CATEGORIES

Love Trouble Is My Business- “President Reagan resembled a bashful cowboy the other day when he was asked about the apparent collapse of the ‘Star Wars' talks with the Soviet Union. . . .

Francis X. Clines, in the Sunday Times . . . : “President Reagan resembled a bashful cowboy the other day when he was asked about the apparent collapse of the ‘Star Wars’ talks with the Soviet Union. . . .

What's So Funny?- A scientific attempt to discover why we laugh.

A scientific attempt to discover why we laugh. How the brain processes humor remains a mystery. It’s easy to make someone smile or cry by electronically stimulating a single region of the brain, but it’s astonishingly difficult to make someone laugh. The “laughter circuit” is complex and various. Puns are processed on the left side of the brain by gyri, bumpy areas on the surface of the cerebral cortex; more complex, non-wordplay jokes are routed through gyri on the right side of the brain and also trigger electronic activity in many other parts of the brain.

CHABLIS Donald Barthelm

My wife wants a dog. She already has a baby. The baby’s almost two. My wife says that the baby wants the dog.

A CRACK IN THE GREASEPAINT

How \"Saturday Night Live\" breaks the mold.

TALKING DIRTY

Chelsea Handler sexes up late night.

BRAVO!

\"Funny Girl.\"

LGA-ORD

Then, Beckett decided to become a commercial pilot. . . . “I think the next little bit of excitement is flying,” he wrote to McGreevy.

PRYOR LOVE

The life and times of America's comic prophet of race.

DEAD MAN LAUGHING

Jokes run through a family.

CORRECTIONS

Because of an editing error, an article in Friday’s theatre section transposed the identifications of two people involved in the production of “Waiting for Bruce,” a farce now in rehearsal at the Rivoli. Ralph W. Murtaugh, Jr., a New York attorney, is one of the play’s financial backers.

The Critics - The Art World - Bad Dream - What was Surrealism really about?

What was Surrealism really about? Where are we with Surrealism, then? Quite possibly in the same plain little room where we began. The lighting is clear, the walls straight, the corners decorously right-angled. Something is off, but psychoanalysis won't help us.

Me, Lania - Melania Trump to Tell Her Story in Memoir, "Melania," Scheduled for This Fall —Associated Press.

As a little girl in Slovenia, I had the same dreams as any child: to immigrate to America on a bogus "genius visa," to model acrylic sweaters in a catalogue, and to meet a rich man almost twice my age and enter into a financially advantageous marriage with as little physical contact as possible.

IN DEEP

“Lady in the Lake,” on Apple TV+.

AFTER LONG SILENCE

Carolina Uccellis inventive 1835 opera, Anna di Resburgo,” is returned to life.

THE DEVIL TAKE IT

The Faustian bargain has quite a history—and future.

DIVORCE STORY

Sarah Manguso’ blow-by-blow account of a fracturing marriage.

THE INHERITOR

What does Robert F: Kennedy, Jr, actually want?

NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

The life of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza.

THE TAIL END

Bidding farewell to a cat

PROMISED LAND

How tribal nations are reclaiming Oklahoma.

Forbidden Desires - Debussy, Strauss, and a new opera about John Singer Sargent, in Des Moines.

Debussy, Strauss, and a new opera about John Singer Sargent, in Des Moines.

What Happened To The Yuppie?– In 1979, an article by Blake Fleetwood in the Times Magazine reported a surprising phenomenon: young people were moving to big cities

Tom McGrath's "Triumph of the Yuppies: America, the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation" (Grand Central) is an entertaining recap of that period. McGrath doesn't offer a novel sociological interpretation of the yuppies. What he has to say about them would have been conventional even during their time.

STATE OF PLAY

Politics and the real” at the Festival d‘Avignon.

BORN AGAIN

The past and future of Christian fundamentalism.

THE FIN AND THE FURY

Beware of sharkless waters.

attila

Martha got the knife away from her mother and shut her in the garage. The garage was not for cars; it had been converted by the house’s previous owners into what the broker called a “mother-in-law apartment.”

BLOOD RELATIVES

Did the U.K.’ most infamous family massacre end in a miscarriage of justice?

UNCONVENTIONAL

No fear and loathing in Milwaukee, just confidence.

PLAYING THE NUMBERS

My mother, the gambler.

OUT THERE

In midlife, Gillian Anderson is proving that she’s not so buttoned-up.