We – OK, I – look askance at those who claim to need an emotional-support animal to board an airplane, but we don’t mock those who take Prozac. What’s the difference? Patricia Marx, a staff writer at the New Yorker who has travelled with a support pig (research, not therapy), took up this question … Continue reading »

  Her blog “Brain Pickings” ranges across the past and present, the arts and sciences, steering her cohort to unexpected delights. In our conversation at the Brooklyn Historical Society, she talked about a nineteenth century astronomer, a twentieth century elm tree, and a twenty-first century blight: people who walk down the street staring at their devices. … Continue reading »