Friend 1: “Can I call you a WASP or is that offensive?”
Friend 2: “You may. Why?”
Friend 1: “You’ll see. It’s for a bit.”
Overheard over text
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Lebensmittel
“Ha! You’ve done it! He’s clueless, blissfully unaware that you’re American, that you call the metro a Subway and practiced active-shooter drills in middle school.”
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It’s in Your Body
“Regardless of race, Americanness is still in your body. I can’t spot the distinction as well as, say, the Dominican-born jewelry vendor who could tell that my immigrant father was American. But I’ve seen some differences.”
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Bienvenidos (go home)
The pilot gave all of the instructions twice, once in English and once in Spanish. I had never heard “amarre el cinturón de seguridad” from that crackling airplane speaker. It was so much like just flying to a different state, but it was something new once I looked down at the bright blue ocean.…
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Opera-Italian
“I speak a sort of poetic Italian and German,” I tell people. “I could tell you the word for ‘woman’ or ‘flower’ or ‘moon’ (the classic subjects of opera and art song) but not ask you for the check.”
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Nass Recommends: Turandot
“I wasn’t aware that an opera house had nosebleeds, but here was my introduction. My eye was trained on that little screen for longer than the stage.”
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Mom and Dad are Splitting Up: Full Design
The Nass goes to the opera, joins crew, and participates in other mildly psychosexual activities.
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I Sit, Soulless
“The East Coast rain—an element that had nourished my roots and sprung me into being—suddenly felt heavy. I was no longer wet behind the ears.”
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Rock Stacking and Doom Scrolling, On Repeat
A Nass contributor evades the limits of time, on a remote sandbar in Maine and on YouTube Shorts.
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Jennifer Weiner’s Roots in the Nass
A New York Times Bestselling author shares how the Nass’s spirit of journalistic curiosity accelerated her creative practice
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Dead Phone
People in the New Jersey Transit Newark Liberty International Airport Train Station bound for New York City: A man with blood on his face drinking Starbucks and A woman asking Starbucks blood man which side goes to Penn Station, swinging a Louis Vuitton bag with a supremely veined hand in front of A woman with…
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Nass Dispatch: Rowing Camp Chronicles
A Nass editor abroad reflects on a decidedly unNass-like pastime.
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Say It Like You Mean It With Your Fists for Once
A Nass writer says it like he means it with his fists for once
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This week we’ve got so much to say and only twentyy pages of magazine to fill so let’s just leave it at “GO!”: Full Design
The Nass doesn’t have the time/space for introductions, so, this week, we get right into it.