The Barbershop 250

The young pagans band around the picnic table and scrawl inky runes into their hands with cheap pens. Around them, the world falls, and wonders if they will learn to…

Semiotic tools are inevitable in an American economy that is increasingly segregated between those whose work is dependent on process and those who focus on outcome.

Since having kids, I have come to resent the loss of our pettier freedoms and less complex ways of life the most. I certainly do not want my children to…

The spirit of community that arises from festivals such as Halloween is a common good. I suggest that it is also a great time to practice the virtues of shared…

What is the goal of life? Cultural messaging has tricked many of us into thinking it is wealth and status, or career advancement. For us, it is the project of…

We sense that there’s more at stake in a restaurant visit than simply gustatorial or financial gain. Eating out, as Plato might have observed, is a chance to reinforce or…

To walk a place is to open the door to the possibility that you will grow to love it. With time, you could get to know it in an intimate…

Beyond writing about craftmanship and antique furniture, M&T explores ideas about human work in a technological age, work in the context of community, and the relationship between craft and tradition.…

Raised in Eastern Oklahoma with roots older than living memory in the Natural State, we look forward to supporting new authors while connecting readers with the long thread of our…

Venus’s love for her sister, and Serena’s recognition of it, has also shown us the transcendent power of family, the possibility of forgetting the accolades and the worldly recognition and…

Do I know by pruning the tree, picking the apples, and eating them? Perhaps, Pickstock proposes, truth is what we find when we act in the world. Our true condition…

More to the purpose of this essay, organized youth sports should challenge students to be dissatisfied with amusement or entertainment in their pursuit of excellence. Our culture is soaked in…

But the dark events of that afternoon have remained with me and have prompted a question that I have often wrestled with, fruitfully, I think, but never to a clear…

In our day, we cannot ourselves see the heavens; we can only see pixelated images of heaven produced by computer screens. In this respect, we already live in virtual reality.

The real challenge is to make the wisdom of the past live in the present. Such work is analogous to sprouting a seed, playing a song, cooking and enjoying a…

Today the man described as “Issaquah’s Thoreau” is largely forgotten. His books have been out of print for years and the anniversary of what would have been his 100th birthday…

Establishments like The Bookstore, when at their best, are not exclusively or perhaps even primarily in the business of providing people with printed texts. They are places in which proprietors…

I interrupted his weed-pulling to gently rebuke him for perceived carelessness regarding his health, but like the mother of Christ, I was the one needing correction—for Pastor was simply “about…

For many Americans, especially those on the coasts, in cities, and with advanced educations, life has improved in recent decades. Meanwhile, in many rural and interior parts of the country,…

Woods may be Californian by birth, and a Floridian by residence, but I believe there’s something in his latest comeback capable of stirring the soul of even the most reticent,…

The majority of Americans want peace and prosperity and cooperation. The biggest question is—and this is a question that The Batman does not answer, except by implication—where are the heroes…

On return trips to Illinois, or when talking to relatives on the phone, I can tell the difference. Life is a little slower where I grew up, and the people…

With this love and materiality, these two films express the pure reality to which their protagonists are so devoted. In a world of frictionless unreality, endless abstractions, and tepid and…

A final benefit of the liturgical lifestyle is its uniting force. Liturgical and sanctoral calendars vary among Christian confessions, echoing more divisive pieties and doctrines. But when the things Christians…