Innholdsfortegnelse for February 18-March 3, 2019 i New York Magazine

1 For New York’s most recent cover story, Mark Harris, David Edelstein, Max Read, Andrea Long Chu, and others examined how a 1999 blockbuster predicted—and shaped—the world today (“The Matrix Is Everywhere,” February 4–17). @stdondley tweeted, “I’ve been saying this for a while now: The Matrix has poisoned people’s minds. And now there’s an article that has concluded the same thing.” Talk Poverty’s S.E. Smith added, “It’s so bizarre that The Matrix, a world created by two trans women, has become such a touchstone for misogynistic garbage people.” Some readers felt we might have gone too far in our analysis, including commenter lkswodnawel, who wrote, “Can we just stop being so introspective about everything in this life, especially movies?” But Camila Gomez reflected, “Matrix will be forever one of my…

THE LAST TIME you went out for your weekly linguine appointment, you may have noticed some unfamiliar noodles on the menu. “Sopre-huh?” “Mallor-what?” New York is in the throes of a pasta boom, with chefs clamoring to find obscure shapes and sometimes even inventing them. “It’s like Play-Doh, right? It’s a dough that we can do anything with,” says Vic’s chef Hillary Sterling. “There are endless possibilities of pasta.” This rush of innovation is being driven in part by increased knowledge of regional Italian cooking, but the internet’s influence is also at play: YouTube makes research easier while Instagram encourages finding foods that stand out. However, no budding pasta geek’s library is complete without a copy of the Encyclopedia of Pasta, which Lilia and Misi pasta savant Missy Robbins says…

THE 95-YEAR-OLD photographer June Newton, a.k.a. Alice Springs, is the widow of provocative fashion photographer Helmut Newton, but that’s the least interesting thing about her. Under Springs’s gaze, world-famous actresses like Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling, and Audrey Hepburn look like people, not icons—as if caught mid-sentence in intimate conversation, their eyes telegraphing intellectual and emotional depth. Springs respects her subjects’ beauty but doesn’t accept it as a mask. There are shadows beneath Deneuve’s perfect features; Hepburn looks gorgeous but her age. Early on, Springs decided to forgo studio portraits and photograph subjects on their own territory, peeling back the protective façades that prominent people often construct. “She quickly realized that photographing people in situ—their situ—was more revealing,” says her longtime agent, Tiggy Maconochie. The resulting photos, while artful, convey a…

JULIAN DE JESUS Ideator What’s an ideator? I just get out of bed in the morning and think about what I want to do. It usually involves me having an idea. Is it hard to make money that way? Yeah, ’cause not getting paid for your ideas is a risk you take by opening your mouth. Last year, I went to renew my lease and the management company that runs my building started asking me the same sort of questions you’re asking me. Then he asked if I could help them design this hotel they have in Bushwick. Next thing you know, he’s poaching ideas from me. Lot of scammers out there. It was like my own personal Fyre Festival. LIGHTNING ROUND Age: 28 Neighborhood: South Bronx.…

PLUS SOME LATE-NIGHT SUCKLING PIG: “When you talk late-night, you’re really talking about eating in the street. Lechoncito de Oro (Calle de los Libres at Murguía) is a food truck that opens at 8 p.m. and is always packed. They only serve one thing: lechón (suckling pig) with crispy chicharrones (fried pork rinds) and a very spicy, delicious green salsa. You order it as either tacos, torta, or tostada.”…

1 THE WORTH-SITTING-NEXT-TO-TOURISTS ONE “Los Amantes (Calle de Ignacio Allende 107) opened about ten years ago downtown, specifically as a tasting room. Before then, you could find mezcal in bars and cantinas and, of course, throughout the state, but the idea of sampling and explaining the different styles started there. Sidle up to the bar, where the décor is kind of retro thanks to its black-and-white tile floors and tchotchke-packed shelves.” 2 THE DIVEY, LOCALS-PREFERRED ONE “Unión de Palenqueros de Oaxaca (Calle de Mariano Abasolo 510) is the definition of a crumbling cantina. You’ll know you’re at the right place when you see the faded, hand-painted façade out front. This tiny spot gets quality mezcal direct from the producers in Matatlán, considered the hometown of mezcal. It’s pretty…

