Abby Zimet: For Cruel, Stupid, Dastardly Deeds Done and Proposed
Gandhi famously said, “Civil disobedience therefore becomes a sacred duty when the State has become lawless.”
Christopher B. Daly: The New Yorker turns 100 − how a poker game pipe dream became a publishing powerhouse
A big part of the magazine’s eventual success was Ross’ genius for spotting talent and encouraging them to develop their own voices.
Barbara Hamby: Nose
Suddenly, I feel as if I have no nose, like Gogol’s Kovelev
riding around St. Petersburg looking for his proboscis.
Gerry LaFemina: Last Report Card before High School
Do I have to say I never kissed her?
Sure, I could solve for X but still nothing
seemed to add up. That was the sum of my knowledge.
My whole life then was about what I wasn’t doing.
Desne A. Crossley: Rolling in the Aisle
In Nashville in 1950, my mother boarded a city bus. She didn’t go to the back. She didn’t act like her place was the outermost fringe of a world ruled by whites.
Video: Wildmen of the Greater Toronto Area
In response to rising costs of living the citizens of Toronto begin renouncing their personhood en masse to legally become animals, forming a society of “Wildmen” in the city’s vast ravine network.
Matthew Parker: A Solution to the Untold Imbecility of the Uninoculated
Wonko, a subsidiary of Natural Selection’s Been Slacking (NSBS), introduces its brand-new line of Weapons of Mass Vaccination (WMVs).
Video: Traveling Man, A Fable
A man meets a stranger in the park who has unusual powers.
Vox Populi: The Most Popular Posts of 2024
Thank you so much for helping to make Vox Populi a success in 2024. Since our founding 10 years ago as a newsletter for anti-fracking activists in Western Pennsylvania, we’ve accumulated more than 5,000,000 visits. We now have over 20,000 daily subscribers, about 35% outside the United States.
Video: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer
Grandma got run over by a reindeer
Walking home from our house Christmas Eve.
You can say there’s no such thing as Santa,
But as for me and Grandpa, we believe.
Barbara Hamby: Ode to the ‘Messiah’, Thai Horror Movies, and Everything I Can’t Believe
When I decide to go to hear Handel’s Messiah in London
at the composer’s parish church, my husband says
he’d rather see a Thai horror movie, so we plan to meet later
at our favorite Moroccan lair
Adam Patric Miller: How (Not) to Wear a Keffiyeh to School
Fold the keffiyeh in a triangle, lift it to your face, lift your arms about your head holding the ends of the longest edge, then wrap it so the triangle covers your face, tie the long ends together behind your head, letting the patterns drape over your shoulders.
David Adès: I
I the stubbornness that brooks no argument,
I the prayer, I the lover, I the blessing and the curse,
I the question, I the answer,
Joseph Bathanti: Steady Daylight
Today in Heaven,
my father turned 105.
Finally working steady daylight
