Where “Shake Yoga” Can Take You

Here’s a story I did for the New York Times about a bestselling book in Japan that promises–through the magic of thigh-based jiggling–to have you doing the splits in a month’s time.  The book was written by a yoga teacher in Osaka, Japan who’s been dubbed The Queen of the Splits. (One reader responded on the Times’s website, “Next month in the New York Times: ‘A Sharp Spike in Groin Injuries Seen in Emergency Rooms Across the Country.'”)

Naked Dinner (and I do not speak metaphorically)

“Henry,” you’ve probably found yourself thinking, “did you and your boyfriend Greg, on your recent trip to Paris, happen to visit Paris’s first nudist restaurant?” Why, yes, yes we did. (And subsequent thanks to subsequent shoutouts from Boing Boing , editor Sam Sifton and climate change reporter John Schwartz.)

Total Recall

For a few years now, I’ve been wishing that acquaintances came with their own “Previously on this series…” trailers. So I was glad to have the chance to read two books about how to ward off dementia, and to test drive them. My story from the New York Times.

Getting Shirty with It

I’m honored that a tiny part of the New Yorker’s current “World Changers” issue is devoted to my tangles with the UNTUCKit shirt empire. (I’m not implying that I’m–or that UNTUCKit–is changing the world. I’m merely marveling at the admirable open-mindedness on display when you include a story about shirttail length along with ones about maternal mortality in Sierra Leone and internet celebrities in China.)

My Dad, the Car

What if the Artificial Intelligence voice in your car were your father’s–or someone very much like his? My humor piece from this week’s New Yorker.

The Bore War

-I recently read seven of the new or newish books about boredom (apparently we are in the midst of a literary “boredom boom”) and was not bored. No, wait. I was a tiny bit bored. Not for long, though. My story from the New York Times.

Recent-ish

-I recently reviewed the darkly comic novel “The Last Laugh,” by Lynn Freed, for the New York Times Book Review. Opa! (It’s set in Greece).

-The Colin McEnroe Show, the great public radio show out of Connecticut, had me on for their retrospective of the six-month-old Trump presidency.

-Various new organizations allow you to interact with refugees. What should we keep in mind when interacting with these folks? Like, do they want to be called “refugees,” or is that term distasteful to them? My article.

Cookie Monster on the Dole

Here’s a New Yorker humor piece I did in which I imagine what unemployment will look like for a certain Muppet.

Reaching out/Not reaching out

-The new “anti self-help” literary genre is full of profanity, for fuck’s sake!

-Here’s a Times story I did about all the new street preachers and huggers-without-portfolio that I’ve seen popping up on the streets post-election. If restaurants and stores can pop up, why can’t the helping professions?

-Emma McGowan at The Bustle asked me if you should “friend” a hook-up or one night stand on Facebook. No.

Recent-ish work

-This was insanely fun to do: I got to make a video for Vanity Fair called The Donald Trump Holiday Gift Guide.

-Here’s a Times column about the etiquette of co-working spaces (public offices in which you can rent deskspace)

-Some radio radio: I talked to Lynne Rossetto Kasper at The Splendid Table about getting conversations started at holiday gatherings, to the eponym of The Colin McEnroe Show about dealing with a–holes, and to Piya Chattopadhyay at Out in the Open about how to talk to relatives and colleagues during these charged political times