Joseph Hart Lips can spit. Eyes can blink. The nose can sneeze. But the ear—that delicate wormhole into the skull—is defenseless. Perhaps this vulnerability explains our horror of earwigs. The earwig is a damp-loving, creepy-crawly creature that looks like a cockroach with a lobster claw on its rear end. If you think you’ve seen more of them … Read more
One of life’s great truths—one that we desperately seek to avoid with proverbs and catechisms and even magazine articles—is that beneath its surface lies complexity. Our beloved fictions of heroes and villains crumble with scrutiny, leaving only convolution, shifting meanings, and unstable realities. The same is true of things. Even the simplest object has its … Read more