Anthony Bourdain once said, “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
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In 1989 and ’90, the culture had not yet figured out what it wanted to be. What we got was the Diet Slice Era—refreshing, indistinct, and a harbinger of what was to come.
I was probably in college when I first learned that movies could commandeer my desires in a manner hostile to my flourishing as a woman. My favorite film at the time was “Sin City,” a 2005 neo-noir adapted from Frank Miller’s graphic-novel series of the same name.
What AI Teaches Us About Good Writing
As soon as I sit down to write, I feel compelled to scrub my bathtub and reorganize my filing cabinet — the most tedious chores suddenly become more appealing than the task at hand. Writing can feel so daunting that we’ve invented the term writer’s block to describe the unique sensation of its challenge, and we debate whether the ability to write well is learned or simply innate.
An amber-colored glass paperweight sits in my nightstand drawer. It used to belong to my dad, who recently died, and to his grandmother before him. It’s shaped like a cube, with delicate flowers painted on each side, and it’s heavy in my palm. But I rarely pick it up, because I have no papers that need weighing down. The object occupies valuable space that might otherwise be used for a book, tissues, or anything else that I actually use. Still, I keep it, along with a few other pieces of what you might call “sentimental clutter”—personally meaningful yet impractical objects: a box of old birthday cards, a chipped seashell, a loyalty card for a café that no longer exists.
For the first thirty years of my life, I lived within a one-mile radius of Willesden Green Tube Station. It’s true I went to college—I even moved to East London for a bit—but such interludes were brief. I soon returned to my little corner of North West London. Then suddenly, quite abruptly, I left not just the city but England itself.
There’s plenty to consider about Barbie, but let’s start with her feet. Perfectly arched, but not quite demi-pointe—the ideal position to fit into any pump. They’re instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever played with the iconic doll. So when the trailer for the upcoming live-action Barbie movie opened with a shot of star Margot Robbie stepping out of Barbie’s marabou stilettos, still on tiptoes, the internet exploded.
THE HEATWAVE has subsided, and now, instead of hot sticky air seeping through the walls, cool breezes are making gauzy white curtains flutter in every room and it's a little easier to breath at noon, when the sun is at its highest. It's also much easier to workout out now...
After the nadir of Covid travel restrictions, summer travel season is in full swing. Air travel is projected to exceed pre-pandemic levels, according to the Transportation Security Administration. People are dusting off their passports, or waiting weeks to get them renewed, and applying for the visas they need for their destinations. International vacations take planning, even more so now. While the world has mostly opened back up since lockdowns, most nations have strict limits on how long noncitizens can visit.
The brain-powered individual, which is variously called the self, the ego, the mind, or “me,” lies at the center of Western thought. In the worldview of the West, we herald the greatest thinkers as world-changers. There is no more concise example of this than philosopher René Descartes’ famous statement, “Cogito, ergo sum,” or, “I think, therefore I am.” But who is this? Let’s take a closer look at the thinker, or the “me,” we all take for granted.
ON SATURDAY we stopped by the Farmers Market on Maple. It only happens once a month, and since we only moved here in the first week of May, we missed that one. It was charming and lively and there were dogs everywhere and stalls selling topiaries and Scotch eggs, craft beer and handmade soap, and oysters and Prosecco.
The call came in to the concierge at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, the fabled luxury hotel on the French Riviera. It was spring 2007, and an assistant to Angelina Jolie said that Jolie and her fiancé, Brad Pitt, were seeking a sizable property in the South of France to rent.
Within minutes of my decision to hand my life over to AI, ChatGPT suggested that, if able, I should go outside and play with my dog instead of work. I had asked the chatbot to make the choice for me, and it had said that I should prioritize “valuable experiences” that contribute to my “overall well-being.”
I AM WRITING to you from my brand new desk, which is actually an enormous solid oak dining table that arrived from Paris this morning. It is enormously heavy and makes a dramatic statement in the dining-area-turned-office and I’ve been googling how to make the back of a computer look nice (or at least tidy), as that’s what you see when you first enter the room, when your dining table is now your office.
Increasingly, we’re surrounded by fake people. Sometimes we know it and sometimes we don’t. They offer us customer service on Web sites, target us in video games, and fill our social-media feeds; they trade stocks and, with the help of systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, can write essays, articles, and e-mails. By no means are these A.I. systems up to all the tasks expected of a full-fledged person. But they excel in certain domains, and they’re branching out.
