What We Called the Future in 1998
The capsule promised us flying commutes and paperless offices. It got the loneliness half right and the technology almost entirely wrong.
Essays
Talking Shop with a Third-Generation Bookbinder
Bookbinder Rosa Delacroix on repairing spines, resisting digitization, and what a book owes its reader physically.
Notes from the Last Diner on Route 9
The waitress knows the bypass will kill the place. She keeps the coffee coming anyway, on the theory that a good last year is still a year.
Why the Sequel Always Disappoints, and Why We Keep Watching
Nobody expects the sequel to be better. We watch it anyway, for reasons that have very little to do with quality and everything to do with company.
A Conversation with the Archivist Who Reads Other People's Mail
She has read thousands of strangers' letters for a living, and says the job taught her more about privacy by violating it than any principle ever could.
The Museum That Forgot Its Own Collection
Somewhere in the basement is a piece nobody currently on staff has ever seen catalogued, in a museum that has otherwise done everything right.
A Conversation with the Man Who Still Winds the Town Clock
The town clock could be automated in an afternoon. He climbs the tower every Sunday anyway, and has for thirty-eight years.
Notes on the Grammar of Apology
The grammar of a bad apology is not hard to diagnose. It just moves the subject from the wrongdoer to the wronged, and everyone can feel it happen.
An Interview with the Last Lighthouse Keeper on the Point
He kept the light for twenty-nine years by hand, then for six more after it no longer needed him, out of something closer to loyalty than duty.
What the Restored Painting Loses
Every restoration is also an erasure - of dirt, yes, but also of the centuries the dirt was quietly recording.
What Grows in a Parking Lot
Give a parking lot five years of neglect and it will tell you, in weeds, exactly which species were only ever waiting for permission.
The Weight of an Empty Reservoir
When the water finally dropped low enough, the old road reappeared first, then the foundations, then the argument about whose fault it was.
