Like Cindy Lou Who, I was not more than two, flipping through the pages of “Uncle Art’s World of Drawing” on an otherwise unremarkable evening. Suddenly, the black markings beneath the pictures just sort of…snapped into focus. “Giraffe,” I said. The black markings were letters that formed a word, and…

I know Hamish McKenzie is a writer, because writers process their most difficult feelings by pouring them all out onto the page and hitting “publish,” with no regard for their self-interest. The Substack co-founder’s latest newsletter issue, “Escape from Hell World,” is a gift I’m glad for: A glimpse into…

Has a sentence ever felt like a knife at your throat? Have you ever read a piece of news and dropped into freefall, the world blurring around you and your phone while your stomach sinks because what you’re seeing can’t be real? Has someone written something so wrong that it…

In the blink of an eye — or in the panicked flop-sweat of an incompetent rich man — decades of brilliant, stupid, funny, tragic, important, meaningless, original, and copy-pasted digital-media work was wiped off the Internet this week. According to Gawker, G/O Media leadership (almost certainly CEO Jim Spanfeller) ordered…

The forces of truth and justice stood victorious. A furious siege by authors and their followers had reduced the enemy citadel to rubble within hours of the battle-horn sounding. Naught was left of their internet presence but a screencapped surrender flag: …and there was much rejoicing. There are many terrible…

When now-former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden’s old racist, sexist, misogynist emails were leaked to the media, I had the same two reactions almost anyone connected to football did: 1) “This is horrible,” and 2) “There are a lot of coaches, staffers, and executives around the league whose email…

Every sportswriter will tell you that covering a sport for a living, especially in an access-driven role, changes your relationship to that sport. You lose your “fan card” pretty quick when the players stop being heroes on TV and start being Guys At Work. It becomes impossible to watch the…

I love roller coasters, but I hate free-fall rides — and whenever anybody asks me why, I have a pat answer: I won’t get on board anything where catastrophic failure is indistinguishable from normal operation until it’s too late. And yet, I participate in the digital-media economy. Curious! …

Bran thought about it. “Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?” “That is the only time a man can be brave,” his father told him. I’ve never read A Song of Ice and Fire, the series of books better known as the source material for the TV show…