World
How the United States Tried to Get on Top of the Sex Trade
On Christmas Day in 1872, the atmosphere was restive among the forty female residents of a medical institution on the outskirts of St. Louis. The women were patients, not...
Mike Leigh’s Love Affair with Real Life
The British realist director Mike Leigh loves the term “character actor,” which he uses often and with zeal. To him, it’s a term of great respect, meaning a performer...
What Does a Translator Do?
Jon Fosse’s “Septology,” the seven-novel sequence about art and God that helped win its author last year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, stars two men and a dog. The men...
Great Books Don’t Make Great Films, but “Nickel Boys” Is a Glorious Exception
It’s harder to adapt a great book than an average one. Literary greatness often inhibits directors, who end up paying prudent homage to the source rather than engaging in...
The Vibrant Abandon of Barbara Hannigan
Jane BuaBua covers classical music for Goings On.It is the dream of many a musician to become a big enough star that their name comes to mind with any...
Are Grownups Just Giant Kids?
Late this past summer, I was at the convenience store with my son, buying ice cream, when a Tesla Cybertruck pulled into the lot. Peter is six, and fascinated...
Converting to Judaism in the Wake of October 7th
The saga of my Jewish conversion began twenty-five years ago, when I got engaged to my first husband. He’d grown up in an Orthodox family, and his parents, my...
The Deep Elation of Working with Wood
What do people do all day? My daughter loves to read Richard Scarry’s book of that title, though she generally skips ahead to the hospital pages. Once we’ve read...
Houston’s Thriving West African Food Scene
The other day, at a Nigerian restaurant called Safari, in Houston, Texas, I peeled back the plastic wrap on a ball of fufu, a staple across West Africa. Made...
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...
