The Outline

Culture

Culture
Culture Apr 03

Unfair trade

Coursing through the veins of the modern world and the modern subject alike, coffee is the spirit of exploitation in brewed form.

Culture Apr 02

Transfixed by Scott Stapp’s big Christian energy

The Creed frontman offered a model of religious ostentatiousness for believers and nonbelievers alike.

Culture Apr 02

Hanging on the telephone

The pandemic has turned our social lives into software.

Culture Apr 01

Masks through the ages

More and more, it seems like a good idea to wear a mask when you go out in public. Here is some mask inspo for your perusal.

By Drew Millard

Culture Mar 31

Area man not Joe Biden, despite tweets to the contrary

We talked to the comedian Brandon Wardell, whose recent tweets pretending to be Joe Biden became the subject of a Russiagate-style conspiracy theory.

Culture Mar 31

The secret resistance behind the world’s most dangerous cheese

Sardinia’s casu marzu teems with maggots, and might eat through your stomach. Why can’t people stop eating it?

Culture Mar 30

Watch now: These people’s lives are ruined

Two new documentaries, ‘Tiger King’ and ‘Dark Side of the Ring: Benoit,’ probe events both unbelievably stupid and unspeakably cruel.

Culture Mar 27

What we loved this week: Digging into the many Mel Brooks, László Krasznahorkai’s infinitely winding prose, sitting under some trees

Here’s the entertainment that got us through the week of March 23, 2020.

Culture Mar 26

So what are you playing right now?

Gaming is a uniquely versatile entertainment built for staying indoors — if you can spare a moment to think about anything but current events.

Culture Mar 25

Well, at least there’s golf

Coronavirus disrupts our lives more and more each day, but I can still take comfort in golf, which has survived, almost but not quite unchanged.

Culture Mar 24

We have already reached alarming levels of bad quarantine content

While the internet offers a support system for those practicing social distancing, some celebrities can’t help but view everyone stuck at home as a captive audience.

Culture Mar 23

10 recipes for non-bakers with flour and time on their hands

Advice on taking up quarantine's hottest new hobby.

Culture Mar 23

Imagine there’s no apocalypse

Movies like Clive Barker’s ‘Nightbreed’ show how the erosion of society need not mean the erosion of our shared humanity.

Culture Mar 20

What we loved this week: Ben Affleck doing math, the British being spies, and our own podcasts

Here’s the entertainment that got us through the week of March 16, 2020.

Culture Mar 20

The Saddening

I recently discovered two things: a term from fabric dyeing about how to drain things of their vibrancy, and an old family letter. They are somewhat related.

Culture Mar 19

Fox Sports pundit Clay Travis is spreading the worst possible coronavirus advice

Reasonable Men are not helping the crisis.

Culture Mar 19

Disco inferno

A fire at one of the world's only lacquer manufacturing plants calls the future of vinyl into question.

Culture Mar 18

Release that shit

As we remain at home due to coronavirus, we’re all in desperate need of distraction — a new movie or video game would help.

Culture Mar 17

Farewell, tour

Book events are an essential opportunity for authors to promote new work, but hundreds have been canceled due to coronavirus.

Culture Mar 16

The coronavirus lockdown in Milan: “Nobody knows how long this is going to last”

It has become apparent that neither the Italian government nor the regional authority had the faintest idea of how to manage a contagion.