Updates

Cynicism - New: 2026-05-04
The Art of Living Simply and Shamelessly In the modern world, a cynic is someone who has given up on humanity, but in the ancient world, a Cynic was someone who had given up on furniture. The name …
Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age - New: 2026-05-01
In the grand tradition of human arrogance, we tend to view our cities as permanent monuments to our own brilliance, as if pouring concrete and stacking stones is enough to stop the universe from …
Basketball - Updated: 2026-05-01
If soccer is a game of chess played with feet, and football is a game of territory acquisition played with collisions, basketball is jazz played with gravity. It is the only major sport that requires …
Broomball - New: 2026-05-01
The Geometry of the Slip: A Winter Survival Strategy If ice hockey is a graceful ballet performed on knives, Broomball is a high-speed slapstick comedy performed in sneakers. It is a sport that takes …
Walter Wink - New: 2026-05-01
The Exorcist of Institutions: A Legacy of Unmasking the Powers The New Testament is surprisingly obsessed with what it calls “Principalities and Powers,” a phrase that in the modern world is usually …
Bell's - Updated: 2026-04-24
In the geography of American beer, Michigan is a holy land, and Bell’s Brewery is its cathedral. Located in Comstock (and originally Kalamazoo), Bell’s is the brewery that taught the Midwest what hops …
Academic Skepticism - New: 2026-04-20
A Discipline of the Ancient Academy In the history of human thought, there are those who build towering cathedrals of certainty, and then there are the Academic Skeptics, the people who show up to the …
Inbound BrewCo - New: 2026-03-16
A Beacon in the North Loop To enter the North Loop of Minneapolis is to walk through a landscape of architectural evolution. It is a neighborhood where the heavy, soot-stained bricks of the …
Privacy Policy - Updated: 2026-02-17
Privacy Policy for Faith and Spirits Effective Date: February 17, 2026 At Faith and Spirits (available at faithandspirits.com), the privacy of our visitors is one of our main priorities. This Privacy …
Arabic Coffee - Updated: 2026-02-17
If Western coffee is a frantic attempt to wake up before a commute, Arabic Coffee (or Qahwa) is a slow, deliberate negotiations with your own nervous system. Served in a handleless cup the size of a …
Balvenie Distillery - Updated: 2026-02-17
In an industrial age where most products are manufactured by faceless algorithms and robotic arms, The Balvenie stands as a monument to the concept of doing things the hard way. Located in Dufftown, …
Bulleit Bourbon - Updated: 2026-02-17
If you walk into a bar anywhere in the world and ask for a bourbon, there is a very high statistical probability that the bartender will reach for the bottle that looks like it was stolen from a Civil …
Cheese - Updated: 2026-02-17
At some point in human history, an adventurous ancestor looked at a pouch of milk that had curdled into a rubbery, pungent mass and thought, “I bet this would be excellent on a cracker.” Cheese is the …
Bauhaus Brew Labs - Updated: 2026-02-17
If most craft breweries look like lumberjack cabins or abandoned chemistry sets, Bauhaus Brew Labs looks like a discotheque located inside a bomber factory. Situated in the Northeast district of …
Bent Paddle - Updated: 2026-02-17
If the Twin Cities breweries are about urban “hype,” Bent Paddle is about the Great Outdoors. Based in Duluth, Minnesota, this brewery is the spiritual home for anyone who has ever strapped a canoe to …
Browar Fortuna - Updated: 2026-02-17
In a Polish beer market dominated by massive conglomerates producing endless oceans of pale Euro-lager, Browar Fortuna stands as a defiant guardian of flavor. Located in Miłosław (Greater Poland), …
Barrel Theory - Updated: 2026-02-17
In the taxonomy of craft beer, Barrel Theory Beer Company is the cooler, younger cousin who wears limited-edition sneakers and knows a guy who can get you into a secret club. Located in the Lowertown …
Summit Brewing Company - Updated: 2026-02-17
In the world of craft beer, there is a tendency to chase the shiny and new. We flock to breweries that opened last Tuesday, located in converted lofts that sell IPAs tasting vaguely of breakfast …
Elie Wiesel - Updated: 2026-02-17
A Legacy of Remembrance To speak of Elie Wiesel is to speak of the silence that follows a catastrophe, and the agonizing effort required to break it. Wiesel was not merely an author or a Nobel …
Oldest Twin Cities: A Guide to Historic Treasures - Updated: 2026-02-17
Oldest Twin Cities: The Architecture of Stubbornness In a world obsessed with the ephemeral—where luxury condos are assembled like plastic building blocks and “historic” usually refers to a tweet from …
Thai Curry - Updated: 2026-02-17
Thai Curry: The Fragrant Warfare When a proper Thai curry is born, the air in the kitchen undergoes a physical transformation. It is not merely a scent; it is an aromatic fog that settles into every …
