Month: December 2020

Thelonious Munk sits down for an alfresco meal at a wooden table. He eagerly picks up a taco prepared with a walnut flour tortilla, which he sniffs before taking a few nibbles. He lingers for a bit after his meal before leaving. He scampers into a bush and through a tunnel — because he isn’t checking out the latest vegan restaurant, but is instead a wild chipmunk.

He lives in the writer Angela Hansberger’s yard outside of Atlanta where, like many backyard critters around the country, he’s been eating like a king at a squirrel table everyday since April.

Squirrel

Welcome. My colleagues are looking back at the ways culture was upended in 2020, and their reflections are helping me make sense of a year that frequently seemed senseless. James Poniewozik put it best, I think, pointing out that this is the year “everything became TV”: We watched “I May Destroy You” on Netflix, and used the same screen to attend school, to take yoga classes, to commune over Thanksgiving dinner.

When you find yourself with time on screens this weekend, be sure to read Salamishah Tillet on culture’s reckoning with white privilege, and check out how Jesse Green learned

Many extroverts have gone to extreme measures for a social fix during the pandemic. Albertina Coacci, a self-proclaimed people person, turned to daily phone calls with strangers to pass the time while in lockdown in Italy. What started as a harmless habit soon led to an affair of sorts with a man who spoke her love language: baking.

In an ideal world, Mira Mariah would always be celebrating.

“I so deeply love parties, and I love how much of parties are about girl culture,” she said in a video interview. “That’s something I love to study, and love to be a part of, and love to talk about, and love to make art about.”

The 28-year-old, who tattoos as @girlknewyork at the Fleur Noire tattoo parlor in Brooklyn, designs art for people who, like herself, want to adorn themselves with symbols of indulgent days and effervescent nights. As proclaimed in her Instagram bio, this makes her not only