Mary Townsend

Author Archive

  • Sep 18, 2025
    When I was a freshman in college, I frequently found myself in the worst kind of conversation possible, or so it seemed to me at the time. Say you have a cow. Say you cut off...
  • Aug 28, 2025
    IN MOLIÈRE’S PLAY Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, the hapless M. Jourdain, at last afforded the leisure to enjoy his new wealth, finds himself caught between warring...
  • Aug 11, 2025
    During Trump’s first term, there was a designated White House staffer whose job it was to sing: specifically, to play the sorts of songs known to calm and soothe the...
  • May 5, 2025
    The moral language of our time seems to me to be like this: an asteroid hit the other side of the planet, and the cloud is going to get you soon. However, there’s still time...