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Even the simplest things had a glorious pointlessness to them. When buttons came in, about 1650, people couldn't get enough of them and arrayed them i...more

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Presumably, a confused person would be too addled to recognize that he was confused. Ergo, if you know that you are not confused then you are not conf...more

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As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all th...more

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Imagine trying to live in a world dominated by dihydrogen oxide, a compound that has no taste or smell and is so variable in its properties that it is...more

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If you imagine the 4,500-bilion-odd years of Earth's history compressed into a normal earthly day, then life begins very early, about 4 A.M., with the...more

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I turned to my own bunk and examined it with a kind of appalled fascination. If the mattress stains were anything to go by, a previous user had not so...more

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I know a man who drives 600 yards to work. I know a woman who gets in her car to go a quarter of a mile to a college gymnasium to walk on a treadmill,...more

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Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old.

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Whatever happens in the world - whatever is discovered or created or bitterly fought over - eventually ends up, in one way or another, in your house. ...more

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For anyone of a rational disposition, fashion is often nearly impossible to fathom. Throughout many periods of history – perhaps most – it can seem as...more

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Perhaps the most irrational fashion act of all was the male habit for 150 years of wearing wigs. Samuel Pepys, as with so many things, was in the vang...more

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It was an odd situation. For a century and a half, men got rid of their own hair, which was perfectly comfortable, and instead covered their heads wit...more

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From that original colony sprang seven names that still feature on the landscape: Roanoke (which has the distinction of being the first Indian word bo...more

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Because of social strictures against even the mildest swearing, America developed a particularly rich crop of euphemistic expletives - darn, durn, gol...more

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Just a month after the completion of the Declaration of Independence, at a time when he delegates might have been expected to occupy themselves with m...more