ARTICLES
These are periodical articles we read and kept here in case it made sense to know about them later. Also I took scissors and cut all the pictures out of the magazines and taped them on the wall. So I don’t have the magazines anymore. I like magazines, no matter how dumb they have become because they always were but photographers and writers sometimes do a good job anyway.
John Roberts Retreated to His Island. Supreme Court Critics Found Him, Jodi Kantor. The New York Times. Oct 4, 2026. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts takes his summer vacation each year on an island off the coast of Maine. Some of the people around there got mad, for example this gardener and activist who had a newspaper column, and she told people to bug him and give him the finger. Then people started kayaking out in the ocean and holding up signs at his house because he sits on a Supreme Court that reversed Federal protections for abortion rights, and helped Donald Trump protect himself against prosecution for responsibility he may have had for the January sixth invasion of the government buildings by that guy who dressed up like a viking Smurf and other people who are on the internet all the time and think it’s real. There was one lady who was mad and went to a Fourth of July social event where she could have told John Roberts she had three trans friends who she wants to be able to play sports and feel safe but she left the barbecue and the next day paddled a canoe out and held up a sign in front of his house in the ocean. That’s how the article ended and it was pretty funny and I was surprised the journalist wrote it that way. It was pretty balanced all the way through. The writer Jodi Kantor said John Roberts went to Harvard two different times and is insulated from how real people experience life and was very secure in his conservative beliefs. Really, you know, it’s harder and harder to have a summer home off the coast of Maine. You need tax payer money to pay for your security detail so the lobster fisherman who actually live there, and the guys that fill up those propane tanks, and drive boats for real, don’t get drunk and storm the gates. It’s a tale as old as time.
At Gettysburg, A Reporter Captured a Nation’s Loss, and His Own, Dan Barry. The New York Times. Sept 20, 2026. Samuel Wilkeson Jr. was a reporter for the New York Times in the 1860s during the Civil War. He went to Gettysburg to write about the battle and also found the body of his dead son who was buried in a shallow grave after dying while fighting for the Union Army. We read quotations from the original news story published in the times over 100 years ago. The son wanted to play a meaningful role in fighting for the cause of the Union, and against the cause of the south. The father supported the cause of the Union Army but was critical of how the war effort was mismanaged. His story about this battle may have inspired Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address speech which was given a short time after the story was published. I am writing this while I am tired and have a headache. None the less, it seems to hold true that a shallow grave is a common outcome of sincerely devoting one’s self to fighting against greed and corruption, because no one loves appearing virtuous and violently defending their reputation like the greedy and corrupt. It presently appears that the cowardice and cynicism that has come to characterize my life choices will insulate me from such a fate, but the poison presently baring down on my skull indicates perhaps I have only succeeded in slowing the process down.
How Eric N. Mack Created His Own Artistic Language, Siddhartha Mitter. The New York Times Magazine. Sept 10, 2026. Eric Mack was an artist who went to art school as a painter but then started painting on fabric, or just cutting out fabric and using it as the paint. He lives in New York City and his studio is messy which annoyed me but I had the idea to use fabric to make artworks and have never had to the conviction to go through with it, and he did, and the work looks nice. Nobody asked me but sincerely: Good Job Eric N. Mack. The article also talks all serious about how he’s influenced by fashion, which had me doing a search for the ax the store and the window store, but oh my my my, I’m tired and angry and God bless everyone including this artist and the journalist, and the photographer who took the pictures of the fabric tied to ropes or wires and the sunlight shining through and whatever it is that makes it possible in terms of the world banks or drug dealers or oil shieks that are laundering or changing money or however that works.
How Should ‘Huckleberry Finn’ be Taught?, Ruth Franklin. The New York Times Magazine. Aug 24, 2026. This was a fun article to read. Yes, there was a great deal more hand wringing than I would deem necessary in terms of the logical conclusion to draw, but it’s a good conversation to have, and I’m grateful somebody writing for this newspaper is still capable of having it. First, in order for satire to be effective, the satirist must be committed to the bit, not gently holding the hands of the very people that need satirizing, regardless of where on the superimposition of a historical and cultural sensitivity timeline they “identify” with. Secondly, refusing to look at textual evidence from the past on the grounds of it being proven wrong headed or insensitive, because now, right now, we know what is right, is a hysterical way to live one’s life, and that’s putting it politely to use the word “hysterical,” as opposed to other words that I could use that would impugn the genetic limitations of a person’s reasoning faculties, or worse, the corrosive state of their spirit. Slavery was and is obviously wrong and extremely gross and unpleasant to look at. And should students be forced to read racial slurs out loud in front of their peers out of a book? Obviously not. I mean, you shouldn’t be forced to read anything. We also shouldn’t teach kids to pretend something didn’t happen, and also, if you’re looking for evil people who we shouldn’t be forced to study, all those fools are on pharmaceutical commercials right now.
