Three days after San Francisco’s shelter-in-place order went into effect in March 2020, I called a complete stranger out of the blue and asked her if she’d like to talk. I’d been assigned to call Sukari, aged 84, through a local nonprofit called My Life, My Stories. Calling strangers is not my strong suit; I’ve often said I would be terrible at a sales job, wary of imposing on anyone and wasting their time.

When a mass shooting happens, survivors often describe an initial confusion over the sounds they’re hearing—are they fireworks? A car backfiring? Or is it that final option, the one that all of us dread?

In June 1906, Mark Twain wrote in a letter to his friend William Dean Howells, “I have been dictating some fearful things, for 4 successive mornings—for no eye but yours to see until I have been dead a century—if then. But I got them out of my system, where they have been festering for years—& that was the main thing. I feel better, now.”

I met my Christmas prince on Bumble, of all places. I wouldn’t exactly say it was love at first swipe—I would, however, say it was true love at first swipe. Under “occupation,” he wrote, “Prince of Madelvia, King of Your Heart.” I had no idea where Madelvia was, but I didn’t care. I was already head over heels.

On January 8, more than 15 gun violence survivors joined us to mark the eight-year anniversary of the Tucson shooting in which six people died and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was injured, and to preview the announcement of H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act. “It’s been a long, hard haul but I’m getting better,” said Congresswoman Giffords. “I’m still fighting to make the world a better place.”

When the yacht showed up at our island the first time, we thought, Hurray, we’ve been saved! And then out came the cameras. And the microphones. “You’re going to be even more famous than Elvis,” one of the producers told us. Every night, when they sail back to Kauai, the producers give us some excuse about why they can’t bring us with them, like, “We’re short one life jacket.” I’m as big a proponent of nautical safety as the next guy, but this seems a little extreme.

In 1856, Mary Ann Brown Patten became the first woman to command a US merchant vessel. She navigated the clipper ship Neptune’s Car safely into the port of San Francisco while 19 and pregnant, all the while caring for her bedridden husband, Captain Joshua Patten.

As Mildred Hayes approaches her abusive ex-husband in a crowded restaurant, the camera closes in on her fingers wrapped around the neck of the wine bottle she’s carrying. The viewer waits with apprehension and glee for Mildred to smash it over his head. This is, after all, the woman who drilled a hole in the thumb of her dentist; the woman whose daughter was raped and murdered, a crime which seemed to generate only slight consternation on the part of the local police department; the woman who’s just learned of a fresh act of betrayal by her physically abusive ex, dating a woman half his age.

The man sits on a yacht in the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by three bikini-clad women who are vying for his attention. Pillows with green and blue diamond patterns line the back row of the boat where the man sits, watching the blonde woman strip for him. He holds a drink in his hands and wears short swimming trunks with flowers on them, a winking nod to femininity that serves to gently offset the uber masculinity of the rest of him.

When I took my first improv class in August 2013, I harbored no delusions of someday headlining comedy shows. My interest was more practical: A colleague at the Los Angeles-based startup where I worked had recently started taking the class, hoping that it would help him become quicker on his feet in meetings.

I know what you’re thinking: What, exactly, is a boxcar, and why are children living in it? Has anyone called Child Protective Services? First off, apparently the whole boxcar situation is all good with their grandfather, who has a lot of money and is very kind. But let me back up. This all started when I lost one of my slippers and went onto Craigslist to find a private investigator.

PAUL RYAN: St. P! You have no idea how excited I am to meet you. I’ve been looking forward to this since my First Communion. Not dying, but you know, meeting you. It happened a little sooner than I expected, to be honest.

We’re so glad you’re thinking of joining our tech company. Actually we don’t like to think of ourselves as a company—we’re more like a family where people make a ton of money and get stock options.

I’m a little thrilled but mostly terrified to be going on tour to promote my new self-help book, Worry-Free Me: How I Learned to Stop Worrying, Embrace Uncertainty, and Do All of the Things That Used to Scare Me, and You Can Too! My publicist asked me to post my tour dates on my website, which I was hesitant to do because on the one hand I don’t actually want anyone to come to my events because then I’ll have to speak in front of them, but on the other hand I’ll be pretty embarrassed if no one comes to my events.

Apple Genius: Hi there! Welcome to the Genius Bar. My name is Sam, and I’ll be helping you out today. Can I get your names? Undercover Female Agent: I’m Carrie. Undercover Male Agent: And I’m Burt. Burt Macklin.

BUILDING MANAGER: Feel free to look around the unit, and let me know if you have any questions. Did you bring all the requisite paperwork? PROSPECTIVE TENANT: I think so. I have a renter’s résumé, a letter of recommendation from a past landlord, a copy of my recent bank statement and my credit report.

When I told a friend I was working on a project about cults, he responded cheerfully that he currently belongs to two cults. When I followed up with him to confirm the anecdote and get his permission to use it for this piece, he corrected me, and told me that he is, in fact, part of four different cults — a meditation group, an acting group, a national fitness chain, and a digital detox camp for adults.

There’s a scene toward the end of the documentary Holy Hell where Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” plays in the background as the camera cuts to close-up shots of various Buddhafield cult members. The cult members are wearing flowing fabrics, and a few have flower crowns on their heads. In some shots, the members sit cross-legged or wave their arms above their heads, as if their limbs are made of something more fluid than bone.

Jim Jones was always a con man, Laura Johnston Kohl told me recently over the phone. But when she first met Jones at a Peoples Temple service almost four decades ago, she was impressed and later swept up by the diversity and heady idealism of the community Jones shepherded. In her book, Jonestown Survivor: An Insider’s Look, Kohl describes her younger self — recently divorced and ensconced in the late-1960s San Francisco drug scene — as naive, unobservant, and idealistic. Raised by a politically

In this installment, we’ll take a look at the American cults that defined their decade. It’s no coincidence that the cults below share some defining characteristics with the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s, regardless of their own era of origin — many cults “used the language of the counterculture to draw people out of the protests into their own movements,” explains Stephen A. Kent, a sociology professor at the University of Alberta, in the 2016 documentary Deprogrammed.