The Magazine
September 9, 2024
Goings On
Goings On
Usher, the King of R. & B.
Also: The wrenching documentary “Daughters,” the Fourth Wall Ensemble in Green-Wood Cemetery, Lauren Collins on truth and deception.
The Food Scene
Le Veau d’Or Makes a Thrillingly Old-Fashioned Comeback
The restaurateurs behind Frenchette and Le Rock have face-lifted and spit-shined the city’s oldest surviving French restaurant while remaining obsessed with its history.
The Talk of the Town
Tyler Foggatt on the politics of cool; Francis Ford Coppola, hotelier; a mag for mercenaries; Hollywood meets the Vineyard; covid déjà vu.
Comment
Do Celebrity Presidential Endorsements Matter?
It’s hard to empirically determine whether they drive voters to the polls. But they might have less measurable effects.
Georgia Postcard
Is a Stay at Francis Ford Coppola’s Hotel an Offer You Can’t Refuse?
A guest checks in to the All-Movie Hotel, in Georgia, where “Mr. F.” plays “Godfather”-themed pinball and finished postproduction on “Megalopolis.”
The Wayward Press
The Magazine for Mercenaries Enters Polite Society
Susan Katz Keating, the editor and publisher of Soldier of Fortune, discusses how she’s changing the publication and assesses the threat of political violence.
First-Timer Dept.
Will Packer’s Year of Firsts
The Hollywood producer visits Martha’s Vineyard for the première of his new Peacock series, “Fight Night,” and runs across Michelle Obama.
Sketchpad
Your Lingering Fear of Germs
Sketchpad by Colin Tom: Zooming with a friend and a glass of wine? Freaked out in an elevator? You may have COVID déjà vu.
Reporting & Essays
Personal History
My Audience with the Pope
I thought that the e-mailed invitation was spam. “Nice try, Russia,” I said to my laptop screen. But the Pope really did want to meet with comics and humorists.
Letter from Austria
How to Give Away a Fortune
An Austrian heiress recruited fifty people from all walks of life to redistribute twenty-five million euros—if they could agree on how to spend it.
Profiles
Ina Garten and the Age of Abundance
The Barefoot Contessa looks back at a career built on fantasies of comfort and plenty.
Brave New World Dept.
How Machines Learned to Discover Drugs
The A.I. revolution is coming to a pharmacy near you.
Shouts & Murmurs
Shouts & Murmurs
Every Newspaper Obituary’s First Paragraph
Alfred T. Alfred, whose invention of the plastic fastener that affixes tags to clothing upended the tag industry, died on Saturday.
Fiction
The Critics
Pop Music
MJ Lenderman Keeps It Raw
The artist discusses resisting the neutering effects of technology, his breakup with a bandmate, and his new album, “Manning Fireworks.”
Books
The Power of Thinking Like a Poker Player
Nate Silver’s “On the Edge” applies the lessons of modern gambling to the arenas of tech startups, artificial intelligence, and ethics.
Books
The Supreme Contradictions of Simone Weil
It’s a conundrum of the philosopher’s biography that most basic human needs were alien to her.
Books
Briefly Noted
“The Secret Life of the Universe,” “Playing with Reality,” “The Coin,” and “The Divorce.”
Books
How Seamus Heaney Wrote His Way Through a War
As his country’s most prominent poet, Heaney struggled to reconcile his vision of poetry with the Troubles tearing the Irish apart.
On Television
The State of the Netflix Standup Special
Joe Rogan’s “Burn the Boats,” Matt Rife’s “Lucid,” and Langston Kerman’s “Bad Poetry” showcase vastly different approaches to connecting with the audience.
Poems
Poems
“A Sunset”
“Play, beauty, the impulse to reproduce it, / The impulse to evoke and bring to rage / And then to stillness the violence / In our natures.”
Cartoons
Puzzles & Games
The Mail
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