The Magazine
August 15, 2022
Goings On
Television
Fall Television Preview
Prequels for “Game of Thrones” and “Lord of the Rings,” adaptations of “Interview with a Vampire” and “American Gigolo,” Lesley Manville in “Magpie Murders,” and more.
By Rachel Syme
Night Life
Fall Contemporary-Music Preview
Gothic Americana sounds fill Bowery Ballroom, Lil Nas X takes over Radio City Music Hall, Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz returns, and more.
By Sheldon Pearce
Art
Fall Art Preview
Cubism tricks the eye at the Met, MOMA spotlights a famous fur teacup, New York City inspires Edward Hopper at the Whitney, and more.
By Andrea K. Scott
Tables for Two
Little Brazil’s Ipanema Returns to Manhattan
The Brazilian restaurant veers fancy in its new iteration, on Thirty-sixth Street, and now encompasses a daytime-only café, Bica, offering coxinhas, pastéis de nata (Portuguese egg tarts), and pão de queijo.
By Hannah Goldfield
Movies
Fall Movies Preview
James Gray’s coming-of-age drama “Armageddon Time,” Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe, a documentary portrait of David Bowie, and more.
By Richard Brody
Dance
Fall Dance Preview
The Odissi explorations of Bijayini Satpathy, wildly contrasting triple bills in Fall for Dance, new work at the Kaatsbaan Fall Festival, and more.
By Marina Harss
Classical Music
Fall Classical-Music Preview
The spiffed-up David Geffen Hall reopens, Sondra Radvanovsky stars in “Medea” at the Metropolitan Opera, Tyshawn Sorey and Peter Sellars pay homage to Rothko Chapel, and more.
By Oussama Zahr
Art
Themes of the African Diaspora in “Black Atlantic”
The exhibition, in Brooklyn Bridge Park, includes “Agali Awamu (Togetherness),” carved with a chisel and a chainsaw by the Brooklyn-based sculptor Leilah Babirye.
The Theatre
Fall Theatre Preview
The Broadway transfer of “KPOP,” “1776” with a twist, Tom Stoppard’s personal new play, “Leopoldstadt,” and more.
By Michael Schulman
The Talk of the Town
Jill Lepore on reviving the woolly mammoth; sharks on ice; the last queen of Sunset Boulevard; wooing the bonsai cognoscenti; cuddling goes pro.
Pool Shark
JAWS! Suburban Back-Yard Edition
Shark season is here. They’re chomping on swimmers at Jones Beach, and one—a critter the size of a baguette—made its way to the deep end of a New Jersey swimming pool.
By Ben McGrath
L.A. Postcard
Outliving Norma Desmond and Then Some
Nancy Livingston played Gloria Swanson’s rival in “Sunset Boulevard.” Her memoir, “A Front Row Seat,” spins tales of (director) Billy Wilder, (husband) Alan Jay Lerner, and (pursuer) Howard Hughes.
By Dana Goodyear
Green Thumb
The Bernini of Bonsai
Benjamin Keating tours an exhibition of his sculptures, which combine bronzework with tiny trees, and recounts how he found an in with a secretive bonsai guy by bribing him with tomato sauce and fresh pasta.
By Emma Allen
Dept. of Sidekicks
Social-Distancing Fatigue? Try a Professional Cuddler
For ninety dollars an hour, Trevor James, who is certified in the art of the snuggle and the caress, will offer any of eighty positions, amid what he calls a “touch-deprivation crisis.”
By Antonia Hitchens
Comment
Bringing Back the Woolly Mammoth
Americans have long understood the species’ extinction as a warning. But is trying to “de-extinct” it really a good idea?
By Jill Lepore
Reporting & Essays
Onward and Upward with the Arts
Ernst Lubitsch Made the Hollywood Comedy Sublime
His acolyte Billy Wilder is better remembered, but Lubitsch’s wit reigns supreme.
By Alex Ross
Annals of Inquiry
The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism
William MacAskill’s movement set out to help the global poor. Now his followers fret about runaway A.I. Have they seen our threats clearly, or lost their way?
By Gideon Lewis-Kraus
Letter from Washington
Inside the War Between Trump and His Generals
How Mark Milley and others in the Pentagon handled the national-security threat posed by their own Commander-in-Chief.
By Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker
A Reporter at Large
State Legislatures Are Torching Democracy
Even in moderate places like Ohio, gerrymandering has let unchecked Republicans pass extremist laws that could never make it through Congress.
By Jane Mayer
Shouts & Murmurs
Fiction
Fiction
The Muddle
“On day five, a reply came over Skype. ‘We’re alive.’ Two words in a pale-blue bubble.”
By Sana Krasikov
The Critics
Books
Josephine Baker Was the Star France Wanted—and the Spy It Needed
When the night-club sensation became a Resistance agent, the Nazis never realized what she was hiding in the spotlight.
By Lauren Michele Jackson
Books
Briefly Noted
“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” “Hurricane Girl,” “Musical Revolutions,” and “Yield.”
On Television
Don’t Worry, Nathan Fielder Also Hates Himself
“The Rehearsal,” on HBO, is a self-portrait of a man trying to reach past his relentless solipsism.
By Naomi Fry
The Current Cinema
Why Does the Comic Nihilism of “Bullet Train” Feel So Labored?
With Brad Pitt at its center, in a haze of unbothered charm, David Leitch’s film aims to emulate Tarantino but comes off as a juiced-up version of “Murder on the Orient Express.”
By Anthony Lane
Pop Music
Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” Shocks Some Life Into a Culture Gone Inert
On her new album, the performer invites us onto the dance floor and jolts us awake.
By Carrie Battan
Poems
Cartoons
1/18
“The scariest part is knowing that someday something’ll come along that will make us go, ‘Even the spider mutants weren’t this bad.’ ”
Cartoon by Benjamin Schwartz
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“Well, this is me.”
Cartoon by Jason Adam Katzenstein
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Cartoon by Seth Fleishman
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“Someday, you can turn this crippling loss into a really triumphant college essay.”
Cartoon by Ali Solomon
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“No, it’s not exactly ‘on’ the water, but it’s near the water and it has a lot of character.”
Cartoon by E. S. Glenn
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“Michael, your father and I are worried that you’re awfully young to be singing the blues.”
Cartoon by David Sipress
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Cartoon by Roz Chast
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“Something tells me you’re the kind of guy who always wears his baseball cap backward.”
Cartoon by William Haefeli
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“Yep, a rare gray-suited office worker.”
Cartoon by Julia Suits
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“Any of you boys interested in fresh gossip for your diaries?”
Cartoon by Frank Cotham
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“They like you because you’re allergic to them.”
Cartoon by Amy Hwang
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“You can’t just put on the uniform whenever you don’t want to have a conversation, Barry.”
Cartoon by Asher Perlman
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“Remember, he created us in his image a really long time ago.”
Cartoon by Zachary Kanin
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Cartoon by Navied Mahdavian
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“Be honest—do these glasses make me look scarier?”
Cartoon by Dan Misdea
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“No, I think I get it. So if I were to throw, say, an amateur grammarian off the boat, that would be jetsam, not flotsam?”
Cartoon by Sofia Warren
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Cartoon by Lars Kenseth
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“They’re talking about birdhouses again. Time to send them birdhouse ads.”
Cartoon by Shannon Wheeler
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Cartoon Caption Contest
Puzzles & Games Dept.
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