Innholdsfortegnelse for January 20 - February 2, 2020 i New York Magazine

WITH HIS 91ST BIRTHDAY (on February 28) a month away, the architect Frank Gehry has made few concessions to life in his tenth decade. Standing on the mezzanine of his vast Los Angeles studio, looking down on a panorama of model neighborhoods, six-foot skyscrapers, and blocky mock-ups as if it’s some dollhouse-scale Gehryland, he clearly relishes the sense of inventiveness and bustle. He takes the occasional Saturday off, but he’s mostly omnipresent, marching up and down the stairs from the studio floor to his office and library and keeping a close eye on the dozens of designs destined for sites on several continents. On his docket is a new Warner Bros. headquarters in Burbank, a mixed-use complex on Grand Avenue in downtown L.A. (across the street from his masterpiece, Disney…

MADE WITH A special blend of polyurethane that can withstand temperatures as low as 76 degrees below zero, these insulated rubber gloves from Japanese manufacturer Dia Rubber Co. ($52 at en.sano.shop) are a favorite of New York sculptor Bill Bywater, who has been carving ice for over 30 years. “It’s key to keep dry when you’re trying to keep warm, and that’s especially difficult when ice chips are melting all over you during demonstrations,” he says. The zipper keeps these gloves tight at the wrists, so cold air stays out, and they have a textured grip, excellent for working on slippery sculptures. “Plus, the fleece lining slides out so it can be rinsed and dried thoroughly. I’ve been using them for 20 years, and there is nothing better for days…

SHARON MEDINA Psychotherapist, Wisconsin Tell me about your dress. It’s from Africa. I’ve been spinning the cape around, and I feel like an African queen. Of course, I’m soaking it in. I’m drama all the way. My daughter ordered it for me. I have a really, really great daughter. She knows I’m having a hard time at my job right now and that, honestly, I’m super-broke. I love the opera and I’m obsessed with New York, so she got us a room at the Hyatt and also the tickets for tonight—on opposite sides of the room because it was very last minute. Have you met anyone? Yes. Two handsome men—one black, one white. Since my husband died, this is the first time I’m waking up and starting to take note.…

JUSTIN BIEBER’S new single “Yummy” wasn’t immediately all that appetizing to many listeners. Then he posted instructions to fans explaining how to increase streams and iTunes purchases of the song. (His Instagram post has since been deleted.) The suggestions included putting the song on repeat on Spotify, making sure not to mute it, and buying the song multiple times through a link on Bieber’s website. The strategy didn’t quite work—Compton rap newcomer Roddy Ricch instead got his first No. 1 with “The Box”—but it reignited conversations about the clever lengths artists go to for a hit. Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” Remixes THE SCHEME: A remix with Billy Ray Cyrus got “Old Town Road” to the top of “The Hot 100” in the first place. Then a newly yeehaw…

GUILT-FREE NOMINEE: The film has become a cause among progressive movie fans. FESTIVAL FAVORITE: The film debuts to much acclaim at a fall festival, building anticipation and setting it up with a target on its back. PUBLIC BACKLASH: The film is treated to a backlash from audiences, who don’t get what critics see in it. CRITICAL BACKLASH: The film is treated to a backlash from critics, who don’t get what audiences see in it. RACIAL ISSUES: The film’s perspective on race is incredibly white. GENDER ISSUES: The film’s perspective on gender is incredibly male. SANITIZING HISTORY: The film overtly simplifies a complex historical issue to appeal to mainstream audiences. UNDESERVING: The film received a nomination that could have gone to another, “worthier” film.…

MEDEA is at BAM through February 23. IN A BARE ROOM, Rose Byrne approaches Bobby Cannavale with a painting. It’s a gift that is also clearly a ploy to get back into his life. They talk about their kids and vaguely of her recovery from some kind of trauma. She pretends to be better, while he pretends there wasn’t something between them, though their history sizzles in the air. He’s seeing someone else now. She claims to be over it, yet she can’t help but bring it up. “This isn’t a good conversation,” he says. “It’s not the best, it’s not the worst,” she counters. It’s like watching them pick at a rash when they know they shouldn’t, until it inflames, pustulates, and then kills them. Byrne, 40, and Cannavale,…

What does MC. stand for? “Merrycarol.” I was born on Christmas, and my mom inexplicably let these nuns in the hospital name me. Then she had to go home and tell her Jewish husband, her Jewish mother, her Jewish father, and her Jewish in-laws what she had done. You lived in Alaska? Yes, for 18 years. My background is in fashion in New York: editorials, styling. Tonight, Mercedes Bass said about my dress, “You live in Alaska. Where would you wear something like that?” I said I still dress, just no one notices. I mean, I have designated snow stilettos. What kind of law do you study? I’m a first year at American, so just torts, property, the standards. I was an international-affairs major for undergrad but spent most of…

