Innholdsfortegnelse for May 10-23, 2021 i New York Magazine

WHEN A RESTAURANT IS GONE, IT’S GONE. Well, not always. Sometimes, shuttered restaurants, like bumped-off soap-opera characters, spring back to life. But the resurrection often takes place in a different location, and the vibe isn’t the same. It’s hard, after all, to re-create the particular alchemy of all the things that make a place special: the staff dynamic, the cast of regulars, the menu as a whole. Individual dishes, though, travel through time and kitchens and have the singular power to evoke moments and memories. Here, a few coronavirus culinary casualties that happily can be found elsewhere—either in homage or purely by coincidence. LOST: Prune’s Fried Sweetbreads FOUND: To be clear, Prune has not given up the ghost, and we hope it never will. But at press time, the only…

I. In the late ’90s, New York City’s economy was booming. Many of the 20-somethings who were working at dot-coms were using their paychecks to scoop up apartments across the East Village and in Williamsburg. With rents quickly rising, in 1997, Dan Nuxoll, Lars Williams, and Sam Marks—recent grads who had met at Stuyvesant and the Village Community School—decided to look further down the L-train line for something cheaper with more space, where they could build out their own commune-like spaces without too much oversight. Dan Nuxoll, currently Rooftop Films president, arrived in 1997: Lars got a Realtor, this crazy guy. I think his name was Tony. He was old school and had a cheap but flashy pin-striped suit. He was showing us around warehouse spaces in Williamsburg, mostly along…

IN 2018, the filmmaker Vern Hass created a world he calls the Wendy Cinematic Universe, splicing clips from The Wendy Williams Show so they resemble a daytime-television-show broadcast from a parallel dimension. He strips out the background music, amplifies the sounds of an audience member coughing or licking their lips, the clack of heels on the studio floor. His frames swoop, whoosh, zoom, and vibrate, lingering a second too long on Williams’s wide-eyed stare, stretching it into an expression of abject horror. He has put photo-realistic guns into Williams’s hands, made people’s heads explode, and given studio guests laser vision. “I knew someone who went on her show, and they said every time they cut to commercial, she shut down. Lights on, no one’s home,” says Hass, 23. “As an…

ZIWE FUMUDOH PRACTICES the art of discomfort. The comedian is most effective as an interviewer and best known for her Instagram Live series, in which she hosted intense one-on-one interviews with other comedians and internet personalities. While guests like Alison Roman and Caroline Calloway often held themselves at a slight remove from their cameras, Fumudoh leaned close enough to hers to fill the entire frame, making her presence superficially pleasant but inescapable. Rather than ask guests about their areas of expertise, Fumudoh asked them about things they might not have examined about themselves, things that made them uncomfortable—usually involving race. She loved to reveal her guests, setting traps for them, then shooting a knowing look at the camera as they blithely waltzed right in. She claims not to see it…

TV 1. Watch The Underground Railroad A path to freedom. Amazon Prime, May 14. A ten-episode adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel should be enough to pique your interest, but the series has the added benefit of being directed by Moonlight creator Barry Jenkins. It is raw and horrifying and magical in unexpected ways. KATHRYN VANARENDONK POP MUSIC 2. Listen to Be Right Back Jorja Smith’s sophomore project. FAMM, May 14. Since impressing us with her 2018 debut, Lost & Found, British R&B singer-songwriter Jorja Smith has maintained a steady presence on the charts with cuts like “Be Honest” with Nigerian star Burna Boy. Be Right Back offers eight new songs to Smith’s hungry fandom, including the lovelorn pop-rock tune “Addicted” and the dignified kiss-off “Gone.” CRAIG JENKINS MOVIES…

AT WILMINGTON COUNTRY CLUB recently, after playing his first round of golf as president, Joe Biden engaged in another cherished pastime: He made a gaffe. Speaking to reporters, Biden used the term crisis to refer to the state of the U.S.-Mexico border, where historic numbers of desperate migrants have arrived—urged, in some cases, by smugglers who promise that the new president is unlike the old one, that this one will let them in. “We’re gonna increase the numbers,” Biden said. “The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people, and we couldn’t do two things at once.” This was a casual (and not entirely articulate) break with months of linguistic contortions from his administration, whose officials have insisted…

MY QUITTING FANTASIES became most vivid in December. It was the stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas, a time when, historically, little work gets accomplished anyway. Here’s how I imagined my resignation: I would wait for that familiar feeling to set in, the one in which I’d sooner be swallowed into the Earth’s core than complete one more routine work task. Then, instead of doing it, I’d simply … not. I would not answer the email. Not send my ideas for the pitch meeting. I’d tell my editor, “You know what, actually? Today’s my last day.” Then I’d sign out of Slack, forever. But, of course, I never did. The next day would be better, I told myself, and even if it wasn’t, reality proved unignorable: My wife, like millions of…

