Linton Weeks

Long before there were online dating sites, such as eHarmony, Match or OKCupid, there was a curious offline custom in America known as New Year's Calling.

In the 19th century, young single women in New York City; Washington, D.C., and other cities and towns across the country would hold open ...

When it comes to Christmas trees, which kind of symbol do you prefer — real or artificial? In recent stat-studded news stories, Americans seem to be conflicted, but leaning toward artificiality.

On one side, the Defenders of Reality. More than 17 million real Christmas trees are harvested in the U.S. ...

Fooling the eye — with trick-niques like anamorphic sculpture, trompe l'oeil paintings and other optical illusions — is a centuries-old artistic pursuit.

From the ancient frescoes of Pompeii through Rene Magritte, M.C. Escher and Salvador Dali, certain visual experimenters have wrangled with ...

Hoodslam — a popular spectacle that is staged monthly in Oakland, Calif. — is described by the San Francisco Chronicle as "part wrestling show, part carnival act and all comedy."

The foul-mouthed, adult-humored extravaganza is raunchy and rollicking as wrestlers "battle" each other while occasionally wielding ...

Oddest thing: Thanksgiving in turn-of-the-20th century America used to look a heckuva lot like Halloween.

People — young and old — got all dressed up and staged costumed crawls through the streets. In Los Angeles, Chicago and other places around the country, newspapers ran stories of folks wearing elaborate masks ...

The old joke used to be: Who is buried in Grant's tomb?

Now it's not so funny anymore.

Recently PoliTech, a group of politically engaged students on the campus of Texas Tech University, posted a video titled "Politically Challenged — Texas Tech Edition" in which they quiz contemporary ...

When the "bride" and "groom" walk down the aisle in a Tom Thumb Wedding – as they did just a few weeks ago at the Fellowship Baptist Church on Staten Island in New York — they are:

1) Often not much taller than the backs of the church pews.

2) ...

As America enters the holiday season, chowing down at a crowded table can become a competitive experience. What was once confined to friendly wagers has blossomed into a full-blown industry.

Major League Eating, a U.S.-based group that oversees professional contests around the world, is preparing for a turkey-eating ...

For British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking — subject of a just-released biopic — being one turned his life around. American newshound Anderson Cooper was one, the Yale Daily News reports. So was photographer Lord Snowdon, former husband to Princess Margaret, according to Rowing History.

Each ...

With a peck of new tech in development, Upstart reports recently, "the dating game may never be the same."

The site makes a good case, showcasing newfangled Magnet bracelets that allow lovers to communicate via vibrations and lights, the Dorothy app that lets you ...

For Halloween 2014, the National Retail Federation predicts, some 75 million adults will put on costumes. Reuters is reporting that haunted houses for adults are in demand this year, and some 20 percent of celebrants over the age of 18 plan to visit one.

Are adults ...

Making costumes from secondhand stuff is a part of the Halloween scene in 2014, according to Goodwill. We call it boocycling.

When we posted a story about boocycling recently, we asked the LURVers — Listeners, Users, Readers, Viewers — of NPR to send us photos. They ...

The Girl Scouts organization wants s'more – members and leaders, that is.

Membership in Girl Scouts of the USA is on the decline. In the past year, according to the group's official blog, there has been a significant drop nationwide – down 400,000 girls and adults — from ...

How about we call it boocycling — putting together an adult's or child's costume using recycled, thrift-store clothing?

According to Goodwill, the favorite costumes for adult men and women this year will be zombies and pirates; for young girls, princesses, witches and fairies; and for young boys — ...

What separates Americans the most?

Race ... religion ... gender ...

According to Shanto Iyengar, a political scientist at Stanford University, often the most divisive aspect of contemporary society is: politics.

Divided We Stand

"Unlike race, gender and other social divides where group-related attitudes and behaviors are constrained ...

From the ancient Greek thinker Democritus who reportedly said, "We know nothing really; for truth lies deep down," to the recent problem-solving advice from Entrepreneur, "Assume Everything Is Wrong," we have to constantly be reminded to be skeptical. And that the one thing we do know ...

Recently the Corcoran Gallery of Art in downtown Washington – just across the street from the White House — closed its doors.

After 145 years, the venerable museum will be blended in – like paint – with the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University, two institutions that are ...

Every now and then you can see a short story come to life right in front of you.

We were on a train this week while a man in a seat nearby spoke in a voice loud enough to carry above the whoosh of the rails to a man whose ...

Americans are discovering — or rediscovering — the allure of outdoor living, according to a 2014 survey by the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Whether the instinct stems from a primordial desire to reconnect with the natural world or to disconnect from in-house clutter and chaos, people who ...

You know the look. After all, the Angry Face, according to a recent study, is pretty much the same all over the world.

"The expression is cross-culturally universal," the study's lead author Aaron Sell, a lecturer at the School of Criminology at Griffith University in Australia, said in ...