Egypt’s food culture may be ancient, but its national dish, koshari, claims more recent origins. The humble hodgepodge of rice, pasta, and legumes with spiced tomato sauce and fried onions is thought to have descended from Indian khichdi via British colonialism, the macaroni a likely contribution of the country’s once-sizable Italian immigrant population. With its bounty of beans and variety of starches, it’s a legit grain bowl ripe for the fast-casual treatment. London has its Koshari Street, Bay Ridge had its short-lived Kusharista, and at Nolita’s new Zooba, the first American outpost of the Cairo-based chain, koshari is a featured attraction despite New York head chef Omar Hegazi’s preopening jitters: “Will people really want to be eating a bowl filled with carbs?” On the menu at Zooba; $12; 100 Kenmare…

NOW THAT PIZZA has become a fetish object, everyone’s an expert on flour, cheese, sauce—even pepperoni. Yet one ingredient has eluded scrutiny. We’re talking oregano. Not the musty stuff you joggle from an old cheese shaker at your local Joe’s, Sal’s, or Vinnie’s (which could be anything and tastes like nothing). But rather this Filippone oregano from Sicily that comes on the branch in a bunch looking like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree and emitting a heady fragrance that won’t quit: rich, pungent, floral, hot. A judicious sprinkle fine-tunes the sweetness of tomato on a marinara pizza—that streamlined, cheeseless classic many consider the pizzaiolo’s pizza—the way salt sharpens the flavor of, say, watermelon or lime. Second-generation farmer Gandolfo Filippone grows it high up in Sicily’s Madonie Mountains, hand-harvests it, air-dries it,…

THE Academy Award nominations are out, and the race is on to determine this year’s Oscar villain: the film it becomes the duty of every enlightened movie fan to root against. Until recently, Oscar villains tended to be movies that triumphed over more worthy contenders (like when Dances With Wolves beat GoodFellas for Best Picture), or movies that felt so strategically “Oscar-y” that their success seemed annoyingly preordained (think The King’s Speech or Argo). But as the Trump era has infused all aspects of American life with intense political polarization, the modern Oscar villain now arises out of a disparity in values between Hollywood progressivism and Twitter progressivism, and while you can absolutely make valid critiques of both, only one of them gave Best Picture to Green Book. Nowadays, the…

THE NEW POPE is now airing on HBO. JUDE LAW IS looking at art. I am looking at Jude Law. He walks deliberately and unhurriedly through the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as though he’s doling out each step as a treat for the early risers this November morning. When he squints to examine a work, a fine spray of crow’s-feet sprouts alongside his temples. His hair, a fading blond, has grown sparse along his widow’s peak—a testament that no man can survive the erosion of time. But I think he would agree it’s all for the best, his handsome looks still intact but honeyed with age and freed from the burden of perfection. At 47, Law can now be mortal, a far more interesting place to be as…

“SHE LAY AWAKE, GAZING upon the debris that cluttered their matrimonial trail. Not an image left standing along the way. Anything like flowers had long ago been drowned in the salty stream that had been pressed from her heart. Her tears, her sweat, her blood. She had brought love to the union and he had brought a longing after the flesh. Two months after the wedding, he had given her the first brutal beating. She had the memory of his numerous trips to Orlando with all of his wages when he had returned to her penniless, even before the first year had passed. She was young and soft then, but now she thought of her knotty muscled limbs, her harsh knuckly hands, and drew herself up into an unhappy little…

In 2019, animals delayed 107 by dogs 2 by turkeys 18 by possums 238 trains Eric Loegel, vice-president of rapid-transit operations for TWU Local 100, said animal strikes can set off trains’ emergency brakes, causing “a solid 20- or 30-minute delay, sometimes more.” 6 by birds 2 by cats 16 by geese 87 by raccoons Some critters were more annoying than others. On January 2, one DOG on the Williamsburg Bridge caused … 39 service changes 2 hour delays 14 different trains One raccoon hung out on the Nevins Street platforms for months. Nicknamed Chepe, he was dubbed the “new pizza rat.” RACCOONS delayed 383% more trains in 2019 than 2018 By mid-December, there were …  33 INCIDENTS CAUSED BY ANIMALS 11 involved trash pandas “ The Brighton Beach line…

“We don’t mind the kids fighting,”the aide said. In the final days before the Iowa caucuses every four years, it’s typical for campaign aides and reporters, and baristas and taxi drivers, and any Iowan who’s ever turned on a television or heard a radio ad, to try predicting which presidential candidates will win and which ones will fall flat. But this year is different. Just two weeks out, as the outcome of the race should be taking shape, almost no one in the state—much less the campaign operatives paid to project confidence to anyone who’ll listen—is comfortable even hazarding a shadow of a guess about the Democratic caucuses. This is, in part, the product of a hangover from the 2016 experience there, when Donald Trump happened and Ted Cruz won…

