This is probably as good a time as any to say a few words about an appealing new comedy program called “Saturday Night,” which is broadcast at eleven-thirty each Saturday night by NBC and is definitely not to be confused with “Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell,” which comes on earlier in the evening on ABC. The Cosell show and NBC’s “Saturday Night” are both mainly live, but there is a crucial difference between the two programs. Cosell’s show (as is the case with nearly all entertainment on commercial television), for all its “liveness,” is based on and defined by the standard vocabulary of American show business. Some of the acts are well done, others are not so well done. The essential texture of the show, however, depends on that strange fantasy language of celebrity public relations which has been concocted for the public by mass-entertainment producers and stars and in recent years has become almost formalized as a kind of national version of a modern courtier style. It is the language of kisses blown, of “God bless you”s, of “this wonderful human being,” of “a sensational performer and my very dear personal friend,” and of “You’re just a beautiful audience!”—in short, the language of celebrity “hype” or, alternatively (though it amounts to the same thing), of celebrity “roast.” It is the language of not daring to let anything alone to stand by itself, the language of bored artifice—perhaps a contemporary equivalent of dandyism and powdered wigs.
Denne historien er fra August 19, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra August 19, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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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Drug of Choice - The natural world contains many billions of potential medications. The question is how to find the ones that work.
AI. is transforming the way medicines are made. Bacteria produce numerous molecules that could become medicines, but most of them aren’t easily identified or synthesized with the technology that exists today. A small percentage of them, however, can be constructed by following instructions in the bacteria’s DNA. Burian helped me search the sequence for genes that looked familiar enough to be understandable but unfamiliar enough to produce novel compounds. We settled on a string of DNA that coded for seven linked amino acids, the same number found in vancomycin. Then Burian introduced me to Robert Boer, a synthetic chemist who would help me conjure our drug candidate.
Screams from a Marriage
‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
Fly with Me
The children’s books of Katherine Rundell.
The Mystery of Pain
Garth Greenwell’s novel of extreme affliction and ordinary happiness.
The Show Must Go On
What if Ronald Reagan’ Presidency never really ended?
LAST COFFEEHOUSE ON TRAVIS
For a few months, I stayed with my aunt's friend in Midtown, back when she could still afford to live there.
Tales from the New World
The novelist Richard Powers considers our changing earth.
Land of the Flea
What America 1s buying and selling.
The Dark Time
On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging.
The Post-Moral Age
If conscience is merely a biological artifact, must we give up on goodness?
