Missguided’s Babe Power is the fastest-selling female fragrance of 2017 B abe Power is the fastest-selling female fragrance of 2017 . It comes in an 80ml rose gold “can”, costs £28 and claims to smell of absinthe, moss and candy floss. It’s the honk of the candy floss that stays with you, though,…

The Weird Brilliance of Joaquin Phoenix

all have the same advice

As a summertime service for readers of the editorial pages who may wish someday to write for them, here’s a list of things I’ve learned over the years as an editor, op-ed writer and columnist. 1) A wise editor once observed that the easiest decision a reader can make is to stop reading. This means…

In Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous essay on self-reliance, the 19th-century writer and naturalist sang the praises of spiritual isolation and the evils of distraction, bemoaning the forces that conspired to direct his attention to "emphatic trifles." He would not be cowed, he said, but would stand…

The first voice you hear on the recording is mine. “Here we are,” I say. My tone is cheerful, but a catch in my throat betrays how nervous I am. Then, a little grandly, I pronounce my father’s name: “John James Vlahos.” “Esquire,” a second voice on the recording chimes in, and this one…

The Google engineer who was fired last week over his memo wrote that most women were biologically unsuited to working in tech because they were more focused on “feelings and aesthetics than ideas” and had “a stronger interest in people rather than things.” Many scientists have said he got the…

Clockwise from top left: Nichelle Tramble Spellman, D.B. Weiss, Malcolm Spellman, David Benioff Photo: Getty Images Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are no strangers to controversy, be it serious (questions about the show’s handling of sexual violence) or trivial (Ed Sheeran…

Pioneers of sound (left to right): George Philip Wright, Jon Eades and Siavash Mahdavi at Abbey Road Studios, London.Photograph: Sonja Horsman for the Observer F r om Elgar to Adele, and the Beatles or Pink Floyd to Kanye West, London’s Abbey Road Studios has hosted a storied list of musical stars…

remembers Sam Shepard

The label’s become too big to be useful, and tech could suffer for it. Quick: What do an auto leasing provider, a condiment company and the producers of a serious TV drama have in common? If your answer is “almost nothing”, then you’re right. If your answer is “they have such similar roles in…

Sports Running Winner Kilian Jornet, 29, greeted the last finisher, Robert Andrulis, who took nearly 48 hours to finish the 100.5-mile course Daniel Petty, Special to The Denver Post Robert Andrulis gets a hug after being the last finisher of the Hardrock 100 endurance run through the San Juan…

Tony Fadell’s wife likes to remind him when their three children’s eyes are glued to their screens that it’s at least partly his fault. Hard to argue. Fadell , who founded the smart thermostat company Nest in 2010 and who was instrumental in the creation of both the iPod and later the iPhone as a…

The Taylor Report, the UK government’s recent major review of modern work , paid particular attention to the “gig economy”. This is the idea that the traditional model of work – where people often have a clear career progression and a job for life – has been upended. It encompasses “self-employed”…

This week, a new startup called Brandless started selling a mix of household goods and food online with the goal of changing consumption habits and making quality food affordable . As the name suggests, Brandless is trying to emphasize the products it sells rather than the brand itself. But creating…

Going for a jog? That question used to make my blood boil. No, I am not going for a “jog”, I do not jog, I run, I would say. I am a Runner. Running was serious, dynamic, intentional, a permanent state. Jogging was something other people did. Occasionally, slowly, and wearing heavy duty cotton. God,…

Malcolm Gladwell , known for his deep inquiries into how the social sciences impact our day-to-day lives, recently sat down for a talk with Adam Grant , a Wharton psychology professor whose latest book, Originals, deals with the character traits that foster creative success. In this conversation, at…

Like "homecoming" and "curfew", "popular" is one of those words we tend to associate with high school; and understandably so, since that's the era of our lives when social status can be a daily crushing concern. But even in the thick of those angsty teenage years, you probably sensed that there was…

Strunk Rule: Omit needless words Trump Rule: No word is needless. They’re all great! Terrific! They’re fantastic words! I know about fantastic words! On Day One, we will begin working on an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful southern border wall. We will use the best technology,…

Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage?

