Deany Keith was 16 and living with her family in Corning, N.Y., when her brother, Preston Douglas Powers, a soldier in World War II, sent her a silk German parachute he found while on the beach in Normandy, France, on D-Day. It was 1944 and parachutes had become coveted items — for making wedding dresses.…
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She became a mentor, and Keefe began writing for The New York Review of Books, Slate and Legal Affairs. But he still wasn’t sure if he could be a full-time writer. He returned to Yale, finished his degree and in 2005 started studying for the New York bar exam. In the process, he became fascinated…
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While waiting in a long line to get my Covid-19 vaccination, I noticed two boisterous white men ahead of me. At first I chalked up their noise to excitement. But as I waited, I realized they were harassing an older Black woman who was in line in front of them. They were crowding her and…
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For Joe, it’s the Air Jordan hoodie that belonged to his son, Jeremy, cut down by a lethal heroin overdose. For the writer and stylist Simon Doonan, it’s a pair of Lycra Stephen Sprouse leggings, worn through sweaty aerobics classes to cope as one friend after another died of AIDS. For Michael, it’s the patchwork…
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2020 was awful. Full stop. To help us cope through the good, the bad, and the pandemic, a few turned to retail. Aside from the sweatpants and food delivery, a few standout products stood out as the one thing that got us through quarantine in a weird way. Money can’t buy happiness but certain items,…
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Erick Williams, the executive chef and owner of Virtue, a Southern restaurant in Chicago, said his staff of 22 employees is about half the size it was before the pandemic. “People aren’t even showing up for interviews these days,” he said. If he can’t hire more help before business increases with the growth of outdoor…
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SAN FRANCISCO — On Etsy, eBay, Facebook and Twitter, little rectangular slips of paper started showing up for sale in late January. Printed on card stock, they measured three-by-four inches and featured crisp black lettering. Sellers listed them for $20 to $60 each, with a discount on bundles of three or more. Laminated ones cost…
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“Focus on the sound of the instrument,” Andrew Rossetti, a licensed music therapist and researcher said as he strummed hypnotic chords on a Spanish-style classical guitar. “Close your eyes. Think of a place where you feel safe and comfortable.” Music therapy was the last thing that Julia Justo, a graphic artist who immigrated to New…
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Svetlana Reznikova-Steinway, an emergency-room physician who lives in Phoenix, has spent the better part of a year pulling double-duty in an overwhelmed intensive care unit. Early in the pandemic, she and her husband, a urologist, developed a system for after work, stripping off their scrubs in their garage to protect their 12-year-old daughter and 10-year-old…
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Rob Satran thinks of it as the Hoshizaki syndrome. Beginning last March, when the world went into lockdown and it became clear that, as Mr. Satran said, “people were not going to be spending their disposable income on normal things,” the trade in high-end appliances abruptly took off. Mr. Satran is a part owner of…
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