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This Month In Sun History

Our 50^th Year Of Publication

In October 1974 The Sun, still in its infancy and called The Chapel Hill Sun, reached a milestone. Its sixth issue featured a visual element that has defined its look for nearly fifty years: a black-and-white photograph.

Local Haunts

Colin Dickey On Place And Meaning In Ghost Stories

I think every place is haunted to one degree or another. And there will always be people who have a feeling when they visit a place, or believers who will say that they’ve seen something.

Lawn Skeletons

As far as I know, the first house in the neighborhood to adopt a year-round skeleton display was a small Cape Cod a couple of blocks from me. The skeletons sat side by side, day after day, in their Adirondack chairs, holding hands as if starring in a Cialis commercial.

Television

Sneaking cartoons, escaping into a sitcom, watching the election results

Sunbeams

It’s hard for me to believe that I will die. Because I’m bubbling in a frigid freshness. My life is going to be very long because each instant is. The impression is that I’m still to be born.

Clarice Lispector, Água Viva

A Brief And Highly Subjective Appreciation Of Fifty Years Of Sun Covers

One history that especially fascinates me is The Sun’s. On the wall of my office is a calendar the magazine sent to subscribers — all forty or so of them — at the beginning of 1977. It’s outdated and nonfunctional, but I hung it there because of its . . . well, grooviness. I like the horoscope-adjacent artwork and the handmade feel. It’s very much a product of its time, the kind of thing my brother would call “crunchy.”

No Small Wonder

Dacher Keltner On The Science Of Awe

Emotions aren’t discrete bubbles. They are blending into each other all the time. You might be feeling awe and wonder at the miracle of life, and also realizing that we all die, which perhaps moves you closer to terror. In our work we try to find what’s true in it all.

A Face In Judgment

A young man stands at the lectern: nineteen years old, athletic, thick black hair down to his shoulders. I’ll call him Marco. Today my job is to decide whether to send him to prison.

A Thousand Words

A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.