Author: Karen McCann

For inspired lunacy, it’s hard to beat the idea of a pandemic mask printed with the lower half of your very own face. We’ve spent months feeling stripped of our visual identity by surgical masks and struggling to express our personalities through face coverings of cheery print fabrics or don’t-mess-with-me dark solids; is now the…

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Winston Churchill ​I’m not much of a spelunker, but some years ago, I found myself deep underground on a private “wild tour” of West Virginia’s Organ Cave,. “How long does the tour take?” I’d asked at the outset. “Five hours.” “Sorry, we only have three; we need to…

​In sci-fi movies, it usually takes an hour and fifteen minutes for the loony but brilliant scientist to look up from the microscope, shout “ Aha! ,” and announce the breakthrough that will save the human race. In real life, after six months of feverish activity by practically every PhD on the planet, the mystery…

My face shield It’s not often I get to set a new fashion in trendy California. But having emerged from quarantine (yay!) completely symptom-free (double yay!!), Rich and I are now out and about and constantly stopped by neighbors who want to ask about our face shields. I explain they offer good protection , greater…

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” — Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of…

​How harrowing was it? I was reminded of a thriller I read when I was nineteen. This young woman is walking home from choir practice, alone, in the dark, knowing there is a vicious killer around preying on people her age. Obviously anyone with any sense would have clung to a pillar of the church…

​When I was in high school, three guys I knew took off on a cross-country hitchhiking trip in bad weather, and as they walked out the door, Sam’s dad said, “Well, if you ask me, I think you’re crazy.” That instantly became a catchphrase, and whenever anyone we knew was about to do something dubious…

Right now our front hall looks like a field hospital, cluttered with masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, and our new, most prized possessions: face shields. When we wear them, Rich and I feel like astronauts in a very, very low-budget horror movie, suiting up to leave the mothership. But the fact we can go out for…

​I don’t actually believe in jinxes, but watching WWII movies as a kid, I soon figured out that any soldier who said “When this is all over, I’m going to buy a farm…” soon became the next casualty. This made such an indelible impression on my young psyche that since then I’ve never tempted fate…

​One of the most astonishing things about America is that just when you think it has reached the limits of its own excess, that the hullabaloo and brouhaha have escalated to the ultimate crescendo and the tomfoolery has plumbed the lowest depths, it manages to surpass even itself. It’s a living embodiment of the saying,…