What Kind of Flag Can I Fly Outside My House?

The First Amendment prohibits the government from infringing on a citizen’s right to free speech, but homeowners associations aren’t government entities. Their ability to censor expression is much broader. “For a constitutional violation to occur, you need a state actor,” Mr. Rovinsky said. “Yes, you do have freedom of speech, but while the government can’t…

What Makes a Home ‘Sexy’?

When Jolita Leonas-Arzbaecher was planning her new penthouse apartment in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, she gave her design team some very specific instructions. “My home has to be as unique, dramatic and one of a kind as I am,” she told them. “Dramatic in the sense of being fascinating, unexpected and powerful.” The…

Seth Rogen and the Secret to Happiness

He opened his laptop, where the desktop image was the Wu-Tang logo rendered in rainbow colors so that it resembled the ‘80s-era Apple logo. Rogen clicked over to a folder marked ESCAPE, revealing hundreds of documents within. Every time he and Goldberg have an idea for a movie, Rogen explained, they start compiling lists of…

What Should Museums Do With the Bones of the Enslaved?

The Morton Cranial Collection, assembled by the 19th-century physician and anatomist Samuel George Morton, is one of the more complicated holdings of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Consisting of some 1,300 skulls gathered around the world, it provided the foundation for Morton’s influential racist theories of differences in intelligence among races,…

Michelle Pfeiffer Talks Scents

Michelle Pfeiffer has a restless streak. You can spot it in her widely disparate choice of acting roles. She was steamy as “Catwoman,” wrenchingly vulnerable in “Dangerous Liaisons” and glamorously debauched in “Scarface.” She was twice exiled, as the social pariah Ruth Madoff in “The Wizard of Lies” and now as an uptown grandee gone…