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Books & Culture

Infinite Scroll

The Trump Assassination Attempt Meets the Internet’s Brain-Rot Era

Today’s social platforms can instantly convert even the most harrowing news events into misleading tidbits and gleefully empty jokes.
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Persons of Interest

Mdou Moctar’s Guitar-Bending Cry for Justice

How the Tuareg band merges political anguish and musical transcendence.
Cultural Comment

Are Hollywood’s Jewish Founders Worth Defending?

Jews in the industry called for the Academy Museum to highlight the men who created the movie business. A voice in my head went, Uh-oh.
The New Yorker Interview

Upward Spiral

Four years after the release of his Oscar-winning drama, “Minari,” the director Lee Isaac Chung enters the eye of the summer-movie storm with “Twisters.”
The Weekend Essay

The Surreal Simulations of a Reality-TV Restaurant Empire

It’s a reunion every night at the “Vanderpump” establishments in Los Angeles.

Books

Flash Fiction

“Damages”

Tug too hard on a little footsy, and you wind up with a footsy in hand and a baby in tears.
Under Review

The Best Books We’ve Read in 2024 So Far

Our editors and critics review notable new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Under Review

The Paradoxical Paradise of the Garden

Olivia Laing’s memoir of restoring a garden unearths the politics and history of cultivating a plot.
Books

Briefly Noted

“The God of the Woods,” “Gretel and the Great War,” “They Called It Peace,” and “The Friday Afternoon Club.”

Movies

The Front Row

“Fly Me to the Moon” Lacks Mission Control

This rom-com about the marketing of the Apollo space program, starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, has an inconsistent tone and a vague point of view.
The New Yorker Interview

Kevin Costner Goes West Again

The actor and director, whose film “Horizon: An American Saga” has been in the making for decades, thinks of the Western as America’s Shakespeare.
The Front Row

An Ingenious New French Comedy of Art and Friendship

The director Pascale Bodet works wonders in “Vas-Tu Renoncer?,” based on the relationship of Édouard Manet and Charles Baudelaire.
The New Yorker Interview

Nicolas Cage Is Still Evolving

The actor talks about the origins of “Adaptation,” his potential leap to television, and the art of “keeping it enigmatic.”

Food

The Food Scene

A Brooklyn Tasting Menu with Manhattan Ambition

Clover Hill offers the kind of technique-oriented cooking that usually emerges from the city’s billionaire canteens—and prices to match.
The Food Scene

The Central Park Boathouse Is Back, and It’s Perfectly Fine

Recently reopened under new management, the pricey tourist-bait canteen is more satisfying than it has any right to be.
On and Off the Menu

The Era of the Line Cook

In a dinner series called the Line Up, line cooks, sous-chefs, and chefs de cuisine from buzzy New York restaurants get to be executive chefs for a night.
The Food Scene

One Weird Night at Frog Club

If a self-consciously clubby restaurant suddenly becomes easy to get into, what’s the point of going at all?
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Photo Booth

The Spectacle of Donald Trump’s R.N.C.

An inside look at the Republican Party’s weeklong celebration of the former President.

Television

On Television

Kendrick Lamar’s Freedom Summer

In his new video for “Not Like Us,” the hip-hop artist claims victory in his long battle with Drake.
On Television

“Clipped,” Reviewed: A Romp Back Through an N.B.A. Racism Scandal

The FX series about the fallout from a leaked recording of the Los Angeles Clippers’ owner is extremely entertaining, especially if you are not hoping to learn anything about race.
On Television

“The Bear” Is Overstuffed and Undercooked

The Hulu series about a Chicago sandwich joint once felt like the best kind of prestige TV—but the new season, like its Michelin-hungry protagonist, has lost sight of what made it great.
On Television

A Succession Battle Over America’s Largest Ren Faire

A new HBO documentary series follows King George, the eighty-six-year-old overlord of the Texas Renaissance Festival, and the vicious competition to replace him.

The Theatre

The Theatre

“Cats: The Jellicle Ball” Lands on Its Feet

The directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch cross Andrew Lloyd Webber’s juggernaut musical with queer ballroom culture to electrifying effect.
The Theatre

Sandra Oh and a Cast of Downtown All-Stars Illuminate a Period Thriller

The British playwright Lucy Kirkwood’s “The Welkin” exorcises the jury-room drama.
The Theatre

Great Migrations, in Two Plays

Samm-Art Williams’s “Home,” on Broadway, and Shayan Lotfi’s “What Became of Us,” at Atlantic Theatre Company, portray the politics and the emotions of leaving home.
The Theatre

Three London Shows Put a New Spin on Old Classics

Superb stagecraft illuminates Robert Icke’s “Player Kings,” Benedict Andrews’s “The Cherry Orchard,” and Ian Rickson’s “London Tide.”

Music

Pop Music

Clairo Believes in Charm as an Aesthetic and Spiritual Principle

The artist discusses her new album, moving upstate, and the wallop and jolt of romantic connection.
Pop Music

Ivan Cornejo’s Mexican American Heartache

“Regional Mexican” music is booming, but one young singer is in no mood to celebrate.
Musical Events

Guillaume de Machaut’s Medieval Love Songs

The fourteenth-century composer’s expressions of longing can still leave an audience spellbound.
Pop Music

Lizzy McAlpine Wants to Go Offline

The artist, who got famous by going viral, discusses refusing to play the TikTok game with her new record, turning to a life of slowness and privacy, and maybe auditioning for a musical.

More in Culture

On Television

Julio Torres’s “Fantasmas” Finds Truth in Fantasy

In the comedian and writer’s new HBO show, guest stars and surreal distractions provide witty symbolic keys to serious themes.
The Current Cinema

“Twisters” Takes the Fun Out of Heavy Weather

The original “Twister” had no compunction about making tornadoes look awesome. Lee Isaac Chung’s sequel treats them as deadly serious.
Goings On

Hilton Als on Nora Burns’s Memory Play “David’s Friend”

Also: the mysterious folksinger Jessica Pratt, “Le Prophète” at Bard SummerScape, Molly Fischer’s book picks for new parents, and more.
Blitt’s Kvetchbook

Donald and J.D.: Is the Honeymoon Over?

Or will they make up?
Screening Room

A Life-or-Death Decision Among Friends, in “Hamster”

A tragic accident turns a lighthearted gathering into a moral quandary for a young Iranian couple.
In the Dark

In the Dark’s New Season Examines a Crime That Went Unpunished

The New Yorker investigative podcast asks why one of the most high-profile war-crimes prosecutions in U.S. history failed to deliver justice.
Cover Story

Anita Kunz’s “The Face of Justice”

The remaking of the Supreme Court in Donald Trump’s image.
Dancing

Does Ballet Need Narrative?

“Woolf Works,” a dance triptych by Wayne McGregor, is based on the life and work of Virginia Woolf, but its engagement with her ideas is frustratingly intermittent.