MAX WOLF FRIEDLICH is 29 and so grew up seeing, and sometimes seeking out, all sorts of crazy shit online. Perhaps as a result, he has a certain unbothered, buttonpushing bravado. This is true in person, I realize when we meet, a few days into the New Year, for lunch at Shopsin's, the diner in Essex Market. There, he declares that, even as I make some tepid chitchat about resolutions and minding my carbs, he is still planning to "eat like a little piece of shit" in 2024. But also in his clever, psychologically harrowing play Job, which I couldn't stop thinking about after I saw it in the fall at the Soho Playhouse (it begins another run at the Connelly Theater in the East Village this month). The show is about a millennial content moderator named Jane who, after having an office breakdown that goes viral, is mandated by her Facebookesque employer to see a technophobic boomer therapist; upping the drama, she brings a gun along to the session. It’s 80 anxiety-inducing minutes long, and I was so distracted by the final plot twist that I couldn’t hold a conversation with my friends over drinks afterward.
At lunch, just as our food arrives, I ask Friedlich what is the most disturbing thing he’s ever witnessed online. “Sorry, we’re eating,” he says, before admitting that as a kid he was “obsessed” with watching a video of an American journalist being beheaded in the Middle East. “I watched it so many times just being like, Whoa,” he says between big bites of his brisket-andchorizo sandwich. It is a blithely unaware, or perhaps blithely calculated, thing to say to a journalist.
Denne historien er fra January 15-28, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra January 15-28, 2024-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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Home Sweet Home?
Meghan Markle pioneers new frontiers of unrelatability.
Going Stealth
Torrey Peters reimagines transness in a new collection.
Toni Morrison's Lost Play
Why did the novelist's only staged drama disappear for so long?
The Resilient Natasha Rothwell
The writer and actor returns to The White Lotus just as the show she created, How to Die Alone, has been canceled.
Maximum Capacity
Ha’s Snack Bar is already too full, but it’s also too good to ignore.
Odd Jobs
Bong Joon Ho sets a bitterly funny take on America in space.
Free Country Sam Adler-Bell
Playing Dead For Democratic leadership, giving up is the strategy.
MOVE FAST AND BREAK LAWS
SHAYNE COPLAN upended political polling on his way to creating the billion-dollar betting platform POLYMARKET. Maybe it's even legal.
COMMISH TISCH TO THE RESCUE
The NYPD's Jessica Tisch has spent her career quietly taking on intractable city problems— but what happens when the biggest problem is the mayor himself?
From Hot to Not
Chefs across the city are toning down the spice levels on their most fiery recipes.
