The Year the Almanac Lost Its Monopoly
Long before weather apps, the farmer's almanac was the only forecast anyone trusted, and losing that trust changed rural life for good.
Essays
Elegy for the Landline
A short poem about a family's last corded phone and the length it could just barely reach into the garden.
A Close Reading of the Modern Obituary
The obituary has quietly changed shape in the last decade - less achievement, more anecdote - and the shift tells us something about what we now think a life is for.
On the Utility of a Junk Drawer
Every organized kitchen has one drawer that refuses to be organized. This is an argument that it is doing important work.
Everything Askew: On the New Wing at the Harrow Museum
A review of the museum's disorienting new galleries, built with floors and walls deliberately off the level.
A Field Guide to Waiting Rooms, Revisited
Waiting rooms have not changed. What changes is what you are capable of doing while you sit in one, which turns out to be the real subject.
A Short History of Waiting Rooms
From the doctor's office to the DMV, an essay on the very specific boredom of institutional furniture.
The Last Ledger of the Corner Grocer
For forty years the grocer kept a ledger of who owed what. Reading it now is like reading a census of trust.
The Orchard That Outlived the Farm
Long after the farmhouse burned, the apple trees kept fruiting for whoever wandered close enough to notice.
The Telephone Exchange That Outlasted the Town
The switchboard operators are gone, the town they served is half its size, and the building still stands because no one has found a reason to need the lot more than the history.
A Brief History of the Family Recipe Box
Nobody meant for the recipe box to become a historical document. It became one anyway, the way most real archives do - by accident, and by being kept.
The Archive as Confession
A review of a new biography that treats its subject's discarded drafts as more honest than any of her finished books.
