This is not content. It is a poorly thought-out essay, dashed off in a pre-dawn fit. It is what writers back in the day would have scribbled in near-illegible scrawl in some notebook, or on the back of some list of tack to be repaired or tasks to be completed that week. This is the…

Over the last few days, I’ve been talking a lot to musicians from Pakistan. (Such is the nature of my work.) And it’s fascinating to hear about the way they are approaching their art. In a society where more collective identities (family, class, etc) have profound, determining impact on people’s lives, musicians and lyricists are…

“There are no women geniuses,” a male friend announced to me one evening. I began to list a few women I considered geniuses–Hildegard von Bingen, for example, and Claira Schumann and Virginia Woolf came to mind instantly–and he replied that he didn’t know any of them (this was in a non-English speaking context) and so…

Somewhere, an image of me hangs in the bedroom of a certain computer software company exec’s home. He–I assume it’s he–doesn’t know it’s me. I heard he is head of encryption for this company. It’s a painting by two talented artist friends, who did a long series of works inspired by dreams. The painting was…

This article makes a great argument: The notoriously annoying, time-consuming registration process that looms over so many aspects of life in Russia is merely an extension of serfdom. It is, in fact, desperately difficult to escape the striking continuities between the old Russian Imperial system, especially under Nikolai I, and what is currently afoot in Russia….