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Such restricted movement between work and home is a problem, Oldenburg claims, because “social well-being and psychological health depend upon community. It is no coincidence that the ‘helping professions’ became a major industry in the United States as suburban planning helped destroy local public…

This is why reality television is often so unsatisfying. We know it is, so we try to fix the problem of our unsatisfaction by consuming more of it. Shields says that this results from two simultaneous conditions of being: as a culture, we are, he claims, both “desperate for authenticity and in love…

These questions help to focus attention on the narrator’s brother’s ambitions. Sonny explains that playing jazz is “the only thing” he wants to do[9]—the only thing that excites and compels him enough to keep him away from more destructive forces, namely heroin. His brother is opposed to the idea b…

I said before that jamming with those mystery musicians in Asheville was like conversation, like talking. This is because, though we were strangers and hadn’t met before, we already spoke the same language, to the point of being able to comfortably improvise and embellish upon each other’s uses of …

On it went. We’d seen no cars approach and had no idea where they came from, these improvisatory ghosts. They sprang up out of the night, armed with a knowledge of our chords and our songs or, at least, enough skill to quickly piece it all together and join right in. I played a Gillian Welch song. …