At the river’s edge, a single stem divides the current. Its roots grip the narrow seam between concrete and clay, where the residue of the city collects—rust, pollen, glass dust, fragments of old coins. Gnats hover above the water in small, quivering loops. A film of oil drifts past, breaking the reflection into bruised color. […]
Each morning this summer, I passed the same wall on my way to work. Behind me, the brakes of a bus hissed, and a gust of warm air carried the smell of exhaust and garbage. The wall changed constantly—first a movie poster, then a perfume ad, then a mural commissioned by a sneaker brand. Each […]
The world runs on updates. Phones, cars, sneakers—everything has a version number now. Each season promises an upgrade: a faster processor, a lighter fabric, a “new and improved” formula. You buy one, even when last year’s still works, and the changes are almost imperceptible. That’s beside the point. What matters is not the object, but […]
The beach stretches endlessly into the dark. It’s the early season, still too cold to go in the water. I can see boats with their lights on far in the distance. I scan across the water’s edge, catching glimpses of buoys bobbing up and down. The air pulls tight against my skin, cold enough that […]
It starts with a story. Two teenage girls in a quiet suburban house whisper about a cursed videotape—one that kills anyone who watches it seven days after viewing. They laugh, half-believing, half-scared, until one admits she’s already seen it. That night, the curse keeps its promise. I first saw “The Ring” in high school and […]
Sir Galahad: Growing up, my dad had one rule for tree-climbing: if you can get yourself up, you can get yourself back down. I would scurry up branches as they bent under my weight until I sat perched too high on limbs too thin; the ground looked impossibly far away. When it came time to […]
This summer in London, I visited the Tate to see Do Ho Suh’s installation. Entire apartments were remade in translucent fabric: doorframes, corridors, kitchens, even the seams and edges of walls rendered in color so thin it felt like memory given form. They are monuments to impermanence, preserving the memory of rooms that no longer […]
Before the semester started, I argued in these pages that Harvard shouldn’t ban AI but instead teach students to use it critically, the way calculators or word processors were once absorbed into learning. That argument felt urgent then; it feels even more now. When I returned to campus this fall, I found classrooms not only […]
There’s a moment every shopping week when the choice isn’t between two classes you love, but between an easy A and a harder B+. You look at the syllabi side by side: one packed with weekly papers, late nights, and the risk of failure; the other promising generous curves, lighter reading, and a safer GPA. […]
I still remember the first time I stayed silent in section—watching the moment slip by until someone else jumped in with a safer, more polished thought. That pause felt small then, but it lingers now, as LFDOC photos flood my Instagram feed and I step into the rhythm of “last firsts.” It makes me reflect […]