Why I’ve Spent My Summer Haunting Cemeteries, Will McGrath. The New York Times. Aug 20, 2026. A father convinces his wife and children to do their summer vacation as a tour of historic cemeteries around Minnesota where they live. This is due to other conventional methods of family travel being too expensive in the way the current America operates, and also because he finds cemeteries to be peaceful, and pretty. Also cemeteries contextualize our lives, and remind us how temporary they are, which can inspire a more grateful perspective, and being in the present. He sets up the description of his trip with some examples of present-past, societal unrest from which he had taken refuge in cemeteries, prior to coming up with the idea of building an entire vacation around this practice. What I often remember is that the dead people when they were alive must have marveled at chaos around them too, and now that is silent, and for the time being birds still sing, flowers grow, and sometimes there is winter.
Bill Maher Feuded with Trump. Did he Get the Last Laugh?, Benoit Denizen-Lewis. The New York Times Magazine. Aug 2, 2026. The writer is mad that Bill Maher doesn't think minors should be able to have surgery to modify their body and hints perhaps Bill Maher had dinner with Trump because both men are lonely, old egoists who are privately sweethearts. I would suggest Trump and Maher both strongly supporting the war in Gaza as being relevant, but the news paper has its own mysterious ax to grind on this topic which I’ve as yet been unable to decipher. Regardless of the strategy of the people working in sales for gun factories, I suspect that Trump and Maher are intellectual comfort food for a certain, broad portion of the population, who find it entertaining when someone they identify with, takes the slightest step outside of the herd in front of the camera, only to return, like one of those magicians from the 1920s that chains themselves to a chair at the bottom of a river and sells tickets for people to watch and see if they drown. Now people are more boring and civilized though.
Monumental Masterwork Rises in the Desert, Travis Diehl. The New York Times. July 26, 2026. Charles Ross is an artist who built a giant pyramid in the desert of New Mexico since the 1970s and it’s almost done. You can walk up a stairway and see the North Star through a circle window that is aligned using math skills. There are construction equipment on the property that are growing weeds. The article does not directly address how he got the money to build it. Also it says he’s the last great artist you’ve never heard of but I’ve not really heard of any great artists lately. I’m not really up on the art world.
Mick Jagger Isn’t Sure He ever Let’s the World See the Real Him, David Marchese. The New York Times Magazine. July 19, 2026. Mick Jagger says being old means that they put you at goalie and that he’s not good at philosophy. I really like the part where he said finds philosophy to be a hard subject to educate himself in.
I Wanted an Ecologically Responsible Garden. It Was Harder Than I Thought. Ferris Jabr. The New York Times Magazine. July 7, 2026. The author and their husband started a garden and then reconsidered how they were doing it based on the native plant movement. We learn about Douglas Tallamy who is big in the native plant community and has an expansive property in Pennsylvania that they took out all the invasive plants as best as possible and now has tons of moths and birds that weren’t there before because now they have the diet they are used to. He thinks the back yard garden can save the ecosystem. Per usual with this newspaper, it is under discussed, if discussed at all, that unless you have a lot of money, thinking on this scale is unavailable. And also, they do the thing where these people talk like they did all this on their own. But in real life they paid people stronger than them, and used machines that are expensive. There’s nothing wrong with that but I feel like it would be better for everyone to point out, not the least of which because, it would develop among its readers the respect necessary to undertake such a project. You know, I’m not telling you guys I already knew who Douglas Tallamy is like it just matter of factly appeared in my consciousness because I’m special. I’m saying I read it in a newspaper I pay to receive each Sunday. You may say that’s the same thing because you are privileged by the circumstances of your life. Then I might say, you sound like the kind of person who underpays a poor person and then claims you did the work yourself because you’re unphysically fit and bad at math. Love is the answer for sure but I’m still working on anger problems. Also, the pictures are nice and it felt healthy to read. Maybe my problem is I’m too ignorant and lazy to be paid properly, or I have too many interests all at once.
