The Magazine
June 17, 2024
Goings On
Goings On
The Eccentric Silversmith Behind Tiffany & Co., at the Met
Also: A.B.T. kicks off its summer season, Maggie Siff in “Breaking the Story,” the documentary “Flipside,” and more.
The Food Scene
Ambitious, Modern Lebanese Cooking at Sawa
A new restaurant in Park Slope offers Levantine dishes fit for a special occasion.
By Helen Rosner
The Talk of the Town
Isaac Chotiner on Modi’s electoral setback; no-fee congestion; Blago’s tips for doing time; a Louvre workout; like-minded troupers.
Comment
A Striking Setback for India’s Narendra Modi
The truly disquieting thought was that the cult of personality around the Prime Minister had become suffocating and seemingly impossible to pierce—until now.
By Isaac Chotiner
Here To There Dept.
A Journey to the Center of New York City’s Congestion Zone
After Governor Kathy Hochul’s flip-flop on congestion pricing, a cop reconsiders his retirement while inching his Lexus through snarled-up traffic on the F.D.R.
By Ben McGrath
The Blotter
Rod Blagojevich’s Tips for Prison Survival, Just in Time for Trump
The former governor of Illinois, who served time for trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat, advises buffing up, finding a cool nickname, and watching out for crazies urinating in the oatmeal.
By Charles Bethea
Paris Postcard
Spandex and Sweatbands at the Louvre
To mark the upcoming Olympics, Paris’s grandest museum has invited exercisers to get down among the marble caryatids.
By Lauren Collins
Dept. of Pedigree
“H.M.S. Pinafore” Uptown, on Repeat
A century ago, some Manhattan blue bloods in Blue Hill, Maine, decided that performing Gilbert and Sullivan would keep the kids out of trouble. They’re still at it.
By Michael Schulman
Reporting & Essays
Personal History
Notes on a Last-Minute Safari
We saw every animal that was in “The Lion King” and then some. They were just there, like ants at a picnic, except that they were elephants and giraffes and zebras.
By David Sedaris
Brave New World Dept.
How CoComelon Captures Our Children’s Attention
The animation juggernaut is now streamed for billions of hours each year, including on Netflix and its own YouTube channel. Should we be worried about that?
By Jia Tolentino
Annals of Celebrity
Kanye West Bought an Architectural Treasure—Then Gave It a Violent Remix
How the hip-hop star’s beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy turned a beach house in Malibu, designed by the Japanese master Tadao Ando, into a ruin.
By Ian Parker
Letter from Israel
How a Palestinian/Jewish Village in Israel Changed After October 7th
Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom was founded on a total belief in the power of dialogue. In the wake of Hamas’s attack and amid Israel’s war in Gaza, a “very loud silence” has fallen.
By Masha Gessen
Shouts & Murmurs
Shouts & Murmurs
What Are You Fond of, Samuel Alito?
My wife is fond of expensive men’s watches, Norwegian death metal, and private jets. I am not.
By Bruce Headlam and Stephen Sherrill
Fiction
Fiction
“Chicago on the Seine”
Occasionally, I had to send a body home. What I’d noticed was that death abroad was more common on package tours.
By Camille Bordas
Sketchbook
Epic Battles for the Ages
You vs. me, good vs. evil, ketchup vs. mustard, and more.
By Liana Finck
The Critics
Books
When the C.I.A. Messes Up
Its agents are often depicted as malevolent puppet masters—or as bumbling idiots. The truth is even less comforting.
By Daniel Immerwahr
Books
Should We Kill Some Wild Creatures to Protect Others?
Where humans have tilted the game in favor of one species, some believe we should cull predators to save their prey. Others think it’s a mistake to pick sides.
By Elizabeth Kolbert
Books
What COVID Did to Fiction
The early pandemic was a painful, lonely, and disorienting era in American life. It was also a chance to get some writing done.
By Katy Waldman
The Theatre
Great Migrations, in Two Plays
Samm-Art Williams’s “Home,” on Broadway, and Shayan Lotfi’s “What Became of Us,” at Atlantic Theatre Company, portray the politics and the emotions of leaving home.
By Vinson Cunningham
Poems
Poems
“Half Hour to Aberdour”
“Late August, your estuary, now / Flattens gray, and the eroded / Pilings stagger from landfall / Like upside-down legs.”
By David Biespiel
Poems
“A Big Red Shiny Apple”
“He slowly peeled / off the glossy paper, & he just / held the apple as if it were / golden.”
By Yusef Komunyakaa
Cartoons
1/12
“I know it’s the championship game, but I’d rather watch a movie with a dog in it.”
Cartoon by Frank Cotham
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Cartoon by Michael Maslin
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“Well, if it’s anything like the last million years, I think we have a lot to look forward to.”
Cartoon by Tristan Crocker
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“Soon, she was apologizing for apologizing . . . and then she reflexively apologized for that!”
Cartoon by Sophie Lucido Johnson and Sammi Skolmoski
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“Finally! Here’s the funny video I mentioned thirty minutes ago that the conversation has long since moved on from.”
Cartoon by Marie Pax
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“Oh, I don’t want to fix the fact that I use everyone around me. I’m here to complain about the service.”
Cartoon by E. S. Glenn
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“Let’s try not to turn this into some depressing Bravo reunion show where one of us goes crazy.”
Cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan
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“You need to stop eating in bed.”
Cartoon by Jeremy Nguyen
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“Just because I paint sad bananas doesn’t mean I am a sad banana.”
Cartoon by Edward Steed
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“He’s not the rightful king, but you have to admit he’s pretty cool.”
Cartoon by Asher Perlman
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“These are my blurbs.”
Cartoon by Sam Gross
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“How many years until we become people with a mind-set left over from another era?”
Cartoon by William Haefeli
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Cartoon Caption Contest
Puzzles & Games
The Mail
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