Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
These artists, all featured on Art Beat, offered insight into their creative practices and a first-hand account of their journey to becoming an artist.
These artists, all featured on Art Beat, offered insight into their creative practices and a first-hand account of their journey to becoming an artist.
Oregon children's author Beverly Cleary
OPB / OPB
For more than 20 years Oregon Art Beat has been exploring the breathtaking creativity of Oregon’s diverse arts community. It is with sadness but also a deep appreciation of their work that we remember artists who died in 2021. All of us on Art Beat are honored that these artists shared their stories with us. We celebrate their indelible contributions to the arts and culture landscape of Oregon.
Beverly Cleary
Aniconic writer of children’s novels, Beverly Cleary spent most of her own childhood in Northeast Portland’s Hollywood neighborhood. She would go on to make Klickitat and Tillamook streets famous in her books. Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins and Ralph S. Mouse are among some of her best-known characters. Cleary received numerous awards in her long life, including a National Medal of the Arts, multiple Newbery Honors and in 2000 she was named a Library of Congress Living Legend.
Patricia Clark
Master printmaker Patricia Clark, retired chair of the Art Department at California State University, Long Beach, went on to found print studio Atelier 6000 in Bend, becoming a champion of the arts community in central Oregon.
Dave Frishberg
World-renowned jazz pianist and composer Dave Frishberg, known for recording and performing with Rebecca Kilgore and many others, also lent his skills to educate generations after him by writing songs for the Schoolhouse Rock! series.
Julie Green
Julie Green was an Oregon State University professor and an artist who brought attention to the realities of death row inmates with her seminal work focusing on their last-meal requests.
Painter Molly Cliff Hilts was well known for her expansive landscapes, birds, and still lifes, as well as her work organizing salons and workshops to share the joy of creating.
Carlton Jackson
A much sought-after drummer, Carlton Jackson played and recorded with many of Oregon’s greatest musicians, was a host on KMHD, and appeared multiple times on Art Beat.
Hiroshi Ogawa
Elkton master ceramicist Hiroshi Ogawa created work with his traditional Hikarigama (“Dragon”) anagama kiln, sharing the experience with a community of artists.
Sue Orlaske
La Grande artist Sue Orlaske’s love of nature and drive to experiment led her to find a way to use natural fibers and plants instead of glazes on her ceramic art.
Robert Schlegel
Painter Robert Schlegel’s eye for architectural form and skill with sketching and painting seemed to evoke locations from our collective past.
We are grateful to these artists for granting us an intimate view into their lives and work, inspiring us all.
Happy 2022!
Best wishes for the new year from all of us at the F-Word. We wanted to take a moment to highlight some of our favourite pieces on the site from the last twelve months. Scroll on to see whether you agree with our picks!
Love, The F-Word Team
Wandavision and the shape of grief
Mary Blackburn ties the power of Wanda Maximoff’s pain to her own experience of loss
UK aid budget cuts will be devastating for women and girls
While the UK government prioritises its own interests with crippling aid budget cuts, women and girls across the world will disproportionately suffer the consequences
Feminists should logically be socialists
Georgina Diaz reviews The Futures of Feminism by Valerie Bryson and finds it a mixture of refreshing, contradictory and disappointing
Petite Maman: In conversation with Céline Sciamma
The F Word meets with the French auteur to discuss her upcoming film
Questioning our dearly held ideas about gender
Sage Brice reviews Shon Faye’s compelling and informative debut book The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice
Handpicked stories from our editorial team
ROBERT ROY BRITT
Health and science journalist
5 Health Appointments Americans Should Schedule Now
Critical exams and scans are dangerously overdue for millions of people
It is an annual ritual to glance over time’s shoulder each year and reflect on what has made it most livable and worthy of living through my writing — always the clearest mirror of what irradiated and perturbed my heart and mind as our uncommon planet made its steady revolution around its common star.
Inevitably, patterns emerge that were not obvious in the moment-by-moment experience. Inevitably, those patterns reveal that however tumultuous the seasons of being might feel — and what a tempest of uncertainty and disorientation 2021 has been for all of us in the world, what a tempest of loss sudden as frostbite and slow-blooming rebirth for my personal world — the things that make life most luminous with aliveness are variations on eternal themes, impervious to our passing perturbations.
Here are the best of these eternal echoes — as usual, a composite best: a hybrid of the pieces I poured the most heart into writing and the pieces most widely read and shared by those whose hearts they touched.
I am not by nature an optimistic person—my coffee cup is always half empty. As a journalist I’m also trained to be inherently skeptical, often asking my husband to cite his sources even during a casual dinnertime chat. Especially with the challenges of the past year, though, I think it’s more important than ever that I strive to be skeptical but not cynical and to find joy wherever possible.