NO ONE CAN RESIST A DOUGHNUT. That, at least, is how Buzzy Geduld sees it. On a recent Saturday morning, the Brooklyn-born septuagenarian is giving a tour of the new branch of the Donut Pub, opening soon off Astor Place in Noho. Here, the row of swiveling stools facing the doughnut display case; there, the kitchen almost the size of the entire original West 14th Street shop. Although Geduld’s been in the business since the early 1960s, this is the first store he’s opened in 50 years, and it’s safe to say the doughnut landscape has changed since then. Not that he’s spent the intervening decades anxiously monitoring the artisanal advent of competitors like Dough and Supermoon Bakehouse. He’s been occupied by his other gig—as a Wall Street super-trader running…

BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF and A PEOPLE’S FUTURE OF THE UNITED STATES are in bookstores now. THE OTHER DAY, Victor LaValle, a Queens-born author who employs the fairy-tale format to lure readers into serious treatments of race and parenting, ordered dim sum with Marlon James, a Jamaican author of sweeping social epics that delight in challenging all the conventions of narrative. Both have new books out: LaValle has co-edited the speculative anthology A People’s Future of the United States, in which 25 science-fiction and fantasy writers contemplate the future—and dark present—of the country, and James has published Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the highly anticipated follow-up to his Man Booker Prize winner, A Brief History of Seven Killings. The two writers, who first met ten years ago, shared their thoughts on…

“WEAR COMFORTABLE shoes, talk to the dealers or whoever is standing next to booths, bring snacks, carry hand sanitizer, have breath mints (give them out; people love that). The Armory Show (Piers 92 and 94; 3/7–10) is massive and takes hours to see. It features a range of international galleries. Throw everything you’ve got at the more contemporary Pier 94. Independent (Spring Studios, 50 Varick St.; 3/7–10) is all about cutting-edge art, hip galleries, in-crowd schmoozing, and intense looking. I go there first. Spring/ Break Art Show (866 U.N. Plaza, 3/5–11) is my favorite local art fair. It’s filled with scores of independently organized exhibits; you’ll see artists and curators and talk to them. I’ve seen artists here before they started appearing in the bigger, hipper fairs.”…

“When I first saw the Hudson Yards project, I told [Steve Ross’s partner] Ken Himmel I wanted to buy seven apartments. At first he thought I was joking, but I made an appointment with Steve the next day. He gave me and my friends a great deal, and we immediately blocked seven apartments on the 80th floor, one of the highest levels. It’s not only a building—it’s a whole community, with stores and amenities, and a short walk takes me directly to all the art galleries in Chelsea. “What I like about Steve is that he’s a quick decision-maker. He often says to me, ‘Why did I get myself into this again?’ but he’s reinventing New York’s urban landscape. I’m extremely excited to move in.”…

ON A DAY when the cold makes the skyline snap into focus as if you’re seeing it through new lenses, Hudson Yards seems more virtual than real. Jagged and reflective, the five new towers have a high-definition clarity that the physical world mostly lacks. At a distance, the tallest looks like a high-browed robotic duck with a beak so generous you could almost land a helicopter on it. That’s the outdoor observation deck, which juts out 65 feet and comes to a point 1,100 feet above the street. From here—or better yet, from the set of bleachers that allows you to peer over the glass railing—I can look down on the Empire State Building. I can behold the widescreen, high-res view of a New York more orderly and wondrous than…

THE GOAL: Find the next Mrs. Meyer's. THE VERDICT: For similarly charming packaging , an equally low price point, and a cleaner slate of ingredients , we recommend the food- grade Super Deluxe Dish Soap ($5) from woman-owned company Rebel Green. It’s (entirely) sulfate-free, biodegradable, and endorsed by Sandeep Salter, the owner of stylish Brooklyn Heights home-goods shop Salter House, who stocks it between other status cleaning supplies, including a horsehair scrubber brush and a Japanese broom.…

OAXACA HAS ALWAYS BEEN a destination for Mexican travelers and foreigners seeking a quieter, preserved version of the country’s indigenous and colonial history. But there’s been a spike in tourism (foreign visits increased 22 percent in 2017 over the previous year), which makes sense considering the near-peak levels of popularity that Mexico City—just an hour flight away—has seen. In Oaxaca, the weather is always agreeable; open-air markets and sun-faded cantinas line cobblestoned streets; the local cuisine is wildly varied; and, in the past few years, the food and mezcal scenes in particular have really taken off. The latter is in large part owed to an exportation boom of the rural-village-derived liquor (between 2011 and ’17, local production quintupled; 63 percent went straight to the U.S.). Meanwhile, new restaurants like Criollo—opened…

