Backward Mutters

Reading that story and so many others in “Dedicated to God” reminded me of Philip Gröning’s stunning documentary “Into Great Silence,” which portrays a community of Carthusian monks in the French Alps. The film is almost entirely silent—no commentary from the director or dialogue from the subjects—until a scene where…

For Sara Benincasa, 33, a comedian and writer in Los Angeles, that friend is Heather Fink, whose work as a filmmaker and sound technician takes her to exotic locales, which she dutifully records on Instagram. Ms. Benincasa recalled being at a CVS drugstore, waiting to pick up her refills of…

I told her that I was stunned by her grace after the verdict. I told her the verdict greatly angered me. I told her that the idea that someone on that jury thought it plausible there was a gun in the car baffled me. I told her it was appalling…

After I broke my neck in a 1967 diving accident and learned I would be paralyzed for the rest of my life, I was convinced my life was not worth living. Had it been legal, most people would have thought that euthanasia was a rational choice for me, a depressed…

Faced with the cultural splendor of pre-Revolutionary France, a different President—John Adams—prophesied American art history majors to come: “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce…