CATEGORIES

FAMILY MATTERS

Am I one of the last living relatives of Bruno Schulz?

A GLOSSARY OF LAUGHS

\"... Ha!\" You're at a cocktail party and someone just made a reference to the Kenneth Lonergan play \"This Is Our Youth\" that you didn't find particularly funny, but you still want everyone to know that you understood it.

REARRANGEMENTS

Crosswords, immigrants, and the American melting pot.

GRAY AREAS

\"The Zone of Interest\" and \"Anselm.\"

DISPOSSESSED

\"Manahatta\" and \"Life & Times of Michael K.\"

TOKYO STORY

Greenpoint's upscale portal to Japan.

I SPY

The Espionage Act is a disaster. Why is it still on the books?

LAUGH LINES

The funny thing about comedy.

The Good Denis

When—after I'd long hesitated, lost my nerve, thought better of it—I finally gathered the strength to ask my decreasingly lucid mother if she remembered a certain scene that still brought an ache to my grownup heart, she gave me a mystified, offended stare, a stare of virtuous indignation, and then, collecting herself, answered gently, as you might answer a very old person who, you realize, didn't mean to say such a ridiculous thing, that what I was talking about not only hadn’t happened but could not, in any case, possibly have happened.

WHAT MAKES A MURDER?

How a draconian legal doctrine imprisons people for killings they didn't commit.

TERMS OF AGGRIEVEMENT

The Gen Z comedian Leo Reich blasts his elders-and himself.

FOLDING THE EARTH IN HALF

[The astrophysicist Shep] Doeleman said a black hole formed from folding the Earth in half could power Manhattan for a year. -The Harvard Gazette, May 13, 2022.

SLEEPER CELLS

To catch more carcinogens, we need to widen our scope.

Annals of Hollywood – The Man Behind the Nose

How Kazu Hiro transformed Bradley Cooper.

You're Glowing

Ilana Harris-Babou'’s impish take on wellness culture.

The Critics – Books– Your Lying Eyes

People now use A.I. to generate fake videos indistinguishable from real ones. How much does it matter?

HERE COMES TROUBLE

“Napoleon” and Monster.”

SONGS OF HERSELF

“Hell's Kitchen,” at the Public, and The Gardens of Anuncia,” at Lincoln Center.

FRATERNAL ECLIPSE

The strange case of Israel Joshua Singer.

STAR CROSSED

The first rule of the celebrity couple: It always involves more than two people.

incoming teju cole

The night before everything came to an end, Ms. Prosper finally agreed to sing for us.

THE AFTERMATH

Kristin Kinkel, the sister of a school shooter, is still reckoning with her brother’ crimes.

THE CHOSEN CHIP

How Nvidia is powering the A.I. revolution.

SHOUTS & MURMURS: THINGS I'VE HEARD MYSELF SAY ALOUD TO MY KIDS

I just told everyone to keep their bodies to themselves in the car, and then you put your feet on the back of your brother's head, and we see you're on your phone, which we repeatedly asked you to leave at home, and so now there's going to have to be a big consequence, and now a chasm has opened between my consciousness and the words emerging from my mouth, and I hear a cascade of scolding clichés rush forth in a frictionless flow, as if I'm an A.I. chatbot with the prompt \"Lecture my kids in a style that they will completely ignore and will cause me deep sadness,\" because I don't know where all this boilerplate hectoring comes from, but the reason we keep our bodies to ourselves is that we treat our bodies and other people's bodies with respect, and if you keep doing that we're going to tell Nana how you behaved.

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS: INTERIORS

Onscreen and onstage, Sandra Hiller probes her characters with unusual depth.

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

On November 6th, Donald Trump courtroom, where he had testified in a civil trial alleging that he and others in the Trump Organization had committed fraud, and gave himself a great review. \"I think it went very well,\" he told reporters. \"If you were there, and you listened, you'd see what a scam this is.\" He meant that the case was a scam and not that his company was. \"Everybody saw what happened today,\" he went on.

GOINGS ON: NOVEMBER 29 - DECEMBER 5, 2023

What we're watching, listening to, and doing this week.

Thanksgiving Rider

This document acknowledges that Lauren (“Talent”) has agreed to appear for a MAXIMUM of THREE (3) days and TWO (2) nights at the residence of her mother (“Venue”) during the Thanksgiving holiday, pursuant to the terms of this agreement.

A Critic at Large – Made You Look

The desert illusions of the Sphere and "City.”

Fiction – According to Alice

My name is Alice and I was born from an egg that fell out of Mommy’s butt. My mommy’s name is Alice. My mommy’s mommy was also named Alice.