ONE RECENT MORNING, I zipped toward the Bronx in a Lyft outfitted with a murder room’s worth of plastic. My task: to seek the meaning of solitude from an elderly female who has lived alone, more or less, for 15 years.
Her name is Happy, and she is an Asian elephant. Happy was captured, along with six others, in the early 1970s, “probably in Thailand,” according to The Atlantic. The calves, named after Disney’s seven dwarves, were sent to the U.S. and dispersed among zoos and circuses. Happy and a companion, Grumpy, ended up at the Bronx Zoo. The facility has had a number of elephants over the years, but they have mostly died off, and today there are just two: Happy and a second Elephas maximus named Patty. Owing to interpersonal conflicts of the past, Happy and Patty are kept in separate enclosures. “I always say they’re like sisters who don’t want to share the same room,” Jim Breheny, the zoo’s director, told me.
Zoo personnel travel the property’s 265 acres on golf carts, and it was on the back of Breheny’s cart that I flew past flamingos and sea lions and, for some reason, a kid wearing a bucket over his head. The zoo was open and teeming with visitors. I hadn’t been submerged in a crowd in months; it was intoxicating. Peacocks roamed. The head coverings worn by the females of New York City dazzled in their variety: Hasidic, Muslim, sun-avoidant, sporty, political, fashion-oriented. Dippin’ Dots everywhere.
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin March 15 - 28, 2021 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin March 15 - 28, 2021 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
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.
The Water-Tower Penthouse
Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.