Against the backdrop of the pandemic, social injustice, and political divides, people in 2021 still managed to make astounding scientific discoveries and achieve amazing technological advances. For the January issue of National Geographic, writer Maya Wei-Haas, graphics editor Jason Treat, and illustrator Matthew Twombly created a delightful “advent calendar of nerdiness” that reminded me of all the reasons covering science can be so exciting, powerful, and even healing during times of crisis.
I don’t know what 2022 will bring as new variants emerge and new threats to democracy loom over us. I can only say that I am grateful for everyone who somehow manages to stay curious and motivated and who keeps my soul nourished with the doses of wonder and awe only science can bring.
Good morning. What were the year’s most-read stories?
Manshen Lo
What we read
The most-read New York Times story of 2021 captured the ennui that many people felt during the second year of the pandemic. “There’s a name for the blah you’re feeling,” as the article’s headline put it. “It’s called languishing.”
In the article, Adam Grant, a psychologist and author, described languishing as “the neglected middle child of mental health” and “the void between depression and flourishing — the absence of well-being.” He concluded: “By acknowledging that so many of us are languishing, we can start giving voice to quiet despair and lighting a path out of the void.”
This year was not an easy one, and you’ll be reminded of that as you look through our lists of the most popular Times stories of 2021. But we think there is value in looking back — and we expect that you will also find some moments of joy.
We’re adding a couple of twists to this year’s rankings. First, you’ll find the classic most-read list — the 10 Times articles with the largest number of page views. (The list does not include election-result pages, Covid-19 maps and some other standing features.)
Next you’ll see a list of 10 articles that people spent a particularly long time reading.
Finally, you’ll find a list of the 10 most-clicked articles from this newsletter.
The most-read
1. There’s a name for the blah you’re feeling: languishing. (April 19)
Homelessness isn’t just traumatic, it’s also expensive, Lori Teresa Yearwood writes.
Poland’s government has co-opted the courts, muzzled the media and restricted women’s rights. It could be a vision of Europe's future, Karolina Wigura and Jaroslaw Kuisz write.
Lives Lived: Thomas Lovejoy spent decades trying to preserve the Amazon rainforest. He also helped create the public TV series “Nature” and popularized the term “biological diversity.” Lovejoy died at 80.
ARTS AND IDEAS
The N.F.L. playoff picture
With two weeks left in the N.F.L. season, fans may be wondering whether their teams can make the playoffs. Wonder no more: The Upshot has once again rolled out its N.F.L. Playoff Simulator, which simulates the season thousands of times to figure out each team’s odds of making the postseason.
A few takeaways:
Six teams are officially in the postseason. But several others can probably start celebrating early: The Bills, Patriots, Titans and Colts all have a greater than 90 percent chance of getting in.
A few other teams are on the cusp — the Dolphins and Raiders in the A.F.C., the Eagles and 49ers in the N.F.C. For each of them, the path is clear: Win both remaining games and their playoff odds shoot up to 100 percent.
The Falcons and the Saints play in the same division, and they have the same record (7-8). But the simulator gives the Saints a 34 percent chance of making the playoffs, and the Falcons a lowly 2 percent.
Try the tool for yourself. Each team has its own page where you can choose who wins the remaining games and see how it changes the odds. — Tom Wright-Piersanti, a Morning editor
Today’s episode of “The Daily” revisits a conversation with a Dogecoin millionaire.
Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.
Good morning. Today we look back at stories from this year that didn’t receive as much attention as they deserved.
A photo by Isaac Wright during a climb on the Queensboro Bridge.Isaac Wright
Overlooked stories
How does a New York Times story get overlooked? Often, it’s a case of bad luck. We publish a great piece of writing, then some major news occupies everyone’s attention for the day. Or editors make a last-minute change that cuts an article from this newsletter or moves it off the front page.
As we did at the end of last year, the Morning team reached out to editors around the Times newsroom to ask for their favorite articles — and, this year, podcast episodes — that may have flown under the radar.
If there’s one thing that bonds the stories in this collection, it’s that they remain relevant after a year in which so much of our world seemed to change. “It ran inside the paper,” one editor said about a story he sent us, “but it has aged well.”
Enjoy these 25 great stories.
1. Isaac Wright’s PTSD therapy was climbing. His climbing made him a fugitive.
Winsome Sears, Virginia’s incoming lieutenant governor, is a Black woman, an immigrant and a Trump supporter. She wants voters of color to rethink the G.O.P.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is running for Senate in Pennsylvania, is under renewed scrutiny for his history of dispensing dubious medical advice.
