Medieval monks took extreme measures to focus on God and vanquish distraction. Some monasteries allowed regular baths, but others restricted them to periods of illness or certain times in the liturgical year—or discouraged them entirely. Sleeping with anyone was always a no-no, but that prohibition was straightforward compared with the labyrinthine regulations on sleeping in general. A group of monks in Mesopotamia had no beds at all, only reclining seats, wall straps, and ceiling ropes for suspending themselves by their armpits. Eating was contentious, too. Monasteries restricted the use of condiments, to make sure that all monks ate the same thing, or prohibited monks from looking at one another while eating, so that they couldn’t argue about portions. In spite of these regulations, monks still found paying attention devilishly difficult. Tap the link in our bio to read more about a new book that explores the centuries-long war against distraction. Illustration by @robertrurans .
By a variety of metrics, men are falling behind parity. In academic performance, boys are well behind girls in elementary school, high school, and college, where the sex ratio is approaching two female undergraduates for every one male. Rage among self-designated “incels” and other elements of the online “manosphere” appears to be steering some impressionable teens toward misogyny, and men are powering the new brand of reactionary Republican politics. Men are increasingly dropping out of work during their prime working years, overdosing, drinking themselves to death, and generally dying earlier, including by suicide. What should we make of this—and is there a solution? At the link in our bio, read about some new books that respond to the so-called crisis of masculinity. Illustration by @goldencosmos .
The Best Actress contest will come down to Cate Blanchett versus Michelle Yeoh, Michael Schulman writes. “The name in that envelope will be one of the most exciting questions on Oscar night.” At the link in our bio, Schulman breaks down the race and pens an ode to the stars who didn’t make the list, including Margot Robbie (“You danced. You cried. You puked.”), Viola Davis (“You slayed—literally.”), and more. Illustration by @aliciatatone ; Source Photographs from Alamy and A24.
Elif Batuman (@ebatuman ) was initially drawn to Russian literature for its universal themes, reading “from a human, not a national perspective.” Since visiting Kyiv in 2019 and Tbilisi in 2022, Batuman has been exploring the imperialist ideologies that informed the work of Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and others. Can Pushkin be read in isolation from Putin? Tap the link in our bio to read Batuman’s reconsideration of the Russian classics in the shadow of the war in Ukraine. Illustration by Karlotta Freier (@karllikesotto ).
“Everywhere on my way, I saw tired women with kids,” Nadia Parfan (@whooliganka ) says, in her documentary “I Did Not Want to Make a War Film.” “Their eyes could not hide it. They have been through hell.” In the film, the first of a three-part series produced by The New Yorker and independent filmmakers in Ukraine, Parfan chronicles her own odyssey, a return to her native Ukraine just a few weeks into the Russian invasion. During her travels, she passed crowds of people in airports and bus depots and border crossings: “All of them were headed west,” she says. “I was the only one who went the opposite direction: home.” Watch the full film at the link in our bio.
These days, when we use the word “privacy,” it usually has a political meaning. In her novel “Mrs. Dalloway,” Virginia Woolf expresses a different kind of privacy, something that has to do more with preserving life’s mystery; with leaving certain things undescribed, unspecified, and unknown; with savoring certain emotions, such as curiosity, surprise, desire, and anticipation. Woolf often conceived of life this way, “as a gift that you’ve been given, which you must hold onto and treasure but never open,” Joshua Rothman writes. “Opening it would dispel the atmosphere, ruin the radiance—and the radiance of life is what makes it worth living.” On the anniversary of Woolf’s birth, read more about her idea of privacy—some might call it an artist’s sense of privacy—at the link in our bio. Photograph by E. O. Hoppe/Mansell/Time Life Pictures/Getty.
In 2019, Beverly Gage’s ankles started to itch—“really itch, the maddening kind of sensation that blots out all thought and reason,” she writes. About a year later, testing revealed a novel genetic mutation. “I am one of a kind, and therefore a medical curiosity,” she writes. Her case has been studied by immunologists, rheumatologists, dermatologists, pulmonologists, and experts in infectious disease. “It has been debated at hospital grand rounds and global medical conferences, and in high-powered conference calls. There are PowerPoint decks about it,” Gage writes. Her access to the nation’s experts is a privilege, in one respect. And yet, “nobody really wants to be fascinating in quite this way.” At the link in our bio, Gage writes about living with a one-of-a-kind genetic mutation. Illustration by @hokyoungkim_ .
With this year’s Oscar nominations, the Academy has “taken a conservative, backward-looking approach,” our film critic Richard Brody writes. It has thrown its weight behind the stodge of “All Quiet on the Western Front” but includes no nominations for Jordan Peele’s “Nope.” “It’s similarly appalling that, although two superb Black actors were nominated this year—Angela Bassett and Brian Tyree Henry—not a single movie by a Black filmmaker, in a year that offered many superb ones, received a nomination for Best Picture, for directing, for screenwriting, or, for that matter, for Best International Feature.” At the link in our bio, see all of Brody’s picks for what should have made this year’s list. Photograph by Allyson Riggs / Courtesy A24.