The first thing you need is a voice.
One someone can fall asleep to.
Can sleep through. Words
twinkling in faint starbursts
of static. Your timbre must sotto
the way a library book smells
like the mausoleum of Erato.
You must bring a thermos—
an old metal one, dinged.
Fill it with quote-unquote
coffee but drink
slowly. Before 3, you’ll have to
say Saint-Saens without slurring.
Oh, and you’ll need to know Italian,
of course.

Over the past few decades, American parents have been pressured into making a costly wager: If they sacrifice their hobbies, interests, and friendships to devote as much time and as many resources as possible to parenting, they might be able to launch their children into a stable adulthood. While this gamble sometimes pays off, parents who give themselves over to this intensive form of child-rearing may find themselves at a loss when their children are grown and don’t need them as much.

We Mourn for All We Do Not KnowThe Federal Writers’ Project slave narratives provide a rare window into Black American heritage, Clint Smith wrote in March.I am a 63-year-old white woman. Having read some of the Federal Writers’ Project slave narratives in college, I have known about them my entire adult life.

Aviation deaths once looked like an intractable problem. Then the federal government began probing every plane crash with an eye toward preventing future loss of life. Our skies got much safer as a result. A similar approach could reduce police killings. A federal agency should investigate every single killing and significant injury caused by American police officers, who have long killed people at higher rates than cops in many other wealthy democracies.