Alice Austen’s Larky Life
Austen’s trajectory, like that of many artists in New York, finally hinged on the vicissitudes of real estate. At Clear Comfort, she built an existence of remarkable self-determination—for…
Section
World
Does MAGA Have Ideas?
Political life is inevitably disappointing, because all political movements contain contradictions. Democrats consider themselves advocates of the working class, yet their party skews…
“Two People Exchanging Saliva” Rewrites the Slap in Cinema
One of the promotional images for the film “Two People Exchanging Saliva” is a black-and-white closeup of a woman, her face bruised, her nose bleeding, her eyes slack with ecstasy. What…
Dev Hynes Returns as Blood Orange
Also: the kamancheh playing of Kayhan Kalhor, Ethan Lipton’s surrealist “The Seat of Our Pants,” our writers’ holiday traditions, and more. Source link
“Wicked: For Good” Is Very, Very Bad
As part of an anti-Wicked Witch of the West smear campaign, Morrible tries to ensnare the loyalties of Elphaba’s closest ex-classmates: Glinda, a smiling yet conflicted mascot for the…
The Ghosts of Girlhoods Past in “Sound of Falling”
Decades later, in the eighties, we meet Erika’s niece Angelika (Lena Urzendowsky), a bespectacled, dark-haired teen-ager, growing up in what is now the German Democratic Republic. She…
The World-Shifting Grooves of Fela Kuti
The rest of Fela’s story is largely a cat-and-mouse game, and then an outright battle, between art and the state, Fela and the authorities. One of the series’ great challenges is to keep…
“This World of Tomorrow” and “Oedipus” Dramatize the Power of the Past
To write “Tomorrow,” Hanks and Glossman adapted several of Hanks’s own short stories, primarily “The Past Is Important to Us,” which he had long hoped might become a movie. Much of the…
What We Talk About When We Talk About Dignity
When the Albanian political philosopher Lea Ypi was growing up, her grandmother, Leman Ypi, would tell her that during her honeymoon—which took place in Italy in 1941, when war raged…
A Holiday Gift Guide: The Newest, Strangest Gadgets and Apps
We are entering a Surrealist phase of personal technology. Any device you might imagine can be found online courtesy of an obscure Chinese factory, ready to be shipped out for a loved…
Lives in Upheaval After an Eviction, in “Last Days on Lake Trinity”
In March, 2022, the people living in Lakeside Park Estates mobile-home park, in Hollywood, Florida, learned that they were being evicted. The park’s owner, Trinity Broadcasting Network,…
“Joan Crawford: A Woman’s Face” Brings a Star’s Genius to Light
Once Crawford slipped into her style, she never slipped out of it—not publicly. “Never in the thousands of times in our association, was she ever less than perfectly dressed, in full…
Amelia Dimoldenberg Enters the Cartoon Caption Contest
The comedian tries her hand at captioning New Yorker cartoons. Source link
If the Legal Campaigns Against Donald Trump Had Ended Differently
“Injustice” largely ignores those cases. Its drama is tightly enclosed within the D.O.J.—illuminatingly but also, at times, suffocatingly so. Bragg’s prosecution gets a little more than a…
Ruth Asawa’s Art of Defiant Hospitality
“It was the first time in my life I didn’t have to do anything,” Asawa later said. She took drawing lessons from three interned Disney animators in an ad-hoc school for the camp’s…
A Holiday Gift Guide: Tools, Treats, and Trifles for Food Lovers
I don’t think I viscerally understood the importance of a Christmas tree, or a Hanukkah menorah, or a St. Lucia’s crown until I moved into an apartment with lots of windows: the night is…
Life at the Edge of a Famous Family
This comparatively reduced terrain has often served as complement to her husband’s much grander vistas. “I am the observer, the audience watching the action as if in a theater,” she…
Time Runs Out on Nico Harrison and the Dallas Mavericks
Nico Harrison, the former general manager of the Dallas Mavericks, made many head-scratching comments after he inexplicably traded Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers, last February. He…
The Icelandic Artist Ragnar Kjartansson, Absurd and Profound in Equal Measures
Kader Attia’s film “La Valise Oubliée” (2024) cracks open a well of family memories, employing photographs and archival materials buried in three suitcases to unpack stories about the…
“Sirāt” Is a Harrowing, Exhilarating Dance of Death
The rave comes to an abrupt stop, and the story, which Laxe scripted with Santiago Fillol, takes off like a shot. Armed soldiers turn up and order the ravers to leave; the world, it…
The Dream of Finishing One’s To-Do List in “Retirement Plan”
Watch “Retirement Plan.” Watch the Irish director John Kelly’s “Retirement Plan” and, if you are in any way creative or ambitious, you’ll kick yourself wondering, Why didn’t I think of…
That New Hit Song on Spotify? It Was Made by A.I.
Nick Arter, a thirty-five-year-old in Washington, D.C., never quite managed to become a professional musician the old-fashioned way. He grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in a…
Battling the Sea on the Outer Banks
Daniel Pullen offers beautifully composed and striking images of the destruction that climate change has brought to his lifelong home. Source link
“Death by Lightning” Dramatizes the Assassination America Forgot
History is littered with examples of the havoc wreaked by politicians’ will to power. No wonder, then, that voters cling to the fantasy of the self-effacing candidate—the kind who…