Archana Ram

“The book was better.” Four simple words that are absolutely delicious to say and totally annoying for the person on the other end to hear. The former gets to virtue signal that they're a heightened, erudite being because they, yes, read. The latter because, calm down, diva. You

“The extent at which you can see how other people live seems useful at worst and incredibly pleasurable and interesting at best.”—Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations There’s no other way to start a piece about Bourdain than to start with his words. He was a chef, yes—most notably

There’s something soothing about self-imposed tension and release. Like in yoga—eagle arms, a chair twist or at the end of class, when the teacher asks you to curl up into a tight ball, squeeze everything together, then let it all go into shavasana, or corpse pose. Ah, contorting

Female friendship wasn’t a go-to topic for 90s teen movies. The spectrum mostly ran from Dork and Hottie get together (see: She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You, Can’t Hardly Wait, Never Been Kissed) to Cool Kids Learn Big Lessons (see: Cruel Intentions, Clueless, Pleasantville)