World
The Everyday Dramas of Manhattan Rush Hour
Salacuse is the kind of person who always seems to have a project or five under way. I first met him in 2000, and we’ve been friends ever since....
The President Who Became a Prophet
On April 1st, the day before President Donald Trump’s tariffs cratered global markets, House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters “to trust the President’s instinct on the economy.” In the...
In Defense of Despair
The Joke I tell that no one laughs at goes like this: I picked a pretty rough time to actually want to be alive; in retrospect, back when I...
Hilton Als on the Visionary World of Alva Rogers
I met Alva Rogers years ago, through a mutual friend, and her various incarnations—actress, singer, artistic director, writer, puppeteer—have always been remarkable to me. As a young woman, Rogers...
“Overcompensating” Is a New Kind of Coming-Out Comedy
Benny Scanlon, the protagonist of the new comedy “Overcompensating,” is the kind of boy mothers don’t know to warn their daughters about. Tall, handsome, and polite, Benny—played by Benito...
Dolly Parton’s Quietly Inspiring Defense of Marriage
Abelard and Heloise, Vladimir and Véra, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria: to these historic his and hers, I would add Carl and Dolly. That’s Dean and Parton, the Tennessee...
When a Writer Takes to the Stage
Writers who contemplate going onstage tend to fall into two camps: those who know better and those who should but don’t. Of the second kind, The New Yorker has,...
In “Jetty,” a Grand Infrastructure Project Becomes Both Visually and Politically Compelling
The algorithm has been feeding me industrial-strength A.S.M.R.: short videos of computer-controlled lathes, in extreme closeup, doing elaborate milling of wood or metal rods. Sam Fleischner’s modest yet ambitious...
Is the Next Great American Novel Being Published on Substack?
This past October, subscribers to Woman of Letters, the Substack newsletter of the writer Naomi Kanakia, received an e-mail titled “Why I am publishing a novella on Substack.” This...
A Day in the Live-Streamed Life of Donald Trump
In Donald Trump’s first term, he reinvented many things about how the job of President was done. The strictly scheduled day of his predecessors—the rigid procession of fifteen-minute meetings,...
