“For all that it inveighed against materialism, the book became a consumer good, inert and increasingly innocuous, its name adopted by nail polishes, Chelsea boots, and fountain pens.”
Dan Piepenbring on Lady C: The Long, Sensational Life of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”
“It was alarming, the extent to which this person never left the E-250, and impressive. So much of living in a vehicle is about learning not to seem to exist.”
Kristin Dombek on love, shit, and parking.
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“One of our allies
One of the United Nations
Heroic anti-Axis country
First to fight Japan.”
From clues for the answer “CHINA” that have appeared in the New York Times crossword puzzle since 1942.
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“While Forster chose silence—his gay love story Maurice was withheld from publication for nearly sixty years—Francis King chose discretion.”
Charlie Tyson on Francis King’s arts of concealment.
“It was hard for me to believe that any of my crewmates thought of Mars as a mere refuge for the survivors of an apocalypse. Nor did they seem to be adherents of Musk’s brand of techno-nihilism, preferring a frozen world of Tesla Bots to a salvaged Earth.”
“The response you generally get from Puy du Fou apologists to accusations that the park is falsifying the historical record to serve a sinister right-wing agenda is: lighten up.”
Nat Segnit on the fascist politics behind France’s favorite amusement park.
Every month in our Findings column, Rafil Kroll-Zaidi presents a constellation of the most—and least—important scientific discoveries.
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“In reality, Alberta is policy-locked, not landlocked, by the federal government.”
From a bulletin titled “Top Most Asked Questions” that was issued in December by the Albertan Prosperity Project.
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“What is certain, however, is that handing more and more authority to billionaires will not revive the shared, soaring prosperity of the past. Only robust democracy can do that.”
Thomas Frank on the March for Billionaires.
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"I got the sense that what motivated my crewmates was, above all, a conviction that Mars would transform us, no matter what kind of society would eventually take hold there." — @elenamsb.bsky.social for @harpers.bsky.social harpers.org/archive/2026...
From this month’s Harper’s Index.
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“The most corrupted among us have long since abandoned Chatterley as a totem of smut. Pornographers big and small have shunned it as source material: searches for “Chatterley” on Pornhub and OnlyFans return no results.” —Dan Piepenbring
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“The uncertainty was the worst of it. But having declared that with a politician’s confidence, I’m not so sure.”
From a new story by Joshua Cohen.
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“What makes King’s constrained fictions compelling is that his discretion is not absolute. He is almost a quintessential English novelist of manners, coolly observant, slyly comic, straightforwardly realist in his approach. But not quite.” —Charlie Tyson
“She is prettier than you think, because her face is not the first thing you think of. It is, after all, not the main thing that supposedly earns her a million pounds a month, although her mouth does its share of the work.” —Philippa Snow
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“It’s hard to shake the feeling that a fantasy version of French history, drenched in missionary zeal and longing for a lost monarchy, is being advanced at the expense of a secular, republican modernity construed as ruinous.” —Nat Segnit
“I would like to explain why it was that I paid my taxes at the start of the twenty-first century, when so many of my peers risked both fortune and freedom to make their heroic stand.” —Ben Metcalf (April 2008)
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“I got the sense that what motivated my crewmates was, above all, a conviction that Mars would transform us, no matter what kind of society would eventually take hold there.”
@elenamsb.bsky.social reports from a simulated Martian settlement in Utah.
“Normally, I do not look to Anglo-Canadians for inspiration—and certainly not to a former central banker with center-right economic leanings.”
Read John R. MacArthur’s latest Publisher’s Note on the twisted rhetoric of Mark Carney.
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“Unless our bodies know what’s up, and our friends know what’s up, and our enemies know best who we are, and away is actually the fakeness we lament when we’re choosing the great loneliness.” —Kristin Dombek
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“Unless our bodies know what’s up, and our friends know what’s up, and our enemies know best who we are, and away is actually the fakeness we lament when we’re choosing the great loneliness.” —Kristin Dombek
“The government is bought and paid for by members of the oldest generation, and it is organized for their sake. There is no way to separate the age of our elites from their ascendancy.”
@samuelmoyn.bsky.social on America’s gerontocratic crisis
Nat Segnit on the fascist politics behind France’s favorite amusement park.
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Kristin Dombek writes about the trials of van life, love, shit, and parking.
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Elena Saavedra Buckley (@elenamsb.bsky.social) reports from a Utah Mars settlement simulation on the utopian impulses behind space travel.
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Samuel Moyn (@samuelmoyn.bsky.social) on America’s gerontocracy and the crisis of representation.
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In our May Issue: Samuel Moyn on America’s gerontocracy; Elena Saavedra Buckley reports on a Mars settlement simulation; Kristin Dombek on love, shit, and parking; Nat Segnit on a controversial French theme park; Charlie Tyson on Francis King; and more.
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Gaby Del Valle ( @gabydvj.bsky.social ), who covered the American Conservation Coalition for our April issue, spoke with Jess Bergman about reporting from conservative events, the young new right, and Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy.
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