Appropriation of indigenous designs Officials at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca note about one case of plagiarism per year in the state and more nationwide. French designer Isabel Marant allegedly copied the Tlahuitoltepec blouse; Spanish company Intropia’s “embroidered Aztec” minidresses use a motif similar to an ancestral design of the Chinantec village of Tlacoatzintepec (not related to the Aztecs). Villages have had mixed luck in court; in some cases, the designs were ruled to be in the public domain. Tulumification (see page 28) The tourism boom Oaxaca (population 260,000) has experienced in the past few years has caused rent and restaurant prices to soar, especially downtown. Mexico’s Secretariat of Tourism reported that travel to the state capital brought in over $21 million in 2017. As retired gringos and…

Roam the ruins at Monte Albán 25 minutes from the city center by taxi or bus. “This ancient Zapotec city, founded around 500 B.C., is one of the oldest archaeological sites in Mexico, consisting of several pyramids and tombs that are in beautiful condition. Spend a morning here before the day gets too hot. Take a taxi or buy a round-trip bus ticket from a ticket office at the corner of Díaz Ordaz and Francisco Javier Mina.” Soak at Hierve el Agua 1.5 hours by car or by van from Oaxaca’s second-class bus terminal, located eight blocks west of the city center. “There’s a mineral deposit that has slowly solidified into a petrified waterfall, which you can see while relaxing in a thermal mineral pool. It’s like swimming on top…

When you rely on sunlight to pop your corn, a cloudy day can wreak havoc. Or so discovered Bjorn Quenemoen and Jamie O’Shea, the founders of BjornQorn, the Kerhonkson, New York–based cult brand known as much for being cooked in jury-rigged, Mylar-lined solar dishes as for its tangy nutritional-yeast seasoning. Passing clouds meant a longer cooking time, which yielded smaller, crisper popcorn with a roastier flavor profile—reject kernels the pair saved for themselves and eventually began to crave. So much so, in fact, that when they expanded production and switched to photovoltaic roof panels to power electric kettles, they simulated cloudy conditions by using control circuits to intentionally interrupt the cooking cycle. Hence Cloudy Qorn, the company’s second, meteorologically inspired flavor, arriving at local stores on February 22, just in…

ANNA SEGHERS’S 1944 novel Transit—the basis for the vexing, fascinating new film by Christian Petzold (Barbara, Phoenix)—unfolds mainly in the port city of Marseille, where desperate people converge to book passage on ships leaving France as Nazi troops sweep across the country. Paris falls … Lyon falls … and would-be émigrés join long queues at consulates, where capricious bureaucrats might or might not issue visas and transit visas, the latter allowing people to pass through a given country only if they promise not to stay. At the heart of the story is a slow-motion mistaken-identity farce. Entrusted to deliver letters and documents to a famous leftist writer named Weidel, the narrator (a native German who has escaped from a prison camp) discovers that Weidel has just committed suicide. Almost by…

March 29, 2017: Overturned the proposed ban on chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to cognitive and behavioral deficits in children. August 2, 2018: Announced a plan to “correct” emissions standards for cars and light trucks. Traffic-related air-pollution exposure has been linked to respiratory problems, early signs of neurodegenerative disease, and even autism-spectrum disorder. August 21, 2018: Rolled back restrictions on pollution from coal-burning power plants. The EPA’s own analysis predicts 1,400 more deaths annually from the resulting increase in pollution. August 29, 2018: Proposed dismantling Obama-era regulations governing mercury emissions from power plants. Scientists have known for decades that developing fetuses are especially susceptible to mercury poisoning.…

➨ No garbage trucks In the (forthcoming) western section of Hudson Yards, the trash from the apartment buildings will be piped out through three separate chutes at 45 mph. It’ll be ground and dehydrated along the way, ending up at a dispensary on 12th Avenue. ➨ Chilled roots The trains running under the platform generate heat, and it can get up to 150 degrees down below. So the deck is filled with pipes that circulate cool water under the trees to keep them from being cooked. ➨ Its own comms network Usually, your emails and calls go out on a network to your service provider—Verizon or whomever—and then back to your building. Here, there’s a private loop of fiber, embedded in the platform under the buildings and connecting them all,…

MACAULAY CULKIN GREETS ME at his front door in pink pajamas with bunnies on them. He offers me Veuve Clicquot served in a glass purloined from United Airlines. When Devon Sawa arrives, both of us are given rubber duckies we choose at random from a bag. Sawa’s is part duck, part Care Bear; mine is Minecraft-themed. This is the persona Mack (please, call him Mack) has created as the man behind Bunny Ears, a lifestyle website and podcast born out of the question “What if a degenerate were in charge of Goop?” Culkin provides the personality to front it. He’s a professional troll now, and Sawa, his semi-willing victim, is here to squash a beef they started on Twitter. Culkin, 38, and Sawa, 40, have never been in the same…