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu in Cape Town in 2018.Sumaya Hisham/Reuters
Desmond Tutu, the South African cleric and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who helped bring down apartheid, died at 90.
In 1986, Johannesburg’s main airport security singled out Tutu for a body search. His response showed his resilience, Alan Cowell, The Times’s former South Africa bureau chief, recalls.
Other Big Stories
A training session near Kyiv, Ukraine, this month.Oksana Parafeniuk for The New York Times
Ukraine is preparing for a potential Russian invasion by training civilians.
America is consuming more beef than ever. But many ranchers are barely hanging on.
Lives Lived: Jean-Marc Vallée, the director behind the film “Dallas Buyers Club” and the HBO show “Big Little Lies,” was famous for a naturalistic and generous approach that brought out the best in those he worked with. He died at 58.
Edward O. Wilson was a biologist and author who conducted pioneering work on biodiversity, insects and human nature. He died at 92.
ARTS AND IDEAS
The New York Times
(A lot of) best books
The editors of the Times Book Review read a lot of books every year. They also compile a lot of lists, and we’re here to help you make sense of them.
From 100 notable books …: Fiction, memoirs, nonfiction or poetry — this list has it all.
… to the top 10: The editors deliberate throughout the year to whittle the list of 100 down to 10.
Critic’s picks: The Times’s book critics also make their own lists based on the books they reviewed throughout the year. (If you want to know how they get there, you can read their discussion.)
Gift list: Books make for excellent gifts, and these 71 dazzling titles — including thrillers, cookbooks, photography collections and more — will delight any reader.
The outside: We know not to judge a book by its cover, but some covers deserve praise. The Book Review’s art director picked his favorites.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art hopes to entice visitors with 150 Disney artifacts.
What to Watch
“West Side Story” used to be a musical told through movement. Now, The Times’s dance critic writes, it’s a musical “told through words. So many, many words.”
Now Time to Play
The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was flipbook. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.
Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.
By Whitney Johnson, Director of Visual and Immersive Experiences
This week, as 2021 draws to a close, we pause for a moment to look at a handful of images that have remained in the minds—or hearts—of our photo editors this year. That’s quite a badge of honor, given that our photographers have made close to 2 million images over the last 12 months.
As you saw earlier this month, we whittled those 2 million down to fewer than 50 for our annual Year in Pictures issue, in which we reflected on the biggest stories of the year—COVID, climate, conservation, and conflict—and helped our readers make sense of a rollercoaster of a year.
Now, let’s look closely at a few of these moments—of resilience, of humanity, of eerie beauty. Berlin’s famous DJs gave new meaning to house parties; a mother reflects on another’s journey to the U.S.; and signs that the leading waves of climate change are already happening. (Pictured above, a seemingly tranquil setting along Oregon’s Klamath River masks, as photo editor Dominique Hildebrand notes, dangerously low river levels.)
Keep reading to see more of our images, accompanied by the perspective of our photo editors:
PHOTOGRAPH BY VICTORIA RAZO
Humanity: The work of photographer VictoriaRazo, on Nat Geo assignment documenting Haitian migrants on the U.S. southern border, caught photo editor Jennifer Samuel’s eye. “I thought Victoria really showed the humanity of those migrating in a way that was missing from the overall crisis-oriented coverage I was seeing. Since I became a mother and have a baby that looks a lot like this one, I can't imagine having to embark on a journey as dangerous and uncertain as this one with your small child in tow. I think images like this—where it's plain just how much people are forced to risk in search of a more stable life—are very important to see.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY ELLIOT ROSS
DIY shade: From a story on how an economic and racial divide translates into significantly higher temperatures for poorer Los Angeles neighborhoods, photo editor Samantha Clark chose this image by Nat Geo ExplorerElliot Ross. “Many L.A. residents, many in Latino neighborhoods, have mastered the art of the homemade shade solutions in hot areas that were historically underinvested in. This aesthetic is rasquachismo, a Chicano term to describe repurposing items in a cheerful and stylized way in the taste of an underdog.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY WAYNE LAWRENCE
A dance by the water: Photography can be emotional. Photographer Wayne Lawrence was clearly moved after this collaborative portrait of Gene Tagaban, who is Cherokee, Tlingit, and Filipino, performing a traditional dance to illustrate National Geographic’s Race Card story. Senior photo editor Todd James says Nat Geo chose another image for the story, “but I love this photograph for its timeless simplicity and because Wayne sent me a very sweet note after making this photograph with Gene, saying what a privilege it was to see him perform this traditional dance and how moved he was by that experience. I want to share all of that with our readers.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY DEMETRIOS IOANNOU
Beautiful repetition: “It is said that a copy devalues an original, but the copies of the Sappho bust in this frame brought me new appreciation for them,” says Bunni Elian, an associate photo editor. “There was something beautiful in the repetition and seeing different emotions in the various sides of the original artwork revealed by the replicas.” Here’s the story in which it appeared.
