It was the 28th day of quarantine in New York City. Or was it the 16th? Or the 43rd? On my daily ration of one “going outside,” I saw a squat, grumpy dog—one of those dogs that look like a guy who played football in high school but wasn’t tall enough to play in college and is now a personal trainer at a Gold’s Gym in the town you grew up in—try to bite a couple on their daily walk. At the last second, the owner pulled her dog back. There was a pause. And then the owner looked at the couple … and screamed at them for not wearing masks. At this point, I decided I was done with the world for the day. Home, I turned on Netflix to watch the second of three Middleditch & Schwartz specials, and something funny happened. Not funny haha—though there is a ton of haha—but funny unusual. Or, to use a word that is déclassé, something nice happened.
Middleditch & Schwartz, named after its stars—Thomas Middleditch, who looks like Seth Meyers if he didn’t have to be presentable every night, and Ben Schwartz, who looks like Andrew Garfield if he were 100 percent Jewish—is a twoman longform improv show in which every part is improvised by the performers, including the structure of the show and the scenarios within it. At the start of the program, instead of just asking for suggestions from the audience, they interview one randomly selected member about “something coming up in the future that [they] are either excited for or dreading.” In this case, it was a story about a working mother going to law school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a town in which some believe aliens exist (a detail that delights Schwartz, knowing he’ll get to bring it up in the set).
Denne historien er fra April 27 - May 10, 2020-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra April 27 - May 10, 2020-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Early and Often: David Freedlander - Momentum vs. Machine The Trump and Harris campaigns battle it out for every last vote.
WIth two weeks left to go, the contours of the 2024 presidential election are clear: Both campaigns need voters who usually don’t vote, and Kamala Harris needs to bring the Democratic coalition, including its Trump-curious members, back home.While the Republican side plans to spend the remaining days of the contest trying to lure low-propensity voters to the polls, the Harris team will attempt to persuade voters of color to return to its side and will try to increase numbers among white voters in previously red suburbs.
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
