. Ferguson travels, he finds Americans who want to make Lincoln ‘relevant’ by making him average, or who look at the great emancipator and manage to see only a reflection of themselves. At the end of his trip, he visits the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. There Lincoln is, finally, a giant among men.”
“Going Trendspotting” (New York Sun book review, October 2007)
“Unfunny, flabby prose is a staple of business writing. But one would hope Mr. Penn would at least ace the polling: He’s been doing it for 30 years. In a chapter on ’Snowed-Under Slobs,’ however, he announces ‘a growing group of Americans’ who won’t ‘Clean Up Our Act.’ (He tends to capitalize phrases he finds witty.) … Mr. Penn explains why slobs are slovenly, how they feel about it, and what socioeconomic class they belong to. The one thing he does not do is prove their numbers are increasing.”
“Television Ponders Our Children’s Children” (New York Sun, June 2008)
“Pop culture is adjusting to the new, cautiously teen-positive mood, and the phenomenon of teenage pregnancy — once the nightmare scenario — is starting to acquire a strange patina of fun.”
“No Boys Allowed” (New York Sun film review, March 2008)
“[Amelia] thinks it’s very, very important that she hold her guitar over and behind her head as a song ends, and announces with pride, “I made up a new chord, and it’s called ‘minus 10,’ and it’s very hard. It’s not even on the fret board.” Amelia is not “quirky” with the edges sanded off; she is weird — and it’s a blast of goofy pleasure to see her on the big screen.”
“Reality by Design” (New York Sun television review, November 2007)
“Tim Gunn, who acts as the contestants’ Virgil in Ms. Klum’s Hell, is an enormous element of the show’s appeal. Mr. Gunn exudes a kind of sincere compassion rarely seen on reality TV or, more to the point, in the kind of person who ends up on television of any variety.”
