An Expedition, for Art and Nature

An Expedition, for Art and Nature

They looked like peppercorns ground into the sky and then like ribbons of black silk or a stain spreading overhead. Each spring, for close to a million years, hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes converge on the Platte River Valley in central Nebraska. For roughly a month, the birds rest …

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Predicting the Oscar Nominations in a Wild and Wide-Open Season

Predicting the Oscar Nominations in a Wild and Wide-Open Season

Sometimes, when I poll Oscar voters about the films and performances they plan to nominate, they turn the tables on me. “What do you want to happen?” they ask. Maybe they’re expecting me to advocate for an underseen movie or steer them toward a performance that hasn’t gotten its flowers. …

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