The Magazine
The Money Issue
June 7, 2021
Goings On
Tables for Two
The Best Burger to Eat Right Now, at Smashed NYC
Made-to-order smash burgers—beef or vegan; single-, double-, or triple-patty—are the specialty of a new Lower East Side shop.
By Hannah Goldfield
Movies
The Personal Works of Samuel R. Delany
At MOMA, the prodigious science-fiction writer programs the “Carte Blanche” film series, including his 1971 featurette, “The Orchid.”
The Talk of the Town
Amy Davidson Sorkin on the new abortion wars; the comforting clatter of cutlery; sprucing up the library; a dad on the campaign trail; the streets come back to life.
Reboot Dept.
A Less Dingy, Less Raccoon-Infested Brooklyn Public Library
The architect Toshiko Mori, who just completed the first phase of the central branch’s redesign, lays out her vision of roof gardens and a terrace connecting the library to Mount Prospect Park and the Botanic Garden and Brooklyn Museum beyond.
By Andrew Marantz
Cheering Section
A Movie Villain on the District Attorney Campaign Trail
Stephen Lang, who plays Colonel Quaritch, the bad guy in the “Avatar” franchise, walks the streets in a sandwich board promoting his daughter Lucy Lang, a progressive prosecutor running to replace Cy Vance.
By Peter Canby
Sketchpad
Reopening Time!
New York creatures great and small are coming out of their hidey-holes.
By Ellis Rosen
Comment
The Unique Dangers of the Supreme Court’s Decision to Hear a Mississippi Abortion Case
The most pressing question now may be not whether Roe and Casey can survive but how reproductive rights can be sustained without them.
By Amy Davidson Sorkin
Café Society
Danny Meyer Wants Outdoor Dining to Save New York
The impresario behind Union Square Café and Shake Shack, appointed by Bill de Blasio to lead the city’s reopening, wants to put diners in the Museum of Modern Art’s sculpture garden.
By Eric Lach
Reporting & Essays
American Chronicles
The Death of Hahnemann Hospital
When a private-equity firm bought a Philadelphia institution, the most vulnerable patients bore the cost.
By Chris Pomorski
Letter from Silicon Valley
The Pied Piper of SPACs
Chamath Palihapitiya says that the investment tool lets ordinary people get rich off startups. It may be hype—but hype can be its own economic engine.
By Charles Duhigg
The Sporting Scene
LeBron James’s Agent Is Transforming the Business of Basketball
Rich Paul is known for driving hard bargains for star clients, giving them new power in the N.B.A.
By Isaac Chotiner
Annals of Technology
How to Negotiate with Ransomware Hackers
Kurtis Minder finds the cat-and-mouse energy of outsmarting criminal syndicates deeply satisfying.
By Rachel Monroe
Shouts & Murmurs
Fiction
The Critics
Books
The Last Battle Over Big Business
Ralph Nader, General Motors, and what we get wrong about regulation.
By Nicholas Lemann
Books
Briefly Noted
“The Haunting of Alma Fielding,” “On Violence and on Violence Against Women,” “Attrib.,” and “The Stone Loves the World.”
Podcast Dept.
“Who? Weekly” Explains the New Celebrity
Today’s stars gain status not through distance but through aggressive proximity. For five years, one podcast has been tracking their rise.
By Rachel Syme
Books
A Japanese Novelist’s Tale of Bullying and Nietzsche
In Mieko Kawakami’s “Heaven,” everyday dilemmas provide a forum for examining fundamental questions of power and morality.
By Merve Emre
Pop Music
How Olivia Rodrigo Became Pop’s Brightest New Star
On “Sour,” Rodrigo delivers eleven semisweet songs, almost all of them about love gone wrong.
By Kelefa Sanneh
Books
What Our Biggest Best-Sellers Tell Us About a Nation’s Soul
Reading America through more than two centuries of its favorite books.
By Louis Menand
The Current Cinema
Why Movies Love Kids’ Books
Craig Gillespie’s “Cruella,” starring Emma Stone, and the Finnish bio-pic “Tove” illustrate the pitfalls and the possibilities of cinema’s fixation on children’s classics and their authors.
By Anthony Lane
Poems
Cartoons
1/14
“You literally could not pay me enough to relive my twenties.”
Cartoon by Suerynn Lee
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“Bigger than Godzilla? Sir, it’s lighting its cigar with Godzilla.”
Cartoon by David Borchart
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“Let me eat cake!”
Cartoon by Liana Finck
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“I’m thinking of leaving the city, and I’m looking for a partner who can fix anything, grow his own food, and work remotely.”
Cartoon by Edward Koren
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“No one ever tells you about the static.”
Cartoon by Lars Kenseth
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Cartoon by Roz Chast
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“Ten! Nine! Eight! . . .”
Cartoon by Juan Astasio
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“Wait—how many gallons are in a pint?”
Cartoon by Asher Perlman
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“I like the kind of art that when you’re up close you’re, like, ‘This doesn’t look like anything,’ but when you back up you go, ‘Oh, it’s a face.’ ”
Cartoon by Zachary Kanin
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“Have you tried being more vigilant?”
Cartoon by Meredith Southard
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Cartoon by Colin Tom
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“I’ll probably only invite you to be in my wedding out of obligation and you’ll feel really out of place next to the friends that I’ve formed much closer bonds with.”
Cartoon by Luke Kruger-Howard
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“What time of year are you for!”
Cartoon by Sophie Lucido Johnson and Sammi Skolmoski
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“Not again!”
Cartoon by Erik Bergstrom
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Cartoon Caption Contest
Puzzles & Games Dept.
The Mail
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