9 a.m. I’ll start the morning at Casa de la Chef (Calz. de las República 302) in Centro, a little tucked-away spot. They have amazing chilaquiles with chile pasilla as well as delicious postres (pastries) and fruit water. 10 a.m. I’ll go to Hierba Dulce (Calle Porfirio Díaz 311), a woman-owned vegan restaurant, to sip a couple mezcals to help with digestion. 11 a.m. Hilo de Nube (Calle Amapolas 619A) is a shop in Reforma that sells hand-embroidered huipiles (traditional dresses or shirts) from a Mixe village called San Juan Guichicovi. The shop works directly with the makers, ensuring a fair price for them. Noon Taller-Galería Código Tonal (Av. Benito Juárez 107), an underground gallery and workspace founded in 2016 and run by printmaker Issvan Duarte, is usually…

$$$ EL CALLEJÓN  hotelelcallejon.com, from $170 “This is one of the newer hotels in the city—not that many people know about it. It’s tucked away in Xochimilco, one of the oldest neighborhoods in town. There are just a few rooms; the architect-owner used traditional materials like adobe, clay, and stone.” —HÉCTOR AUDIFFRED, bar owner (La Popular and La Otra) $$ HOTEL AZUL  hotelazuloaxaca.com, from $142 “It used to be a huge private home. There’s a terrace that overlooks the city, and the interior courtyard, which is lined with organ-pipe cacti, is great for relaxing. The service is top-notch, and the staff is always ready with a local recommendation.” —EVA LÉPIZ, photographer and location scout $ LA CALERA  lacalera.org, from $40 “It’s kind of a hipster place, a little away from…

FOR CUMBIA “Txalaparta (Calle Matamoros 206), with its old-license-plate kind of décor, is big with local bands and national artists like Tijuana’s DJ Chucuchu. Cool off on the roof on stickier nights.” —ALFONSO BARRERA, guitarist of La China Sonidera FOR HIP-HOP “During the day, El Laberinto (Calle Porfirio Díaz 310)—a stucco-walled, terra-cotta-tiled art gallery, work space, and vegetarian café—doesn’t give off the vibe that it gets packed and sweaty by night. It hosts regular film nights as well as a rotation of local Zapotec rap acts, like the group Mixe Represent (Mixe-language rap) and battle-rappers One Bomber Crew.” —TONI G. SÁNCHEZ RUIZ, rapper in the Zapotec-language rap trio Juchirap FOR TRADITIONAL FOLK “A stage in a coffee shop, El Venadito (Panorámica del Fortín 530) supports traditional musicians like Costa Mía…

IF YOU LOVE ITALIAN FOOD—eating it, cooking it, shopping for it—you know Buon’Italia. The Chelsea Market Italian-foods emporium is a favorite among Italophiles for its obscure pasta brands, dynamite Calabrian-pepper spreads, and Parmigiano-Reggianos of upstanding character and varying vintages. It was a Little Eataly before there was Eataly. Less commonly known is its hidden prepared-foods kitchen, Zia Tonia, where Tonia Magliulo, who owns the store with her husband, Mimmo, has been pan-frying chicken cutlets and rolling meatballs since the days when the former Nabisco factory was as much manufacturing hub as food hall. This cucina became even harder to find a year and a half ago, when Buon’Italia was relocated to the market’s basement, the grocery-geared annex called Chelsea Local. While the new space is polished and shiny, it still…

FROM BREAKOUT STARS to seasoned veterans to, well, Dr. Ruth, this year’s Sundance Film Festival offered a glimpse of the people and performances we’ll be talking about in the months to come. Many of them—some old friends, some newcomers—stopped by Vulture’s studio in Park City to chat and pose for our cameras. Here, a few of our favorites.…

“Bennie and the Jets” “Crocodile Rock” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” “Saturday Night Is Alright for Fighting” “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues” “I’m Still Standing” “Rocket Man” “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” “Tiny Dancer” “Your Song” Also great: “Candle in the Wind,” “Daniel,” “Levon,” “Madman Across the Water,” “Sacrifice,” “If It Wasn’t for Bad,” and songs from Disney’s original motion-picture soundtrack for The Lion King. Listen to Vulture’s “Best of Elton John” playlist on Spotify.…