The US - China Rivalry Reaches the Skies of South America, Emma Bubola + Edward Wong. The New York Times. May 10, 2026. The US influences South American governments to prevent the Chinese from building telescopes and looking at stars, or depending on who you ask, also spying and endeavoring to turn people in Texas into robots. It is also blithely inserted that “the Trump administration has forged a tight bond with Javier Milie, Argentina’s right wing president, and aided him with a $20 billion lifeline ahead of key midterm elections last year.” Is that money that the Federal government collected from taxes American citizens pay? Do the sexually repressed men who are fat and wear pink shirts to go golfing know about this?
Portrait of Trump at War: Impulse and Ultimatums, Erica L. Green. The New York Times. March 29, 2026. Who is responsible for the idea to name this war “Operation Epic Fury?” And, does it represent a breech in journalistic integrity to point out that whoever is responsible for that title stands as evidence that the current administration is open minded about alternative lifestyle choices? War propaganda now allows for the war to be treated as a reasonable course of action, charted and followed by an unreasonable man.
‘Where the Music Had to Go,’ by Jim Windolf, Francine Prose. The New York Times Book Review. April 26, 2026. The artwork for this article, and I presume for the book itself which is being reviewed I liked and cut out and taped into a large book I keep to remember ideas. The Beatles and Bob Dylan are ubiquitous in our culture, and associated with old people, and in our tribal nature there is an impulse to rebel and diminish them to be different I have noticed. As a matter of happenstance these artists my parents liked and were apart of me growing up too, and music I can still take comfort in and be inspired by, not the least of which because they just kept creating it, and doing it well and along the way were kind and familial to each other sometimes.
Lena Dunam Made Millennial Culture. Then She Was Undone by it, Amanda Hess. The New York Times Magazine. April 26, 2026. I thought Lena was impressive for her technical skill and determination - How well she wrote and used a camera…the level of discipline and organizational skill requisite to creating the cohesive finished project for which she was responsible. The project I speak of is the television program “Girls.” I never saw that movie she made first which I think was called “Tiny Furniture.” This article talks about how she went crazy from fame and is now coming out of hiding to write a memoir. I’ve always thought it interesting how a woman who demonstrated herself to be highly capable, chose to portray ways in which she was a mess and irresponsible in the fictional representation of herself, and then either by her own hand, or the way in which propaganda works, the message somehow became the being a mess part. Maybe the message is actually that in order to succeed in a toxic environment, the artist ultimately becomes the very thing she initially aimed to transcend. The deal with the devil is a tale as old as time. And yet, as I write this, I’m left with the feeling that I’m going to be yelled at for being a man saying this. And rather than being annoyed, I’m going to work on continuing to be in dialogue with the artist who cared about the art, and had the integrity, free from politics, commerce, privilege, victimhood, and identity, to humbly create the work.
THE NEW DRUG WAR: No Pills or Needles, Just Paper: How Deadly Drugs Are Changing, Azam Ahmed + Matt Richtel. The New York Times. March 22, 2026. It seems to me that the “war on drugs” shows that creating a black market breeds innovation and creativity people who would like to make money in that market. Law enforcement and implicitly, this journalism writing though, act surprised that criminals landed on the revolutionary idea of using paper to smuggle narcotics into prison.
The Second First Encounter, Hanya Yanaghara. The New York Times Style Magazine. May 12, 2022. What I wanted to remember by saving this article is the concept of retaking a trip you took a long time ago and writing about it. There is also a graphic illustration that summarizes the activities of the writers the newspaper paid to undertake this assignment. This feels like a good idea to be creative in a structure, to contextualize our lives, and to repair damaged memory connections. (All of the concepts between the commas in the previous sentence are what I aim to accomplish with this squarspace website art project that you are looking at and interacting with presently. I hope it helps you too, even if you happen only to be me.)
The GhostLand. Aatish Taseer. The New York Times Magazine. Nov 13, 2022. There is a part of Spain where you can still see the architecture of when lots of flourishing muslims lived there. It’s really nice architecture and the pictures of it in the article are great. There are beautiful colors and patterns and fountains and archways and it looked like people really took their time back then and God bless them. Then the Spanish Inquisition happened and no longer could Jews and Muslims and Christians coexist so the monarch thought, and deported or killed and tortured, not necessarily in that order, everyone that was not pure blooded. It’s a lot like Harry Potter in that way. Also, I shouldn’t have to say this but those Kings and Queens never really listen to the real Jesus at all. Fortunately the subsequent rulers kept the architecture because the new religion is capitalism and tourism brings money to the state. Lordy me, I want to be more positive and cleanse my spirit. That process though, and this website are a work in progress. Aatish did a good job on the article. I’ll do better. Aatish! I’m sorry! I’m working live and unedited. If you say “clearly” in a cartoon cat voice I’m going to rethink this whole friendship. Ok. bye.
