Oliver Hayes

The Guest List Changed. The Party Didn’t. Somewhere in Atlanta, Carol and Willie Fowler were looking at a bill for a wedding that no longer existed. Their daughter, Tamara, had called off her engagement, leaving the couple holding a fully paid reservation with no ceremony to fill it. Instead of arguing with a caterer over … Read more

The City Whose Colors Belong to One Man Most people who photograph San Francisco’s Victorian streetscapes assume they’re looking at something that evolved gradually, a happy accident of neighborhood taste accumulated over generations. The vivid corals and sage greens, the gold trim, the contrasting window frames: surely these color combinations grew out of the Victorian … Read more

The Ant That Chose Not to Fight Solenopsis invicta, the red imported fire ant, is colonial, territorial, and equipped with a sting that sends larger animals retreating. So the last thing you would expect from a young fire ant, confronted by a rival worker, is absolutely nothing. Yet that is precisely what happens. The juvenile … Read more

The Costume Came From the Stage, Not the Sword Picture a ninja: black hood, black tunic, dropping from a rooftop at midnight. That image is a costume choice, not a combat uniform. During Japan’s Edo period (1603-1867), Kabuki stagehands known as kuroko dressed entirely in black to signal that the audience shouldn’t be watching them, … Read more

A Routine Oil Change Audrey McKnight drove her 2006 Hyundai into Holmes Hyundai in Iowa for the kind of appointment that barely registers on a calendar: an oil change. The car had 21,000 miles (33,800 km) on it, she still owed $7,600 on the loan, and her monthly payment was $329. This was supposed to … Read more

More Stuff, Less Happy A new car promises a smoother commute. A bigger apartment promises room to breathe. The latest phone promises something too, even if it’s hard to say what. Most people have felt the pull of a purchase that seems like it will settle something inside them. Tim Kasser, a psychologist who spent … Read more

The Fittest Band in Rock History (For One Afternoon) Picture the Beatles in the spring of 1965: room service breakfasts, cigarettes between takes, and by their own later admission, frequent marijuana use on the set of “Help!” Nobody in that lineup was training for anything. So here’s the part that doesn’t fit: on one specific … Read more

Life, Liberty, and… Free Markets? Somewhere in the Library of Congress sits a 35mm print of a 20-minute Technicolor cartoon from 1954. Its title is It’s Everybody’s Business, and its argument is that the American Bill of Rights and free-market capitalism are not simply compatible but are, at root, the same idea expressed in two … Read more

What If Gotham Called the Wrong Number? The Bat-Signal is one of fiction’s most instantly readable symbols. A city under siege, a searchlight aimed at the clouds, and somewhere in the dark, a protector takes notice. Since its first appearance in Detective Comics #60 in February 1942, that emblem has meant one thing: help is … Read more

The Windows Too Small for a Head, Just Right for a Bottle Walk through central Florence slowly enough and you’ll notice them: small stone-framed openings set into old palace walls, usually chest-high, about the size of a large hardcover book. Some still have tiny wooden shutters. Most people walk right past. That size, cut into … Read more