Exhaling Life

When I first read about Jason Arday, he had just resigned from the University of Cambridge. Accusations of plagiarism reminded me of Claudine Gay , the former president of Harvard University, who resigned after accusations of plagiarism surfaced. There certainly was more to her resignation than accusations of plagiarism. She was also accused of antisemitism following her congressional testimony. Her story ended with her becoming the shortest-serving president in the history of Harvard. When a second article about Arday caught my eye, he had been found dead at his home in South London. To this day, suicide has not been named as the cause of death, but I find myself speculating that it was suicide, given the circumstances surrounding his death and the absence of any reported foul play. I imagine many of us are wondering the same thing. I think about his last days. On August 5, the university announced that it had accepted his resignation and would open an investigation into allegations c...

Did Ruby Rippey lose her voice twenty years ago, as she suggests in her Vanity Fair essay, when her affair with then San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom exploded into public scandal, or did she simply have no defense to offer at the time? Perhaps Kamala Harris’s advice that she remain silent was not merely counsel to let time provide clearer perspective, but the advice of an attorney who understood that no arrangement of words could defend what Rippey had done to Alex Tourk, her husband at the time. By Pablo Picasso at LACMA For the record, I have said before that I will never vote for Gavin Newsom. My opinion of him is exceptionally low. So none of what follows should be mistaken for a dispatch from Team Newsom. It was not until I read Rippey’s essay that I learned of Newsom’s affair with her. From it, I learned that she worked for him. What elevated the story from garden-variety political infidelity to something approaching daytime-soap-opera tawdriness was that Rippey was married to Ne...

The shoulder has repeatedly been treated as one of fashion’s safest ways to be sensual. Most of us give Brigitte Bardot the credit for making the off-the-shoulder silhouette iconic—and certainly, few wore it with more persuasive nonchalance—but fashion history tells a far longer story. Recognizable versions of the neckline appear as far back as the 17th century, when European bodices widened and dipped low enough to reveal both the décolletage and shoulders. By the 19th century, the silhouette had become a fixture of evening dress. Queen Victoria herself wore a broad, shoulder-baring neckline for her 1840 wedding, and through the 1850s and 1860s, off-the-shoulder ball gowns paired tightly corseted bodices with sweeping skirts and bertha collars that framed exposed shoulders in lace, silk, and ruffles. Victorian modesty, it turns out, was considerably more situational than its reputation suggests. Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal The silhouette continued to surface as fash...

Inarizushi emerged in Japan during the Edo period, when seasoned fried tofu pockets filled with vinegared rice became popular as inexpensive street food. Its name is tied to Inari, the deity associated with rice, agriculture and prosperity, and to the foxes regarded as Inari’s messengers and linked in folklore to fried tofu. Inari, however, has never been Japanese to me. Growing up in South Korea, I knew it as yubu chobap, a meal my mom packed for school lunches and picnics—and one that always felt like a treat. Rather than sushi rice, she filled the tofu pockets with different kinds of fried rice. Perhaps that is why I have never regarded the pouch as something requiring too much fidelity. Shrimp & Kimchi Inari is my homage to kimchi fried rice, only quieter: shrimp and kimchi folded into rice with less seasoning than I would ordinarily use for the fried rice version. The restraint is intentional. The lighter seasoning leaves room for the fried tofu skin, with its distinctive swee...

I am not ARMY. The first BTS member to intrigue me was J-Hope, who appeared last year on one of my favorite Korean shows, Chef & My Fridge, with his refrigerator in tow. There, I learned that he had performed at Le Gala des Pièces Jaunes at Paris La Défense Arena at the personal invitation of Brigitte Macron, France’s first lady. Naturally, I found the performance on YouTube. Thirty-five thousand people filled the arena as thousands of voices in France roared the Korean lyric, “adeuri neom jal nagaseo mianhae, eomma.” One need not own a purple light stick to recognize that kind of cultural power. Afterward, I became mildly obsessed with J-Hope and, by association, BTS. Original photo by Sudhith Xavier. Photoshop by ChatGPT. A song currently in heavy rotation on my playlist is SWIM, from their latest album, ARIRANG. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and remained there for three consecutive weeks. During its debut week, its songs occupied the top nine positions on the...

The ballet flat began, quite literally, with a foot in the theater. Claire McCardell and Capezio helped coax the slipper from studio floor to city pavement in the 1940s, while Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bardot later supplied the sort of cinematic endorsement no advertising budget could manufacture. What had been designed for pliés became a shorthand for modern femininity: graceful without fragility, polished without the architectural inconvenience of a heel. at Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France Its staying power lies in that contradiction. The ballet flat is delicate but practical, prim but faintly rebellious—the shoe of a woman who has somewhere to be and no intention of arriving with sore feet. And so, with a small curtsy and considerably better arch support, here are 12 curated ballet flats ready to take their turn in the spotlight. ANCIENT GREEK SANDALS Iro PVC Ballet Flats JavaScript is currently disabled in this browser. Reactivate it to view this content. ANCIENT GREEK SANDALS I...

Growing up Korean, ramyeon was the reliable quick meal: intensely satisfying, reliably filling, and unlikely to leave much of a dent in the bank account. It was a cheap thrill, the sort of thing we were regularly warned was not particularly healthy while continuing to keep it stocked in nearly every Korean home. That contradiction was built into its history. Korean ramyeon was introduced in 1963, with government financing, as one possible response to South Korea’s severe postwar food shortage. Ceramic bowl was wheel-thrown and glazed by me. Once regarded largely as budget food, ramyeon now commands a global following that could almost compete with BTS. ARMY, please hold the hate mail. Pasta al tonno may not share ramyeon’s austere, mission-driven origin, but it occupies a similarly dependable place in many Italian kitchens, particularly among younger cooks and college students. It is quick, inexpensive, and deeply satisfying without putting an unnecessary dent in the wallet. Humble ...