"The thing to worry about is meanings, not appearances.
-Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip, 1973
CECIL, WISCONSIN-I went back twice to find out what the coffin meant, but though cars came and went in the driveway, nobody ever answered the door. Halloween in June, or a sign? Kitsch, or a warning? I'd been driving for a week, since the first night of the January 6th hearings, listening to them on the radio as I counted the flags. Not the American ones but the Trump ones. Trump 2024, two years ahead of time; and the red, white, and blue of the Confederacy, the yellow "Don't Tread on Me" Gadsden. There are so many now. There's new folk art too: hand-painted "Fuck Biden" placards, homemade "Let's Go Brandon" billboards, and DIY "Never Forget Benghazi" banners. The cities and towns still ripple with rainbow pride, their numbers are greater, but on many country roads the ugly emblems tick by like mile markers.
What was the coffin though? I was visiting friends in Cecil, Wisconsin, when we drove past it. They let me out to make a picture. "Careful," they said, and, "We'll come back for you," because they didn't want to linger. They sped away, leaving me in the green light. I made my picture. I waited. I read on my phone, on Twitter, that Wisconsin Republicans had blocked an effort to repeal a dormant 1849 law making any abortion-including for rape or incest-a felony. My friends returned, we fled. The next morning, the ruling came down: Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade, and Wisconsin became the only "blue" state in which abortion is now effectively illegal.
Denne historien er fra February 2023-utgaven av Vanity Fair US.
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Denne historien er fra February 2023-utgaven av Vanity Fair US.
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Both Now Sides - Selena Gomez is seriously in loveand making the best work of her career. With the audacious Emilia Pérez hitting theaters and Only Murders in the Building returning to TV, the actor, singer, entrepreneur, and mental health advocate talks, about the climb
Selena Gomez is seriously in loveand making the best work of her career. With the audacious Emilia Pérez hitting theaters and Only Murders in the Building returning to TV, the actor, singer, entrepreneur, and mental health advocate talks, about the climb
Give and Let Give -Melinda French Gates is speaking out for the rights of women and girls, embracing her role as godmother to her fellow philanthropists, and getting political, even when it's a little uncomfortable.
Melinda French Gates is speaking out for the rights of women and girls, embracing her role as godmother to her fellow philanthropists, and getting political, even when it's a little uncomfortable.
Party Planning - Putin wants Trump to win, of course, and he's got big ideas about a new world order. Think Yalta-on Fiji
I don’t know which moment in US history former president Donald Trump imagines when he says, “Make America great again.” He has never given a definitive answer in any speech or interview. But I know exactly which moment Vladimir Putin imagines in his own vision for Russian greatness. It is February 1945, when Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill divided the world in Crimea.
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Another Country- Searching for James Baldwin in the South of France
Since James Baldwin's death nearly 40 years ago, the literary lion's final home, in the South of France, has drawn a procession of acolytes to the Provençal community of Saint-Paul de Vence, where he spent the last 17 years of his life.The 300-year-old villa in which he resided no longer exists: By 2019 developers had converted the site into a luxury apartment complex. But that hasn't deterred generations of admirers, inflamed and enlightened by Baldwin's prose, from making a pilgrimage. Including me. Seizing the occasion of the writer's centennial year, I paid a visit in April. My first stop was a table at a Baldwin hangout, the Café de la Place on Place du Général de Gaulle, for a croque monsieur and a double espresso.
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