The Committee on Moral Books (1866) by Jehan-Georges Vibert. Courtesy Wikipedia We’ve done it. You probably have, too. No matter what we believe about morality or politics, we’ve all used moral talk to project an impressive and morally respectable image of ourselves. Suppose, for instance, that one…

(And why you should too) As I write this it’s the first week of May, and there’s an energetic buzz in the air — because it means that Summer Hours are about to start here at Basecamp. The description of Summer Hours in our employee handbook is simple: During summer, we work 4-day work weeks, aka…

Master of None , which just returned for an impeccable second season, is a stylish, studied comedy about identity, self-discovery, and the winding path toward fulfillment. (Not to mention pork and pasta. It’s also about those.) Although the show is an extremely personal expression from creators Aziz…

When Dwayne Johnson meets you (and I can assure you, he would love to), the first thing he will do is ask you six thousand questions about yourself, and remember the answers forever. If you are a child, good luck getting past Dwayne Johnson without a high five or some simulated roughhousing; if…

F or me, Brexit fell from the sky. On the night of 23 June last year, while the referendum count was in progress, I was flying home from an Observer job in New York. When we took off from JFK the pilot, in his measured British Airways tones, mentioned that several people had been asking him the…

All photos courtesy of Alex Tizon and his family 点击这里阅读中文版本 (Chinese) | Alex Tizon passed away in March. He was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and the author of Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self . For more about Alex, please see this editor’s note . T he ashes filled a black plastic…

Ambling onto the Art Deco set of “The Tonight Show” for his monologue rehearsal one Monday afternoon, Jimmy Fallon gave the crowd here at Studio 6B a warm, practiced welcome before trying out a new batch of jokes about the French election, the pop star Harry Styles and President Trump’s definitions…

Who doesn ’t want to be more efficient? Pay someone else to do your grocery shopping — and clean your house, walk your dog, take that package to the post office. Blend your food so you don’t have to spend time chewing it. Don’t waste time remembering to buy toilet paper; just sign up for an Amazon…

PARIS — Last month, the face of Marine Le Pen appeared on my computer screen. The headline under the picture read, “Marine Le Pen in Round 2.” The leader of France’s far-right National Front, she had advanced to a runoff vote in the presidential election. I immediately thought of my father, a…

Think of it as Airbnb for refugees, quips Robina Qureshi. It’s a simple premise: people with a spare room in their house are matched with a refugee or asylum seeker in need of somewhere to stay. And it’s a popular one: before 2015, Qureshi’s organisation, called Positive Action in Housing (PAIH),…

It was only 11 years ago that Jack Dorsey first sent a message via the experimental messaging platform that would be known as Twitter. He thought of it as a real-time status tool—a kind of smoke signal that would let your friends know where you were, what was on your mind, and whether you hiccuped.…

As he approaches his hundredth day in office, Donald Trump appears to be suffering—once again—from an acute case of presidential status anxiety. In public, of course, he has labored to play it cool, strenuously insisting (and insisting , and insisting ) that he does not care about the “first hundred…

Credit Illustration by T.S. Abe for The New York Times By SAN FRANCISCO — Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, visited Apple’s headquarters in early 2015 to meet with Timothy D. Cook, who runs the iPhone maker. It was a session that Mr. Kalanick was dreading. For months, Mr. Kalanick had…

Photo by Joshua Ness A growing number of people feel like an old carton of milk, with an expiration date stamped on their wrinkled foreheads. One paradox of our time is that Baby Boomers enjoy better health than ever, remain young and stay in the workplace longer, but feel less and less relevant.…

On “DAMN.,” he’s drawn to the idea of being judged by what we leave behind. Illustration by Kristian Hammerstad At some point during 2015, Kendrick Lamar came to seem like much more than a rapper. One of his best songs, “Alright,” was adopted by the Black Lives Matter movement as an informal anthem;…

(Dan Evans Illustration) For more than a decade and a half, the Fast & Furious franchise has ripped, roared, and pressed every last NOS button on its way to action-franchise preeminence. To mark the release of The Fate of the Furious , the series’ eighth installment, we’re declaring it Fast 8 Week .…

How to make the most of your workday

‘Last year, Impossible Foods debuted its veggie burger that bleeds.’Photograph: Evan Sung/Impossible Foods S ome of the most anticipated and iconic promises of the future have come up empty. There are no flying cars, interstellar teleporters, floating hoverboards, or fully functional, live-in…

“Being a black woman writer is not a shallow place to write from,” Morrison says. “It doesn’t limit my imagination; it expands it.” Photograph by Richard Avedon No. 2245 Elyria Avenue in Lorain, Ohio, is a two-story frame house surrounded by look-alikes. Its small front porch is littered with the…

Biden in Washington on Dec. 14. Credit Erik Madigan Heck for The New York Times J oe Biden’s personal compartment on the modified Boeing 757 that serves as Air Force Two had the feel of a motel manager’s office equipped with state-of-the-art communications gear. The room held a little black couch…