Ranham Bowling Center - Updated: 2026-02-17
If you find yourself at the intersection of Randolph and Hamline in Saint Paul, you are standing above one of the city’s most cherished secrets. To the uninitiated, The Nook is simply a legendary …
Bowling - Updated: 2026-02-17
Bowling is perhaps the most democratic form of “athletic” competition ever devised. It is a game of controlled destruction where the objective is to use a heavy, resin-coated orb to delete ten wooden …
Garages - Updated: 2026-02-17
On paper, a garage is a utilitarian box designed to protect an internal combustion engine from the rain. But in the mythology of the modern world, the garage is something much more sacred. It is the …
Water - Updated: 2026-02-17
If you were a celestial auditor looking at the chemistry of the universe, you would flag water as a suspicious anomaly. It is a deceptively simple molecule—two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen—that …
The Test - Updated: 2026-02-17
Most horror stories involve ghosts, serial killers, or ancient curses. Sylvain Neuvel’s 2019 novella proposes a far more terrifying villain: the British citizenship application process. The Test is a …
Working Time - Updated: 2026-02-17
Working time is the measure of the portion of a human life that is sold as a commodity. It is perhaps the most contested “space” in human history—a borderland where the needs of the economy collide …
Scouting - Updated: 2026-02-17
Scouting is the world’s largest voluntary youth organization, a global conspiracy of kindness where millions of young people gather to wear neckerchiefs, tie knots, and learn how to survive in the …
Association Football (Soccer) - Updated: 2026-02-17
There is perhaps no other human activity where so many people invest so much emotional energy into a 0-0 draw. Association Football, known to most of the world simply as “football” and to a stubborn …
The Hobbit - Updated: 2026-02-17
Before Middle-earth became a place of apocalyptic wars and cinematic trilogies, it was simply a setting for a children’s story about a wealthy bachelor who forgot his pocket handkerchief. The Hobbit …
The Lord of the Rings - Updated: 2026-02-17
To call The Lord of the Rings a “fantasy novel” is a bit like calling the Atlantic Ocean “damp.” It is technically true, but it fails to capture the sheer, terrifying depth of the thing. Published in …
Sharpe - Updated: 2026-02-17
There is a distinct, muddy pleasure in watching a soldier who consistently saves the British Empire despite being constantly yelled at by his superiors. The television series Sharpe, based on Bernard …
The Lord of the Rings - Updated: 2026-02-17
For decades, J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnum opus was considered “unfilmable.” It was too vast, too dense, and contained too many trees that had strong opinions on current events. To adapt The Lord of the …
Roman Numerals - Updated: 2026-02-17
Roman Numerals are the zombies of the mathematical world: an ancient, cumbersome system that by all logic should be dead, yet continues to shamble on because we think it looks cool on cornerstones and …
Goose Island - Updated: 2026-02-17
If Chicago is the “City of Big Shoulders,” Goose Island is the brewery that put a pint in its hand. Founded in 1988 by John Hall, it began as a single brewpub in Lincoln Park at a time when “craft …
Perennial Artisan Ales - Updated: 2026-02-17
If Anheuser-Busch (the giant looming over St. Louis) is the industrial empire of beer, Perennial is the small, candle-lit laboratory in the woods. Located in the Carondelet neighborhood of South St. …
'Pataphysics - Updated: 2026-02-17
In the hierarchy of sciences, there is Physics (the study of what is), Metaphysics (the study of what might be), and finally, Pataphysics—the study of what is imaginary, unique, and entirely …
Aristotle - Updated: 2026-02-17
If philosophy were a dinner party, Plato would be the guest looking at the ceiling describing the perfect, theoretical meal, while Aristotle would be the one in the kitchen actually chopping the …
Atomism - Updated: 2026-02-17
There is a distinct comfort in the idea that, at our absolute foundation, we are merely Lego bricks with anxiety. The ancient Greeks, specifically Leucippus and his student Democritus, proposed a …
College Admissions - Updated: 2026-02-17
There is no modern ritual quite as expensive, stressful, or prone to existential dread as the American college admissions process. It is a system designed to determine the future trajectory of a …
Connecticut - Updated: 2026-02-17
Connecticut is a state that exists in a state of perpetual comparison. Tucked between the gravitational pulls of New York City and Boston, it is the “Nutmeg State”—a nickname that sounds charming …
David Roochnik - Updated: 2026-02-17
If the stereotypical philosophy professor is a dry academic lost in a fog of footnotes, David Roochnik is the antidote. As a Professor of Philosophy and the Maria Stata Professor of Classical Greek …
