Illusion makes us question what we perceive to be real, what we might otherwise uncritically accept in the world as given to us. The truth o

The end of the world has been on my mind lately. In the city where I live, Seattle, this summer saw dramatic differences in the climate; for weeks the air quality was worse than in Beijing. On one occasion ash rained down from the sky, covering windows, lawn chairs and spider webs in a preternaturally grubby residue. These events were unnerving in no small part because of their baleful coincidence with the news that the current administration would be pulling out of the Paris