Another Country, Aatish Taseer. The New York Times Style Magazine. May 15, 2022.
The Mundane Thrill of ‘Romanticizing Your Life.’ The New York Times Website. May 11, 2022.
Fear in the Shallows. C.J. Chivers. The New York Times Magazine. October 24, 2021.
I Had a Chance to Travel Anywhere, Why Did I Pick Spokane. Jon Mooallem Sept 21, 2021.
Seth Rogen and the Secret to Happiness. The New York Times Magazine. Jonah Weiner. April 25, 2021.
In Search of a Lost Pastime. Rowan Ricardo Phillips. The New York Times Magazine. March 28, 2021.
Face Time. Vanessa Grigoriadis. The New York Times Magazine. March 28, 2021.
Sophie’s Pleasure - Seeking Sonic Deluge, Alexandra Kleeman. The New York Times Magazine. March 14, 2021.
Freddie Gibbs Was Always Weirder Than We Thought, Jackson Howard. The New York Times Magazine. March 14, 2021.
Jazmine Sullivan Makes Music About Fierceness and Vulnerability, Niela Orr. The New York Times Magazine. March 14, 2021
Jacob Collier is a Staggering Musical Prodigy — With Strangely Mundane Songs. The New York Times Magazine. March 14, 2021
La Dona Was Ready to Be a Pop Star, Carina del Valle Schorske. The New York Times Magazine. March 14, 2021.
I’m a Working Musician. Last Year I Had No Work, Dessa. The New York Times Magazine, March 11, 2021
Koffee’s Escape From Quarantine. The New York Times Magazine. March 10, 2021
Allen | By Allen Iverson. The Players Tribune. Allen Iverson. Dec 6, 2018.
Karl Ove Knausgaard Looks Back on “My Struggle.” The New Yorker. Joshua Rothman. Nov 11, 2018.
May 20, 2018. With My Own Eyes New York Times Travel Magazine (((source for cutting out collage images)))
April 19, 2018. How Janelle Monáe Found Her Voice New York Times Sunday Magazine. Jenna Wortham.
February 7, 2018. The Rise of China and the Fall of the ‘Free Trade’ Myth Pankaj Mishra
January 23, 2017. Alyssa Miller: A Self-Portrait Joanna Rentz. (((learning how to take a self-portrait)))
January 6, 2011. The 373-Hit Wonder Zachary Lazar
August 31, 2006. The Final Comeback of Axl Rose, John Jeremiah Sullivan
Paul McCartney Opens Up About Lennon, Yoko, and More, Alex Bilmes
For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II, Mike Dash
The Coast Guard's Floating Guantanamos, Seth Freed Wessler
The Culture Caught up with Spike Lee - Now What? Thomas Chatterton Williams
Women Are Making the Best Rock Music Today: Listen Now, by Joe Coscarelli, Caryn Ganz, Jon Caramanica, and Jon Pareles
Legends of Lincecum: Five Amazing Tales About the Freak, Daniel Brown
Where have you gone, Tim Lincecum? In search of beloved Giants Ace, Daniel Brown
Poet Jane Kenyon's Advice on Writing: Some of the Wisest Words to Create and Live By, Maria Popova
It's Art Mum, Look it Up, Kristen Farr
An Oddly Modern Antiquarian Bookshop, Jody Rosen
The Professor, the Bikini Model, and the Suitcase Full of Trouble, Maxine Swann
How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions, Patrick Radden Keefe
My Saga, Part I. Karl Ove Knausgaard Travels through North America, Karl Ove Knausgaard
My Saga Part II. Karl Ove Knausgaard Travels Through North America, Karl Ove Knausgaard
I Am Someone, Look at Me, Karl Ove Knausgaard
What's a Monkey to do in Tampa, Jon Mooallem
Why We Fall in Love: The Paradoxical Psychology of Romance and Why Frustration Is Necessary for Satisfaction, Maria Popova
Mary Oliver on Love and Its Necessary Wildness, Maria Popova