World
The Best Jokes of 2024
A good joke doesn’t just fall out of a coconut tree. It exists in the context of all in which it lives and what came before it. And so...
Looking Back on a Fallen Life in “Oh, Canada”
The resurgence, in the past decade, of Paul Schrader as one of the most accomplished and acclaimed contemporary movie directors is part of a bigger trend: the self-reinvention of...
Little Treats Galore: A Holiday Gift Guide
On social media, rewarding oneself with “little treats” has become a de rigueur form of performative self-care. Did the laundry? You deserve a matcha latte. Filed your quarterly taxes?...
Put Your Money Where Your Loved One’s Mouth Is
When in doubt, turn to food: at least when it comes to gift giving, that’s an infallible motto. For every person on this earth, there exists a perfect gastronomic...
Conner O’Malley Is the Bard of the Manosphere
Hark, the manosphere! In the days following the Presidential election, the word suddenly seemed to be on everyone’s lips. Comprising a loose consortium of highly influential, extremely online, and...
Faustian Bargains in “Death Becomes Her” and “Burnout Paradise”
In a Faustian bargain, there’s little suspense about how things will end. The Devil doesn’t hand anything over—beauty, knowledge, power—without first laying down some heavy hints. And so it...
“The Franchise” Gives Hollywood the “Veep” Treatment
It’s fitting that the title of the new HBO comedy “The Franchise” makes no direct reference to the superhero movie around which it revolves. That would be “Tecto: Eye...
Can Shostakovich Ever Escape Stalin’s Shadow?
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, one of the mainstays of the twentieth-century orchestral repertory, ends with an unapologetic display of musical bombast. The coda consists of thirty-five triple-forte bars in...
Frank Auerbach’s Raw Truths
The name of Frank Auerbach, the British artist who died on November 11th, at the age of ninety-three, is not especially well known in the United States. MOMA holds...