DANA,” says the voice you know by now, in audible all caps. “WHEN DID THE UNITED STATES START TO FEEL A SENSE OF ANXIETY …” A pregnant pause. “Too much,” he says. And so Michael Barbaro, the voice of the New York Times, takes a breath, turns back to the Times reporter Dana Goldstein, and starts again. This, as Barbaro announces every weekday morning, is The Daily, the Times’ tentpole podcast. In a studio tucked in the back of the New York Times Building on Eighth Avenue, in front of a four-legged spider of microphones, Barbaro spends most days interviewing his fellow Times journalists about a single splashy story of the moment, a deepish dive into the day’s news. Shrewdly edited for commute consumption (episodes hover around 22 to 25…

New shvitzers should start with a day pass, ideally to a place with a standard menu of thermal soaking pools, cold plunge tubs, steam rooms, and dry saunas. There’s the Wall Street Bath & Spa 88 and the 128-year-old Russian & Turkish Baths in the East Village, which are the city’s true banyas: The stone-and-wood rooms are bare-bones but clean. Wall Street has a grander lounge area, while the Russian & Turkish Baths draw a more diverse crowd, from NYU kids to old Slavic men to, at least recently, Owen Wilson. For a New Age atmosphere—with an Amit Greenberg mural and a flotation tank—go to Bathhouse in Williamsburg, which opened in November. Pack a swimsuit and an ID for locker rental. Most bathhouses provide towels, robes, clean shower sandals, and,…

THE MAIN ROOM “Here, we had to think beyond the specifics of designing a living space. The apartment was meant to be highly flexible,” designer Jaffer Kolb says. “We installed new flooring all across the apartment. We chose a narrow wood plank that makes the spaces feel more generous.” The pre-finished wood flooring is from Mirage’s Admiration Collection in Red Oak Nordic. THE BATHROOM “We kept the bathroom in its original location but enlarged it by removing an adjoining closet and gaining several feet of clear space,” Diamantopoulou says. THE KITCHEN “We wanted to keep the materials simple, light, and clean,” Kolb says. The new kitchen is in the same place as the old, but a wall and a door were removed to open it up. THE PLEATED WALL The…

ITALOPHILE CHOWHOUNDS know the phrase fare la scarpetta (“to make the little shoe”), which describes the act of mopping the plate with a morsel of bread to punctuate the end of a meal. So enamored are Italians with the magic that happens when crusty bread meets tangy ragù that they have another word for it: cuzzetiello. According to our Italian sauce-sopping consultant, cuzzetiello is Neapolitan for plunging the hollowed-out heel of a rustic loaf (called a cafone) into the pot of Sunday sauce when Nonna isn’t looking. A few years ago, gastropreneurs took to the streets of Naples riffing on the tradition, cramming half-loaves with all manner of saucy foodstuffs. And now you can get this street-food-inspired cuzzetiello in New York at the new Mani in Pasta pizza kiosk, where…

FRIDAYS AT Saturday Night Live are in some ways harder than Saturdays at Saturday Night Live. Mondays are nerve-racking, sure, with writers sitting on the floor of Lorne Michaels’s office, lobbing ideas at him and the celebrity host of the week during a Socratic pressure cooker of a pitch session. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the most fun (near-delirious writing days fueled by snacks and seltzer). But Fridays are when the show has to come together. Writers, cast members, and the production team block out sketches, build sets, choose costumes, rehearse, rewrite, reblock, rechoose costumes, consider camera angles and props, and film pretaped segments, often in a 24-hour workday that involves sleeping in the office, if there’s any sleep at all. On one of those recent Fridays, when the stage of…

The Witcher is a lot like its protagonist: large, rugged, and not fond of explaining itself. The fantasy epic stars Henry Cavill as silver-haired monster hunter Geralt of Rivia, a.k.a. the witcher. Based on a series of best-selling Polish novels turned video games, it’s wildly popular but also, somehow, wildly confusing. So, what’s a witcher? Wow, we’re really starting at the beginning, huh? A witcher is a monster hunter for hire. They are once-normal humans who got mutated by a combination of medieval science and magic, which made them superhuman and able to take potions too toxic for normal people. Turning into a witcher is a grueling process called the Trial of the Grasses, and only about a third of those who undergo it survive. You sound like you’re making…

“THE VERY BEST IS the cautionary business quasi-comedy American Factory, also the first film to carry the Obamas’ seal of approval vis-à-vis their Netflix deal. The transporting Honeyland (Hulu) centers on a rough-hewn Turkish woman who presides over a fragile ecosystem of bees in an isolated Macedonian valley. The wrenching Syrian cine-diary For Sama can be viewed via its producer, Frontline, at pbs.org. Apollo 11 (Hulu), which is not nominated, is a brilliant reconstruction of mankind’s first giant step onto another orbiting body—see it on the biggest screen you can.”…