Beyond “dark and stormy night,” “bad lit” contests made purple prose proliferate.
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When Jan Harold Brunvand heard the same stories from students, he began collecting “urban legends.” They are too much with us now.
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Big Bands were all male, all white. Then from the shadows of Jim Crow came the International Sweethearts of Rhythm.
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With America at war, Judge Learned Hand deftly defined “The Spirit of Liberty”
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One last weekend, one last summer -- remembered.
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From a small bonfire on a beach, Burning Man has grown to 75,000 joyous Burners in the Nevada desert. Why not?
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Dartmouth grads expected the usual boring commencement speaker. But Joseph Brodsky spoke about boredom itself, aka “your window on time.”
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Born into a world of radios and Model T’s, he envisioned a fantastic future. And you can’t say he didn’t warn us.
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Science used to be respected and trusted. What happened and how can we move beyond the BS and back to the facts?
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When war made America a colonial power, eloquent voices recalled “the spirit of 1776.”
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Back when women did not build, Mary Jane Colter wove the ancient and the modern into canyon wonders.
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What if the sun went out? What if we all aimed laser pointers at the moon? Got a question? Ask Randall Munroe, “thing explainer.”
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How the Savannah Bananas became the hottest, and hip-hopping-est team in baseball.
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Decades ago, John Allen Paulos described the consequences of “innumeracy.” We failed that test. Now what?
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Twenty years on, “This is Water” still brings David Foster Wallace’s wisdom to the world.
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When a hurried America needed answers, three books helped us put on the brakes.
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