The Magazine
June 13, 2022
Goings On
Movies
The Complicated Characters of Montgomery Clift
A retrospective of the actor’s movies, at Film Forum, includes John Huston’s haunting “The Misfits” and George Stevens’s unsurpassable “A Place in the Sun,” co-starring Elizabeth Taylor.
Tables for Two
WoodSpoon’s Marketplace of Culinary Side Hustles
The delivery platform offers meals cooked in the homes of neighborhood chefs, such as Raghida Haddad’s festive Lebanese offerings and Yuhe Su’s deeply personal dishes inspired by his childhood in northeast China.
By Hannah Goldfield
The Talk of the Town
Steve Coll on Truth Social and the Trump primaries; gun buybacks in Brooklyn; Queen Elizabeth goes platinum; a best-seller at leisure; Tig Notaro’s family ties.
L.A. Postcard
Meeting Cute, Plus Cancer
Stephanie Allynne told Tig Notaro that she was straight. Notaro wrote back, “O.K., dyke.” Now their two kids call them Mère and Mom.
By Dana Goodyear
Trade-In Dept.
Guns Into Gift Cards, and iPads, Too
When Junior’s restaurant and the Kings County District Attorney’s office sponsored a gun buyback at a Brooklyn church, citizens came bearing pistols, a pump-action shotgun, and a kid’s toy.
By Adam Iscoe
Life Story
James Patterson Is Unapologetically Rich
At his riverfront spread up the Hudson, the king of best-sellers talks about his boyhood on the other side of the tracks, his COVID-project memoir, and hanging with Bill and Hillary.
By Zach Helfand
Comment
How Will Trump’s Primary Messages Affect the Midterms?
The former President has been sowing white-grievance politics and lies about election corruption from Pennsylvania to Wyoming, setting the scene for a potential constitutional crisis.
By Steve Coll
London Postcard
For the Platinum Jubilee, a Patriotic Pudding
How did Elizabeth II’s subjects celebrate her seventy years on the throne? With corgis in shop windows, campouts on the Mall, plenty of gin, and, at Fortnum & Mason, a prize-winning lemony trifle.
By Rebecca Mead
Reporting & Essays
Letter from Santiago
¿Puede el joven presidente de Chile reimaginar la izquierda latinoamericana?
Gabriel Boric promete un cambio social radical. En un país de extremos políticos enfrentados, tendrá que vender su visión no solo a sus oponentes sino también a sus aliados.
By Jon Lee Anderson
Annals of Nature
The Strange and Secret Ways That Animals Perceive the World
Nonhuman creatures have senses that we’re just beginning to fathom. What would they tell us if we could only understand them?
By Elizabeth Kolbert
Onward and Upward with the Arts
A Hamlet for Our Time
In a bold new production, the director Robert Icke finds resonances in Shakespeare’s canonical play which make it feel made for this moment.
By Rebecca Mead
Letter from Santiago
Can Chile’s Young President Reimagine the Latin American Left?
Gabriel Boric promises sweeping social change. In a nation of duelling political extremes, he’ll need to sell his vision not just to his opponents but also to his allies.
By Jon Lee Anderson
A Reporter at Large
The Surreal Case of a C.I.A. Hacker’s Revenge
A hot-headed coder is accused of exposing the agency’s hacking arsenal. Did he betray his country because he was pissed off at his colleagues?
By Patrick Radden Keefe
Shouts & Murmurs
Fiction
Fiction
Trash
“I didn’t think of things like that, impressions—first impressions—what they mean and how people don’t change their feelings about you even years after.”
By Souvankham Thammavongsa
The Critics
Books
Briefly Noted
“The Shores of Bohemia,” “Stepping Back from the Ledge,” “Time Shelter,” and “Acts of Service.”
The Art World
The Importance of Scale
Shows of twentieth-century American modernists, at the Whitney, and the contemporary artist Walter Price, at Greene Naftali, test an idea of what makes paintings work.
By Peter Schjeldahl
A Critic at Large
The Transformations of Pinocchio
How Carlo Collodi’s puppet took on a life of his own.
By Joan Acocella
Books
Andrew Holleran Chronicles Life After Catastrophe
“The Kingdom of Sand” portrays one man’s existence in the wake of the AIDS crisis and personal tragedy.
By Garth Greenwell
The Current Cinema
“Crimes of the Future” Could Be Called “Themes of the Past”
David Cronenberg’s career-long taste for corporeal horror is as strong as ever in his new film, starring Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux, but the narrative pulse is weak.
By Anthony Lane
Poems
Cartoons
1/12
“Damn it, Bill! Don’t tell me you forgot to put the time on the invite.”
Cartoon by Maddie Dai
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“This should be enough spinach for dinner, but we won’t know until we sauté it.”
Cartoon by Johnny DiNapoli
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“She’s a Malaysian Longhair, but we don’t know what.”
Cartoon by Joe Dator
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“I thought I’d drop by and see how you were enjoying your alone time.”
Cartoon by Carolita Johnson
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“We just have a few more tragedies to report before we can get to the fun stuff.”
Cartoon by P. C. Vey
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“Oh, yeah? Would a ‘never spontaneous’ person order two pairs of final-sale chinos online?”
Cartoon by Hartley Lin
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“I’ll be back at the end of the year with a 1099.”
Cartoon by Liana Finck
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Cartoon by Roz Chast
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“Can you try to get my plants on the fire escape?”
Cartoon by Jon Adams
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“We come in peace, we schmooze for a reasonable amount of time, and then we can leave.”
Cartoon by Jason Adam Katzenstein
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“I’m just sad that because I got cocky and used that condescending tone I ended up losing our argument even though I was right.”
Cartoon by Zachary Kanin
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“Here’s an idea—paint about gathering.”
Cartoon by David Sipress
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Cartoon Caption Contest
Puzzles & Games Dept.
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