I, Robot - Updated: 2026-02-17
It is a common misconception that robot stories must be about chrome skeletons crushing human skulls. Isaac Asimov, a man who possessed sideburns of significant architectural integrity, proposed a …
Isaac Asimov - Updated: 2026-02-17
In the pantheon of science fiction, there are dreamers, there are poets, and then there is Isaac Asimov: a man who possessed a typewriter, a pair of mutton-chop sideburns that defied gravity, and a …
John Stuart Mill - Updated: 2026-02-17
If you were to build a philosopher in a laboratory, you would end up with John Stuart Mill. Born in 1806, Mill was the subject of a rigorous educational experiment conducted by his father, James Mill, …
Lake Monster Brewing - Updated: 2026-02-17
If you find yourself in the Midway district of Saint Paul, look for the giant, looming water tower that looks like a Cold War relic. Beneath its shadow sits Lake Monster, a brewery that operates on …
Michigan - Updated: 2026-02-17
Michigan is not so much a single state as it is a geological argument between two landmasses that agreed to share a government. It is the only state in the Union composed of two distinct peninsulas, …
Minnesota - Updated: 2026-02-17
To the uninitiated, Minnesota is simply a large, rectangular-ish block of ice located somewhere between Canada and relevance. To those who live there, it is a high-stakes experiment in human endurance …
Plato - Updated: 2026-02-17
If all of Western philosophy is, as Alfred North Whitehead famously suggested, “a series of footnotes to Plato,” then Plato is the author who wrote the original textbook and then hid it in a cave. …
Retrieving the Ancients: An Introduction to Greek Philosophy - Updated: 2026-02-17
To the uninitiated, Ancient Greek philosophy often feels like walking into a room where everyone has been arguing for two thousand years and they are all shouting in a language you don’t speak about …
Rhode Island - Updated: 2026-02-17
Rhode Island is the “Little Engine That Could” of the American experiment. It is a state so small that you can drive across it in the time it takes to listen to a long podcast, yet it possesses an ego …
South Carolina - Updated: 2026-02-17
South Carolina is a state wrapped in a paradox: it is the capital of genteel Southern manners, yet it has a history of starting fights that change the course of the nation. It is the “Palmetto State,” …
Thích Nhất Hạnh - Updated: 2026-02-17
It is a rare individual who can be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. and still maintain the quiet demeanor of someone who is just really good at washing dishes. Thích Nhất …
Utilitarianism - Updated: 2026-02-17
Utilitarianism is the “Spreadsheet of Morality.” It is a consequentialist philosophy, which means it doesn’t care about your intentions, your prayers, or your “good heart.” It only cares about the …
Wisconsin - Updated: 2026-02-17
Wisconsin is a state that has turned “having a good time” into a form of civic duty. Known as “America’s Dairyland,” it is a place where the cows are treated like royalty, the winters are treated like …
Elie Wiesel - New: 2026-02-16
A Legacy of Remembrance To speak of Elie Wiesel is to speak of the silence that follows a catastrophe, and the agonizing effort required to break it. Wiesel was not merely an author or a Nobel …
Oldest Twin Cities: A Guide to Historic Treasures - New: 2026-01-30
Oldest Twin Cities: The Architecture of Stubbornness In a world obsessed with the ephemeral—where luxury condos are assembled like plastic building blocks and “historic” usually refers to a tweet from …
Thai Curry - New: 2026-01-24
Thai Curry: The Fragrant Warfare When a proper Thai curry is born, the air in the kitchen undergoes a physical transformation. It is not merely a scent; it is an aromatic fog that settles into every …
Privacy Policy - New: 2026-01-23
Privacy Policy for Faith and Spirits Effective Date: February 17, 2026 At Faith and Spirits (available at faithandspirits.com), the privacy of our visitors is one of our main priorities. This Privacy …
About - New: 2026-01-23
Faith and Spirits: An Eccentric Logbook Welcome to Faith and Spirits, a digital commonplace book and structured archive of intellectual and sensory exploration. The name is a playful subversion of the …
Ranham Bowling Center - New: 2026-01-09
If you find yourself at the intersection of Randolph and Hamline in Saint Paul, you are standing above one of the city’s most cherished secrets. To the uninitiated, The Nook is simply a legendary …
Bowling - New: 2026-01-09
Bowling is perhaps the most democratic form of “athletic” competition ever devised. It is a game of controlled destruction where the objective is to use a heavy, resin-coated orb to delete ten wooden …
Garages - New: 2026-01-08
On paper, a garage is a utilitarian box designed to protect an internal combustion engine from the rain. But in the mythology of the modern world, the garage is something much more sacred. It is the …
