The Barbershop 250

Nostalgia's got a bad rap, but, in addition to being nearly inescapable, it has indispensable benefits, provided it’s kept within reasonable limits.

A new walking trail brings economic benefits, but its more enticing, though less measurable, value lies in the deeper, more appreciable sense of place that the rail trail should cultivate.

A polemic against golf carts might double as one against libertarian economics.

Scialabba insists that our actions are meritorious and good if they are effective, if they transform society and lead to measurable improvements. Berry, on the other hand, upholds love as…

Too soon the mistletoe will be a garland.

It wasn’t enough for George to stay in Bedford Falls and do the right thing; he needed to choose which values to embrace and which to reject.

My father cried the day his stroke began, as he lay in the emergency ward, watching himself lose his speech and his strength. He cried the day after the stroke…

I recently visited a barber in my Virginian hometown whom I had not patronized in more than a year (I’d taken to getting my haircuts during lunch breaks at my…

". . . among the keenest minds in contemporary American letters." ---Allan Carlson

A church that prides itself on its universality—its catholicity—has served as a seedbed for hundreds of parishes divided along ethnic lines.

In the discussion of minimalism, I want to suggest it’s less about what’s in your home than what your home is used for. It’s not what you don’t have in…

If we learn about ourselves and our homes through travel, we don’t just become better “citizens of the world”—we can become more conscious and thoughtful citizens of our own places.

Where do the porchers from across the Pond go to escape the entrapment of a modern, concrete, urban sprawl?

While the nationalization of sports media outlets brings games and analysis to every living room in America, fan culture retains a very distinct regional and local flavor.

Like the Macleans, we are listening for those inaudible, but not imperceptible, words underneath the rocks in the river that runs through our own lives.

“Florida man” is the source of many ridiculous headlines. So many that now there is a “game” you can play by typing your birthday and “Florida man” into Google to…

That this country boasts something called “The Great American Songbook” is one of the best jokes around. The Great American Songbook? Our songs—let alone songbooks—don’t stick around long enough to…

A folklife is made up of the food and craft, the local stories, songs, remedies and rumors—relationships that define a place as much as the geology and ecology do.

From here in my long-time Midwestern location, these lots are unshakeable reminders of a place in Texas where a shameful darkness once surrounded a part of my childhood.

If the institutions that oversee our slow twelve-to-eighteen-year process of education are called our alma-mater (nourishing mother), why can’t the dirt-filled, dung-laden places that convey agrarian lessons taught over 20…

The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.--Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France On…

What Americans Want in Cities What makes a good city? I’ve been thinking a lot about this. What makes for a city people are happy living in, and want to…

As is so often the case when new technology promises to correct the errors of human fallibility, robo-umps could be bad for everyone involved.

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] A week ago I was able to organize a small group of friends to attend a fine, relatively intimate event at Sterling College, a small…