PHOTOGRAPH BY RUBÉN SALGADO ESCUDERO
Keep on dancing: The pandemic may have closed clubs, but it has not stopped the music. Photo resident Amr Alfiky chose this image from Germany by Nat Geo ExplorerRubén Salgado Escudero. “This intimate moment shows how Berlin's infamous DJs challenged the pandemic by live-streaming their music while surrounded with their loved ones,” Amr tells us. “It's full of hope and resilience.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY EMILE DUCKE
Soot and smoke: What’s it like to live in wildfire smoke for 30 days? How do you keep going? Assistant managing editor Anne Farrar chose this image by Emile Ducke from the massive summertime blazes in far northeastern Russia. The Siberian farmers-turned-firefighters battled daily while livestock disappeared. This photo shows soot-covered Galina Diakonova, worried about her animals, her livelihood, food for her family, and the coming winter. “The beauty of this image, its muted colors not by the photographers toning but by the smoke in the air, tells a clear story of why we need to wake up and change how we interact with the environment around us,” Anne tells us.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MEGHAN DHALIWAL
The fate of the whales: Warmer waters and climate change have changed the availability of food for whales, and “the percentage of single adult whales deemed to be in poor body condition has increased,” says visual project manager Alexandra Moreo, who chose this image made off the northwestern Mexico town of Puerto Adolfo López Mateos. “Drone photography of gray whales has been used to better identify the body condition of the whales,” she says, “allowing us to better understand the population decrease of the species.”
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Every year we’re blown away by the consistently amazing book releases in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, young adult, and beyond—and 2021 raised the bar even further. Here, Tor.com’s regular book reviewers talk about notable titles they read in 2021. Leave your own additions in the comments!
We’re thrilled to announce The Lost Metal: A MISTBORN Novel by Brandon Sanderson, publishing November 15, 2022 with Tor Books. Learn more about the new title here!
As 2021 draws to a close, it’s time once again to look back and reflect on some of our favorite non-fiction articles from the last year: celebrations of favorite authors and characters, deep dives into the cultural and historical inspirations that inform new and classic SFF, and more. Here are some of the articles that have made us laugh, cry, and think this year.
We say goodbye to Kerene, meet some new friends, and have a few reunions this week on The Wheel of Time. Sylas K Barrett reviews the very emotional episode.
This fall has been an exciting time for fans of classic science fiction, given the big-screen success of Dune and the new small-screen adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation. But the Golden Age and the New Wave of science fiction are absolutely loaded with amazing stories and worldbuilding that fans would love to see translated to the screen. David Agranoff shares 20 classic sci-fi novels and series that would make great films.
For viewers everywhere, the Skip Intro button has been a savior. It saves us precious seconds (or sometimes minutes) as we’re careening through the latest streaming obsession. But sometimes, the intro is a vital part of the viewing experience. Cole Rush discusses five of the most unskippable TV intros of all time (with plenty of other favorites in the comments)!
Tolkien is the grandfather of fictional “conlangs” (constructed languages), and plenty of fans have actually tried to learn Elvish. Duolingo added Klingon to their stable of languages; and Dothraki dictionaries and courses do exist. And yet, these fictional languages remain variations of human, typically European languages. But some languages in SFF require a leap of the imagination. Alex Thomson explores seven of the best fictional languages in SFF.
We are excited to share the Table of Contents for the 2021 edition of Some of the Best from Tor.com, an anthology of 22 of our favorite short stories and novelettes selected from the stories we have published this year. The eBook edition will be available for free from all your favorite vendors on January 25, 2022. Of course, you can enjoy all of these stories right now by following the links!
Take a break from the sounds of the holidays and find your new favorite authors.
Looking for something to listen to while your favorite podcasts take a holiday break? Good news: we have hundreds of author readings and conversations on our Powell’s YouTube channel!
Not sure where to start? We highlighted some favorites below.
Michelle Zauner, author of Crying in H Mart, talks about about grief, identity, belonging, and music with Ben Gibbard.
Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky talks human intervention in climate change (and hope) with Bill McKibben.
Gregory Gourdet, author of Everyone's Table (the #1 bestseller on Powells.com for 2021!) has a fascinating conversation with Michelle Tam. Keep a tasty snack at the ready, you will get hungry.
Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise talks with Roy Scranton about the stunning book. We're on record recommending the title as "simultaneously a narrative of hope and a devastating portrait of what is happening in our world right now."
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2201.02 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2374 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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