Water - New: 2026-01-07
If you were a celestial auditor looking at the chemistry of the universe, you would flag water as a suspicious anomaly. It is a deceptively simple molecule—two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen—that …
Bauhaus Brew Labs - New: 2025-11-16
If most craft breweries look like lumberjack cabins or abandoned chemistry sets, Bauhaus Brew Labs looks like a discotheque located inside a bomber factory. Situated in the Northeast district of …
The Test - New: 2025-11-15
Most horror stories involve ghosts, serial killers, or ancient curses. Sylvain Neuvel’s 2019 novella proposes a far more terrifying villain: the British citizenship application process. The Test is a …
Working Time - New: 2025-10-17
Working time is the measure of the portion of a human life that is sold as a commodity. It is perhaps the most contested “space” in human history—a borderland where the needs of the economy collide …
Scouting - New: 2025-10-17
Scouting is the world’s largest voluntary youth organization, a global conspiracy of kindness where millions of young people gather to wear neckerchiefs, tie knots, and learn how to survive in the …
Basketball - New: 2025-10-17
If soccer is a game of chess played with feet, and football is a game of territory acquisition played with collisions, basketball is jazz played with gravity. It is the only major sport that requires …
Association Football (Soccer) - New: 2025-10-17
There is perhaps no other human activity where so many people invest so much emotional energy into a 0-0 draw. Association Football, known to most of the world simply as “football” and to a stubborn …
The Hobbit - New: 2025-10-17
Before Middle-earth became a place of apocalyptic wars and cinematic trilogies, it was simply a setting for a children’s story about a wealthy bachelor who forgot his pocket handkerchief. The Hobbit …
The Lord of the Rings - New: 2025-10-17
To call The Lord of the Rings a “fantasy novel” is a bit like calling the Atlantic Ocean “damp.” It is technically true, but it fails to capture the sheer, terrifying depth of the thing. Published in …
Sharpe - New: 2025-10-17
There is a distinct, muddy pleasure in watching a soldier who consistently saves the British Empire despite being constantly yelled at by his superiors. The television series Sharpe, based on Bernard …
The Lord of the Rings - New: 2025-10-17
For decades, J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnum opus was considered “unfilmable.” It was too vast, too dense, and contained too many trees that had strong opinions on current events. To adapt The Lord of the …
Bell's - New: 2025-10-16
In the geography of American beer, Michigan is a holy land, and Bell’s Brewery is its cathedral. Located in Comstock (and originally Kalamazoo), Bell’s is the brewery that taught the Midwest what hops …
Bent Paddle - New: 2025-09-13
If the Twin Cities breweries are about urban “hype,” Bent Paddle is about the Great Outdoors. Based in Duluth, Minnesota, this brewery is the spiritual home for anyone who has ever strapped a canoe to …
Roman Numerals - New: 2025-09-13
Roman Numerals are the zombies of the mathematical world: an ancient, cumbersome system that by all logic should be dead, yet continues to shamble on because we think it looks cool on cornerstones and …
Browar Fortuna - New: 2025-08-23
In a Polish beer market dominated by massive conglomerates producing endless oceans of pale Euro-lager, Browar Fortuna stands as a defiant guardian of flavor. Located in Miłosław (Greater Poland), …
Goose Island - New: 2025-08-23
If Chicago is the “City of Big Shoulders,” Goose Island is the brewery that put a pint in its hand. Founded in 1988 by John Hall, it began as a single brewpub in Lincoln Park at a time when “craft …
Perennial Artisan Ales - New: 2025-08-23
If Anheuser-Busch (the giant looming over St. Louis) is the industrial empire of beer, Perennial is the small, candle-lit laboratory in the woods. Located in the Carondelet neighborhood of South St. …
Arabic Coffee - New: 2025-05-03
If Western coffee is a frantic attempt to wake up before a commute, Arabic Coffee (or Qahwa) is a slow, deliberate negotiations with your own nervous system. Served in a handleless cup the size of a …
Balvenie Distillery - New: 2025-05-03
In an industrial age where most products are manufactured by faceless algorithms and robotic arms, The Balvenie stands as a monument to the concept of doing things the hard way. Located in Dufftown, …
Barrel Theory - New: 2025-03-16
In the taxonomy of craft beer, Barrel Theory Beer Company is the cooler, younger cousin who wears limited-edition sneakers and knows a guy who can get you into a secret club. Located in the Lowertown …
'Pataphysics - New: 2025-03-16
In the hierarchy of sciences, there is Physics (the study of what is), Metaphysics (the study of what might be), and finally, Pataphysics—the study of what is imaginary, unique, and entirely …
