“A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” So said Mark Twain, and it seems the more things change, the more things stay the same, since “reading more” consistently makes the top ten list of popular New Year’s resolutions. But...
Most everybody’s unhappy these days — or at least, somewhat dissatisfied. Maybe your job bores the hell out of you; maybe life just hasn’t turned out the way you hoped it would; maybe you lost sight of a lifelong ambition at some point, and it’s fallen by...
Good morning. We know, you’re not quite sure what happened last night: All you know is that you invited a few buddies over to celebrate the new year, and the next thing you know you wake up with a wicked hangover, all of your friends are gone...
Pasty white family-friendly comedian James Gaffigan has an old but timeless bit about the inherent awkwardness of having members of different friend groups interact with each other: “There are so many weird situations in life anyway. You ever mix two different groups of friends? That can be...
There’s an old story, likely apocryphal, about a Russian tour guide (or maybe it was someone in Alaska) who took a group of tourists to Siberia in the dead of winter. Somehow, though, despite the guide’s expertise, they all got lost. “What do we do?” the frightened...
The Silhouette, a cash-only dive bar with a dart room and free popcorn that’s just west of Fenway Park in the long-time blue-collar neighborhood of Allston, has been open for 53 years. Irene Davis has been behind the bar for 34 of them — and more impressively, she’s...
Being a good uncle is tricky: Uncles can be that cool, fun guy who gets to spoil the kids by bringing them to a theme park and letting them eat churros as a meal, then lets them stay up late to watch movies deemed too violent by...
Music triggers people in plenty of weird ways: It can calm you; it can make you happy; it can help you eat less; it can improve your driving. And it’s not always as simple as the tone or lyrics — studies show there’s even a specific number...
As we near that time of year where you feel socially obligated to invite some friends and family over to your house, for no other reason than the fact that it’s your turn to host the thing, it’s time to address the issue of lingerers. I am...
Contrary to popular belief, men love tanning salons, too — and while men admittedly use tanning beds at lower rates than women, research suggests that it’s men who are more likely to develop addictive (and risky) tendencies toward tanning. More specifically, the study found that compared to...
In 1970, David Bowie created the androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, depicted in his third album, The Man Who Sold the World. It was the beginnings of an androgynous revolution that would come to a head with the 1984 Grammy Awards, which according to Jefferis Kent Peterson,...
Nikki, a 22-year-old journalism student from Minneapolis, is telling me about the worst date she’s ever been on, with a man called Athens she met at college. “He talked about his goals, his week, his career, his meditation, his favorite books, his respect for ‘real’ musicians and...