Peter Schilling

We were chatting yesterday with an editor at the New Yorker, and the conversation turned on the role of design in modern magazines. The New Yorker, of course, is an old-fashioned magazine that has not changed in any major way for more than seventy-five years. To be sure, there were some dramatic touches added under … Read more

Last night, the wife noticed that WCAL has now changed hands, and is being operated by MPR. The wife is a contrarian in all things, and she said the new announcers sounded “robotic.” But the wife is, like us, a St. Olaf graduate. She is predisposed to resist change (like us), especially when it involves … Read more

This weekend, I was hanging around the house trying to beat this nasty rhinovirus—a convenient excuse for laziness, I know. I happened to be listening to MPR, and felt lucky to have the house and the radio to myself for “This American Life,” one of life’s serendipitious little pleasures. (I wouldn’t want to arrange my … Read more