Why Won’t Simon Ateba Stop Shouting?

In the briefing room, Mr. Ateba joined a class of reporters who are allowed on the premises but don’t have permanent seats, often jockeying for back-row seats that stay empty when other journalists don’t show up. These reporters are rarely called upon during briefings. (Mr. Ateba currently has a “hard pass,” which confers regular access…

Read Your Way Through Maine

Read Your Way Around the World is a series exploring the globe through books. In American fiction, my state is code for outpost. Maine is where you send a character you want to get rid of, someone who goes off to raise goats, farm oysters, prep for the apocalypse — or write a novel. Apart…

Best Stylish Hand Fans to Stay Cool

In the 19th century, Duvelleroy, a hand fan manufacturer in Paris, published a marketing pamphlet called “The Language of the Fan.” It featured a list of gestures one could make with a fan and the meaning of each. To carry a fan open in your left hand, according to the pamphlet, signaled “come talk to…

This Hummus Holds Up After 800 Years

You take chickpeas, hard and dry, and boil them until their skins loosen and they reveal themselves, tender little hulks with souls of butter. Maybe you think of the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi’s parable of a chickpea that rises from the pot’s seething depths to accuse the cook of torture — only for the cook…