KATE ELIZABETH RUSSELL traces the beginning of her obsession with Lolita to an encounter with the musician Jakob Dylan. It was 1997, and the novelist was 13 years old, precocious and bored, living on an isolated lake some 15 miles east of Bangor, Maine. Dylan, then in his late 20s, was coming to town with his band, the Wallflowers, and he wanted to meet Stephen King, the local royalty. Russell’s father happened to be a DJ for King’s radio station, and he arranged a dinner. Russell and her cousin got to tag along. She remembers trembling through the meal, struggling to contain her excitement as she watched the charismatic frontman tear apart a bread roll with his hands. Later, she read everything she could find about him. In a Rolling Stone profile, he declared his favorite book was Lolita. She couldn’t check the book out from her local library—every copy had been lost or stolen—but she discovered the text on a rudimentary website and felt a thrill when she realized it was about a sexual relationship between a girl around her own age and a much older man. “I didn’t know that was an option,” she recalled thinking at the time.
Denne historien er fra February 17 - March 1, 2020-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra February 17 - March 1, 2020-utgaven av New York magazine.
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THE BEST ART SHOWS OF THE YEAR
IN NOVEMBER, Sotheby's made history when it sold for a million bucks a painting made by artificial intelligence. Ai-Da, \"the first humanoid robot artist to have an artwork auctioned by a major auction house,\" created a portrait of Alan Turing that resembles nothing more than a bad Francis Bacon rip-off. Still, the auction house described the sale as \"a new frontier in the global art market.\"
THE BIGGEST PODCAST MOMENTS OF THE YEAR
A STRANGE THING happened with podcasts in 2024: The industry was repeatedly thrust into the spotlight owing to a preponderance of head-turning events and a presidential-election cycle that radically foregrounded the medium's consequential nature. To reflect this, we've carved out a list of ten big moments from the year as refracted through podcasting.
THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - BEST BOOKS
THE BEST THEATER OF THE YEAR
IT'S BEEN a year of successful straight plays, even measured by a metric at which they usually do poorly: ticket sales. Partially that's owed to Hollywood stars: Jeremy Strong, Jim Parsons, Rachel Zegler, Rachel McAdams (to my mind, the most compelling).
THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
2024 WAS one big stress test that presented artists with a choice: Face uncomfortable realities or serve distractions to the audience. Pop music turned inward while hip-hop weathered court cases and incalculable losses. Country struggled to reconcile conservative interests with a much wider base of artists. But the year's best music offered a reprieve.
THE BEST TELEVISION OF THE YEAR
IT WAS SURPRISING how much 2024 felt like an uneventful wake for the Peak TV era. There was still great television, but there was much more mid or meh television and far fewer moments when a critical mass of viewers seemed equally excited about the same series.
THE BEST COMEDY SPECIALS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - COMEDY SPECIALS
THE BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR
PEOPLE LOVED Megalopolis, hated it, puzzled over it, clipped it into memes, and tried to astroturf it into a camp classic, but, most important, they cared about it even though it featured none of the qualities you'd expect of a breakthrough work in these noisy times.
A Truly Great Time
This was the year our city's new restaurants loosened up.
The Art of the Well-Stuffed Stocking
THE CHRISTMAS ENTHUSIASTS on the Strategist team gathered to discuss the oversize socks they drape on their couches and what they put inside them.
