BABY J, the latest stand-up from John Mulaney, is a herculean effort, but what exactly that effort aims to achieve is not entirely clear. After his highly public, intensely tumultuous past several years—an intervention, a long period in rehab, a divorce, a sudden new relationship, a new baby—the special is both a presentation of who the comedian and actor was during that period and an attempt to align that person with who he is now. It’s designed as a self-examination: He wants to be able to laugh at that guy he used to be and for the audience to laugh at that guy too. So he tries to create a lot of space between them. That Mulaney who was addicted to substances? He’s certainly related to the guy standing onstage, but he’s not quite the same. He’s an object to be held up and tut-tutted over, a guy we can laugh at safely now because he no longer exists.
Some distance from a past self is necessary in this kind of storytelling— without it, there’s just a rattling off of events with no room for artistic transformation. But Mulaney attacks Baby J less like a product of creative consideration and more as if he’s examining a severed limb. He is so entirely, confidently unruffled. His sharp suit and shiny dress shoes are back; he’s on the big Boston Symphony Hall stage. Inside the stories he tells is the implication that we should now understand that this old-timey soft-shoe act was always a cover for some very dark stuff. And yes, maybe all this is an attempt to reconcile the Mulaney everyone knew onstage with the Mulaney who lived behind the scenes. The act has returned, but this time it’s fine! See, look—there’s so much distance! We can laugh now! Except when you create that much separation between who you are and who you were, reconciliation starts to look like dissociation.
Denne historien er fra April 24 - May 07, 2023-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.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra April 24 - May 07, 2023-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.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
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.
