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The Culture
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In a Word What the mall has in common with chain mail
What does modern suburban shopping have to do with medieval armor? A lot, at least etymologically speaking.
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I advocate for quality
Our speeded-up age resists it, because quality takes time.
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Technology helps sustain K-pop popularity
A combination of timing and technology helped K-pop win a formidable American fandom, with the latter key to how it’s consumed and enjoyed – particularly via social media.
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‘Who Will Write Our History’ gives witness to Nazi atrocities
Warsaw Ghetto residents preserved a trove of evidence.
Photos of the Week 02/18 Photos of the week
Revelers march and shout to the crowd during the Chinese Lunar New Year parade in Chinatown, New York, Feb. 17.
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First Look With only days to go, a furor over changes at the Oscars
The film academy's decision to remove four award categories from the live portion of the Feb. 24 broadcast has drawn widespread criticisms, not least from dozens of Hollywood heavyweights. The academy insists on shrinking the show to reverse sliding ratings.
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Top 5 movies about US presidents
This Presidents’ Day weekend, you might be tempted to venture out and see a few new movies. Or your thoughts might turn to how Hollywood has portrayed US presidents. Monitor film critic Peter Rainer shows how its handling of America’s chief executives does – and doesn’t – mirror the treatment they get from the public.
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Top Picks: Mercury Rev's 'The Delta Sweete Revisited,' Ovation's 'The Pacific: In the Wake of Captain Cook,' and more
Journalist Elvis Mitchell travels to the areas that inspired filmmakers and actors in an Epix series, 'Elvis Goes There,' 'The Birth of Loud,' by Ian S. Port, chronicles the fascinating story of how Leo Fender and Les Paul developed competing models of the now-iconic electric guitar, and more top picks.
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In a Word Migrating letters and other curiosities
Rebracketing occurs when an utterance is broken down and reassembled along the wrong lines, and has produced a number of English words, such as “mall.”
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In which Dave and I find an amphibious unicorn
Lost in the woods, we spotted a large metal lid set into the ground.
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In Israel, singing for social harmony
Koolulam is a mass singing initiative created with the goal of mending searing social divisions in this country by encouraging people to stand up and make music together. The events are filmed and shared widely on social media and have gone viral in Israel.
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Photo Gallery: Year of the Pig comes to Buddhist center in Boston
The Lunar New Year took place on Feb. 5, 2019. In Dorchester Mass., Vietnamese Americans gathered in a Buddhist cultural center for an evening of prayer, traditional food, and music as part of a worldwide celebration of the Year of the Pig.
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'Free Solo' chronicles efforts of mountain climber to work without aid of ropes or harnesses
The impressive Oscar-nominated documentary, directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, is not the kind of movie you want to be watching if you have a fear of heights.
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'Everybody Knows' is a missing-person whodunit that’s not quite worth solving
The film suffers from too many suspects.
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In a Word Stripping down the origins of ‘naked’
Naked itself is a very old word, deriving from a common Germanic form even before Old English evolved into a separate language.
