(For Part I, click here).
This post contains my longer work for WEEKEND, including a recent cover story, in reverse chronological order. Enjoy!
Carpe Noctem: Science, Parties, and the Science of Parties
You can do it naked. You can do it drunk or sober. You can do it with strangers, or your closest friends. On your birthday, or someone else’s. But sooner or later, almost everyone does it. It’s in our nature. When it’s good, it’s really good, and when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.
“Most football games have scoring on both sides, actually.”
“You don’t say.”
An Interview with Maxim Thorne, Yale’s Professor of Charity
“The notion that private largesse will provide social security or Medicaid for example, or serve the function of the National Institute of Health, is ridiculous.”
A tribute to the light-speed Minnesota rapper “Eyedea”, “Speedway” features a chilly, relaxing electronic pulse and 60 seconds of semi-comprehensible rhymes: my attempt to transcribe one section came out as “Ihitthequiddictchcountryspirtmircalsinbtoiwshigtsnosbwel”. Sandry is remarkably good at this pace, and deserves at least a minute of your time.
Fighting Back in a Dangerous World
At the end of my first class, I started what should have been a long sequence of punches and kicks by slipping and hitting the wooden floor with a dull thud. As I rose to my feet, my instructor never stopped cheering me on. “Keep fighting! It’s raining! The street is slippery! It’s ok if you fall down — this is real life!”