When I was 15, I fell in love with the voice of Rachael Ray. That velvety contralto was the soundtrack of my days in the children’s hospital I hated — with its plaid curtains and kind nurses — but called home. For weeks I spent my days hopped up on morphine, in and out of…
The original Furby, released in 1998, had the head of an owl, the beak of a chicken, the feet of a cat, the ears of a pig, the fur of a rabbit, the mohawk of a tufted titmouse and the eyes of a robot, which it was — a robot that whirred, clacked, spoke a…
Weddings are steeped in tradition, but where do those rituals come from? “Traditions,” a new column, explores the origins of various wedding customs from around the world. Ever since Mandana Ansari was a little girl, she knew she wanted to recognize her Iranian heritage by having a “Sofreh Aghd” on her wedding day. “I’ve always loved…
Maybe you’ve heard there’s a Barbie movie coming out? Well, this isn’t about that. It is, however, about the 11½ inches of intellectual property that inspired all the madness: the doll itself. You know the one. Often blonde, always smiling, occasionally naked and neglected at the bottom of a toy chest? Chances are you do:…
“On gay dating apps, East Asians routinely face dehumanization that reduces us to nothing more than featureless clones in the eyes of others,” Preston Gyuwon So writes in this week’s Modern Love essay. “We either get the racist ‘no Asians’ or ‘no rice’ cold shoulder, or we get fawning treatment that can feel worse —…
Rachel Hunter could not wait to play her new vinyl recording of Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now.” After waiting weeks for its arrival, Ms. Hunter placed the orchid-colored vinyl with Ms. Swift’s face on its center on her record player, lifted the needle and let it play. But instead of Ms. Swift’s catchy choruses, acoustic guitar…
Last weekend, Sarah Brady, a semiprofessional surfer, posted a number of screenshots of text messages she claims she exchanged with her then-boyfriend, the actor Jonah Hill. In one of the texts, Hill appears to dictate a highly specific list of “boundaries for romantic partnership,” which included not surfing with men, not maintaining friendships with “women…
When Isaac Leon Archuleta and Joseph Daniel Jones reconnected after four years apart, they learned that a breakup can actually be a gift. From 2010 to 2014, they were in an on-and-off relationship, wrestling with issues that could only be reconciled with time and space. Then, they broke up for good. In the four years…
One day in March 2021, Chloe Dulce Louvouezo was on her way to a coffee shop to tackle a creative exercise in “The Artist’s Way” workbook before meeting a friend for lunch. “Do you like vinyl?” asked Nasir Cedell Qadree as he walked up to her in the Union Market district of Northeast Washington, trying…
The clone of the tree that grew from a seed that went to the moon doesn’t look like much. It’s still a callow sapling, a flurry of bright green leaves on a spindly six-foot trunk. But in 20 years or so, this American sycamore will be a formidable presence at the Folly Tree Arboretum, an…