New York Magazine May 27-June 9, 2019

1 In New York’s most recent issue, deputy editor David Wallace-Wells wrote about how, in the age of climate change, Los Angeles’s fires signal “the end of normal” (“Los Angeles Fire Season Is Beginning Again. And It Will Never End,” May 13–26). Environmentalist Bill McKibben called it a “masterful piece … on California’s unending—and unnerving—wildfires,” and @Nick_chem tweeted, “This is a great, long read. For many of us, Southern California is where we were born and raised, and for that reason, among others, we find it hard to leave. The threat of a devastating wildfire has always been in the back of our minds. Now, thanks to #climatechange, it’s at the front and seems more inevitable with each passing year.” Washington governor Jay Inslee, who is running for president on…

IN THE TRUMP ERA, the abnormalities stack up on each other in so many layers it becomes difficult to recall what normal looks like. From time to time, it is worth pausing to reorient yourself. One such moment occurred on May 20, near the one-hour mark of a rally President Trump held in Montoursville, Pennsylvania. Before going further, bear in mind how unusual the mere existence of this rally is. The custom for presidents is to stop campaigning after the election and use their public remarks to address the country as a whole, before—should they decide to seek reelection—shifting back into campaign mode during their fourth year. Trump has never observed any such distinction. He has continued holding campaign rallies throughout his term, presenting himself as a champion of his…

I’VE BARELY SPENT FIVE minutes with Asia Kate Dillon when I make the precise mistake I was trying to avoid. We’re talking about Dillon’s dog, a 20-pound poodle-beagle-terrier mix named Herbert, when I ask where the actor adopted “him.” “My dog I just call Herbert or buddy,” Dillon amiably corrects me after saying Herbert came from Craigslist. “I do think it’s fascinating, though, that primarily the first question one asks about Herbert is ‘Is Herbert a boy or a girl?’ As if the context is needed for them to understand something greater about the dog.” That Dillon, 34, has considered the dog’s gender identity doesn’t come as a surprise; since joining Showtime’s macho financial drama Billions, they’ve arguably become Hollywood’s most outspoken nonbinary actor. Dillon plays fan favorite Taylor Mason,…

IN LATE FEBRUARY, Matt Hill was scrolling through Instagram when he saw the house. It was a massive old Victorian with two turrets, three porches, and a carriage house. And it was derelict. Plaster crumbled from the walls, the wood under the porch was rotted through, and there was no insulation. “Lotsa work. But WOW!!!,” the caption read. Hill found the listing, contacted the agent, and purchased the thing for $15,000, sight unseen. Within two weeks, it was in escrow. Within four, he was on a plane from Riverside, California, where he’d spent all of his 34 years, to Mount Pulaski, Illinois, a snowy town with a population of 1,500 and a single bar, called the Lucky Lager. Such is the power of Cheap Old Houses, an Instagram account with…

ON MAY 7, Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia signed into law one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the country. If allowed to take effect, it will outlaw abortion once an ultrasound can detect electrical activity where a heart develops in an embryo; it’s known as a “fetal heartbeat” despite the technical absence, in many cases, of either a fetus or a heart. Not to be outdone, Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama signed an even more draconian bill on May 15. House Bill 314 more directly flouts the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by reclassifying all abortions in Alabama as Class A felonies. Both bills accompany a slate of related legislation across the South and Midwest that seeks to force SCOTUS to reconsider—and possibly overturn—Roe. And both…

TRUTH4LIE WAS 27, depressed, and living in a student apartment after a year in a psychiatric hospital on suicide watch when a friend showed him Neil Strauss’s pickup-artist guidebook, The Game. Together they practiced lines from the book, planning to use them on girls in nightclubs. “Would you like to kiss me? I didn’t say you could.” In real life, pickup artistry made Truth4lie anxious. One rule stated he needed to initiate conversation with a woman three seconds after seeing her, which felt like taking an exam. Still, he tried the techniques for a few years, with middling success. Eventually, he stumbled on a forum called Sluthate, where anonymous men gathered to “discredit the effectiveness of pickup art.” In one post, a user described coming to the realization that it…