Aristotle - New: 2025-03-16
If philosophy were a dinner party, Plato would be the guest looking at the ceiling describing the perfect, theoretical meal, while Aristotle would be the one in the kitchen actually chopping the …
Atomism - New: 2025-03-16
There is a distinct comfort in the idea that, at our absolute foundation, we are merely Lego bricks with anxiety. The ancient Greeks, specifically Leucippus and his student Democritus, proposed a …
Bulleit Bourbon - New: 2025-03-16
If you walk into a bar anywhere in the world and ask for a bourbon, there is a very high statistical probability that the bartender will reach for the bottle that looks like it was stolen from a Civil …
Cheese - New: 2025-03-16
At some point in human history, an adventurous ancestor looked at a pouch of milk that had curdled into a rubbery, pungent mass and thought, “I bet this would be excellent on a cracker.” Cheese is the …
College Admissions - New: 2025-03-16
There is no modern ritual quite as expensive, stressful, or prone to existential dread as the American college admissions process. It is a system designed to determine the future trajectory of a …
Connecticut - New: 2025-03-16
Connecticut is a state that exists in a state of perpetual comparison. Tucked between the gravitational pulls of New York City and Boston, it is the “Nutmeg State”—a nickname that sounds charming …
David Roochnik - New: 2025-03-16
If the stereotypical philosophy professor is a dry academic lost in a fog of footnotes, David Roochnik is the antidote. As a Professor of Philosophy and the Maria Stata Professor of Classical Greek …
I, Robot - New: 2025-03-16
It is a common misconception that robot stories must be about chrome skeletons crushing human skulls. Isaac Asimov, a man who possessed sideburns of significant architectural integrity, proposed a …
Isaac Asimov - New: 2025-03-16
In the pantheon of science fiction, there are dreamers, there are poets, and then there is Isaac Asimov: a man who possessed a typewriter, a pair of mutton-chop sideburns that defied gravity, and a …
John Stuart Mill - New: 2025-03-16
If you were to build a philosopher in a laboratory, you would end up with John Stuart Mill. Born in 1806, Mill was the subject of a rigorous educational experiment conducted by his father, James Mill, …
Lake Monster Brewing - New: 2025-03-16
If you find yourself in the Midway district of Saint Paul, look for the giant, looming water tower that looks like a Cold War relic. Beneath its shadow sits Lake Monster, a brewery that operates on …
Michigan - New: 2025-03-16
Michigan is not so much a single state as it is a geological argument between two landmasses that agreed to share a government. It is the only state in the Union composed of two distinct peninsulas, …
Minnesota - New: 2025-03-16
To the uninitiated, Minnesota is simply a large, rectangular-ish block of ice located somewhere between Canada and relevance. To those who live there, it is a high-stakes experiment in human endurance …
Plato - New: 2025-03-16
If all of Western philosophy is, as Alfred North Whitehead famously suggested, “a series of footnotes to Plato,” then Plato is the author who wrote the original textbook and then hid it in a cave. …
Retrieving the Ancients: An Introduction to Greek Philosophy - New: 2025-03-16
To the uninitiated, Ancient Greek philosophy often feels like walking into a room where everyone has been arguing for two thousand years and they are all shouting in a language you don’t speak about …
Rhode Island - New: 2025-03-16
Rhode Island is the “Little Engine That Could” of the American experiment. It is a state so small that you can drive across it in the time it takes to listen to a long podcast, yet it possesses an ego …
South Carolina - New: 2025-03-16
South Carolina is a state wrapped in a paradox: it is the capital of genteel Southern manners, yet it has a history of starting fights that change the course of the nation. It is the “Palmetto State,” …
Summit Brewing Company - New: 2025-03-16
In the world of craft beer, there is a tendency to chase the shiny and new. We flock to breweries that opened last Tuesday, located in converted lofts that sell IPAs tasting vaguely of breakfast …
Thích Nhất Hạnh - New: 2025-03-16
It is a rare individual who can be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. and still maintain the quiet demeanor of someone who is just really good at washing dishes. Thích Nhất …
Utilitarianism - New: 2025-03-16
Utilitarianism is the “Spreadsheet of Morality.” It is a consequentialist philosophy, which means it doesn’t care about your intentions, your prayers, or your “good heart.” It only cares about the …
Wisconsin - New: 2025-03-16
Wisconsin is a state that has turned “having a good time” into a form of civic duty. Known as “America’s Dairyland,” it is a place where the cows are treated like royalty, the winters are treated like …