| In today’s newsletter, a return to “primal posture,” and then:
•The urge for unruliness
•Escape from the apps
•Small-screen reading | |
| From the onset of the twentieth century, poor posture has been associated with poverty, bad health, and even civilizational decadence. But does the real problem lie elsewhere? By Rebecca Mead 
At the bottom rightof my computer screen, just out of my direct line of vision, lurks an animated scold: a cartoon giraffe named Rafi. He is the playful icon of an app called Posture Pal, which works in concert with a wearer’s AirPods to warn against slumping while sitting at a computer. So long as I keep my line of vision trained on this text, Rafi stays discreetly out of sight. The minute I rest my chin in my hand in concentration, however—let alone sneak a glance at the iPhone that lies tantalizingly close to my keyboard—a baleful Rafi pops up, eyes wide, mouth down-turned. Sit up straight! Rafi is actually less intrusive than the animated animal featured in another posture-correction desktop app, Nekoze. This one employs a computer’s camera to determine whether the user is slouching or slumping. If she is, an icon of a cat’s face pops up on her menu bar, accompanied by a surprisingly realistic meow. It’s a peculiar choice for a posture admonition: surely a meow could make a user look down at her ankles for a creature that wants feeding or petting, rather than stiffen her spine, eyes front? Then again, nobody would voluntarily install an icon of an angry drill sergeant on a personal computer. | |
| New Yorker Classics | ![Figure balancing on top of a rope, holding a sharp blade to the rope.]()
What compelled the philosopherAgnes Callard to lie down one night on the double yellow lines in the middle of the road? Where does the impulse come from to pick at scabs or sniff spoiled foods? Why did Augustine, in the year 400, steal pears just to feed them to the hogs? And how come pollsters often lie? “Perverse actions” such as these are the subject ofthis thought-provoking inquiry, from 2019, by Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology. More than mischief and not quite rebellion, perverse actions are a matter of self-determination: “The desire to exercise your autonomy might motivate you to turn against the expected, the reasonable, and the moral—to show yourself, and perhaps others, that you are free.” Framed this way, Bloom argues, “a small dose of perversity might have its benefits.” Plus:for more on the ways Agnes Callard asserts her autonomy, there isRachel Aviv’s Profileof the philosopher, from last year, which explores the outcomes for Callard of bucking convention—such as falling in love with a student, and then living with him and her ex-husband together. Callard explains to Aviv, “I’d rather keep working and searching and striving” than settle for traditional marriage. | |
| Essential Reading | ![Illustration of books and digital reading devices.]() Fault LinesWhat Phones Are Doing to ReadingReading once involved words on a page made of paper. Now, in addition to flipping pages, it means listening through headphones; scrolling grayscale screens; and tapping on apps such as Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Libby. Disorienting as this multimedia method may seem, the future of reading will be across mediums, devices, and senses. ByJay Caspian Kang |
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| | Infinite ScrollThe Dumbphone Boom Is RealThe dumbphone is making a comeback (along with stretchy choker necklaces and banana clips). Apple’s Screen Time restriction tool is too easy to ignore, so people are returning to simpler times, and companies such as Dumbwireless and Light Phone are helping them go glowing-screen free. ByKyle Chayka |
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| | | More from The New Yorker | ![Inside Kim’s Video.]() The Front RowThe Counterculture Counter Culture of Kim’s VideoA new documentary revels in the legend of the downtown rental store and seeks to recover its treasures. ByRichard Brody |
![Alain Delon]() Culture DeskCan a Film Star Be Too Good-Looking?Alain Delon and the problem of beauty. ByAnthony Lane |
| ![Green weaving with patches of yellow and red]() The Art WorldAnni Albers Transformed Weaving, Then Left It BehindHer textiles are quiet revelations, but even her later prints show how restraint can generate ravishing beauty. ByJackson Arn |
![Siv Paumgarten, Nick Paumgarten's wife, took this photo of the total solar eclipse from Mt. Mansfield, near Stowe, Vermont.]() DispatchWatching the Eclipse from the Highest Mountain in VermontPeople cracked cans of beer and smoked cannabis and popped mushroom gummies and ate smoked-meat sandwiches as totality approached at fifteen hundred miles per hour. ByNick Paumgarten |
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| | P.S. With ocean temperatures breaking recordsevery month, talk of a drinking-water crisis, and President Joe Biden scrambling to secure resources for environmental conservation, it is easy to feel disheartened about climate change. But,in this contemplative explorationof American wetlands, Annie Proulx offers hope to the hopeless, asking: “Can we become Thoreauvian enough to see wetlands as desirable landscapes that protect the earth while refreshing our joy in existence?” Finding this joy, she writes, “is central to having a life well lived.” | |
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