Style
Sharp Claws at “Becky Shaw” and “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”
Still, what distinguishes Gionfriddo is not her ear for cruelty but her ability to see beyond it, and to shift the prism of audience sympathy, in tiny increments. This...
Cory Doctorow on the High Cost of Living with the Ultra-Rich
“Billionaireism,” as defined by the writer and internet critic Cory Doctorow, describes “both the pathology that affects you when you are so wealthy that you’re effectively above consequences and...
A.I. Has a Message Problem of Its Own Making
OpenAI’s Sam Altman wants to “de-escalate” the rhetoric around A.I. But if you tell people that your product will upend their way of life, take their jobs, and possibly...
How Project Maven Put A.I. Into the Kill Chain
But Cukor insists that Maven was never supposed to be a weapon. He frequently defends the project as nothing more than an integrated data platform, which will afford its...
TMZ Turns Its Pitiless Lens on Politicians
Politics has never been TMZ’s focal point, but political issues that aggrieve Levin personally have steered the outlet’s coverage from its inception. While growing up, in the San Fernando...
What Zendaya Leaves Unsaid
Is her professionalism an obstacle to risk? Fatal to artistry? She speaks matter-of-factly about her relative privilege in the industry. She is not “only” an actress; she is a...
R. Kikuo Johnson’s “Meet-Cute”
For the cover of the April 20, 2026, issue, the cartoonist R. Kikuo Johnson, a new father, tackled an issue that people in his age demographic often face. “I was...
St. Paul Remade Human History. How Did He Do It?
This revisionist view of Paul has reached a climax with Nina E. Livesey’s recent book, “The Letters of Paul in Their Roman Literary Context” (Cambridge). Despite its dry title, the...
Zara Larsson Gets Her Flowers
“Midnight Sun” is more adult, more sexed, and more camp than Larsson’s past music, which tended toward the subgenre known as tropical house—E.D.M. mixed with floaty, naïve Caribbean rhythms....
The Violence in Vermeer
As yet, archival research has failed to substantiate this conversation, although it appears, more or less intact, in the 2003 movie version of Chevalier’s book, with Colin Firth, as...