EILEEN MYLES, the poet and novelist and East Village literary figure, winner of a Guggenheim and author of the cult classic Chelsea Girls, first heard the city was planning to demolish East River Park last September. The reason given was flood protection. The area had been devastated by Hurricane Sandy. But Myles was incredulous and got in touch with a group of activists working to save the park. Myles had never really liked activism—“I never have the impulse to pick up a bullhorn in front of a crowd, and the only thing I hate more is seeing other people do it,” they told me—but this was different. This was their park. Myles began to make noise, research the situation, and email everyone they knew. So it was that, on an…

BUILDING 248; SINCE 2004 Francis Stallings Circus performer “WE HAD A FIRE in our apartment in 2016. I don’t know what happened, but at 7 a.m. I heard my roommate screaming, “Fire! Fire!” I saw 11 feet of flames. Two panels of curtains were on fire. My roommate was trying to get the fire extinguisher to work, and it didn’t, so I was throwing pots of water at them. Then the sprinkler system popped and all this pressurized, filthy water came out and put out the fire immediately. I’ve been worried that this whole place is a fire hazard because it’s just not meant to be residential. There aren’t a lot of outlets, so there are extension cords running all over the place. And our kitchen is set up like…

THE LIP SYNC “Countdown (Snuggie Version)” YOUTUBE, 2012 ➽ Lip-syncing is everywhere now, but this shot-for-shot re-creation of Beyoncé’s “Countdown” video was ahead of its time. A masterpiece by then-16-year-old Ton Do-Nguyen, it combines his flawless lip-syncing with editing elements we still see over and over, which he achieved with a digital camera and the editing program Vegas. The bulk of the video is shot in landscape, but Do-Nguyen integrates vertical shots throughout—innovative at a time when many hadn’t accepted that the typical way people hold their phone is the easiest way to film with one. There’s a shot panning across a half-dozen vertical frames of Do-Nguyen dancing that looks like it could have been made in 2021—probably using Trio, the TikTok filter that gives you a cohort of backup…

WHAT MAKES A HIT record soar? Is it vibrant melodies and lyrics syncing up with anthemic production? Is it the world-beating verve of a hungry new artist with a unique perspective? Is it the comforting voice of a household name or the familiarity of a beloved melody reinterpreted? Is it all just chemistry, the careful mixing and matching of star power? These questions seem crucial to understanding the career path of DJ Khaled, the Palestinian American South Florida radio personality turned mogul, advertiser, and influencer who, 15 years ago this summer, dove into the business of star-studded rap compilations with Listennn … the Album and never looked back. Rappers make much more music than what we hear when a proper project drops, and Khaled carries on the tradition of the…

IN 2016, Nancy Seid, the longtime proprietor of Wing On Wo & Co., a porcelain shop in Chinatown, decided to sell the family business. She had inherited it from her father in 1964 and managed it while working full time at the Department of Health; now, the shop was becoming a burden, and she and her husband were ready to retire. Wing On Wo’s century-long run would have come to an end had it not been for Seid’s grandchild Mei Lum. “Letting go of the space could shift what our block looked like. A luxury tower could go up; a white-box gallery could open,” says Lum, who now runs the store. “That’s what compelled me to take this on with family.” Wing On Wo, the oldest continually operating shop in…

FROM THE MOMENT ANDREW YANG SAT down in the back corner of a dark restaurant in the Bronx—brow knitted, wearing an overcoat and scarf that would stay on for the whole lunch—he was not the same cheerful New York City mayoral candidate of our popular conception, the one who cheeses for photos and tweets things like “It’s Friday!” when it’s Friday or shouts “Yankee Stadium!” while standing in front of Yankee Stadium. Politicians are always a little different behind the scenes, their ambition harder to conceal in close quarters, but the man sitting across from me was particularly unfamiliar. Since entering the race in January, Yang has pitched himself as the happy warrior for the Everyman, an energetic presence promising to lead New York out of its grim recent past.…

FORGET ABOUT TRENDY SIDEWALK DINING, cocktails alfresco, and all the other beloved tropes of the outdoor-dining craze. During this strange tail-end, twilight era of the Great Pandemic, it’s indoor dining that’s all the rage. If you don’t believe me, walk the streets of Fort Greene or the West Village, where you’ll see raucous dining rooms and people lining up to get into restaurants that just a few months back they would have paid good money to avoid. Scroll your social-media feeds and you’ll see the newly vaxxed hordes tweeting out triumphant indoor meals (“Had dinner at Keens … New York is back, baby!”) and posting images of toasts and maskless diners who appear to have been beamed in from a more carefree time. “Save the outside seats for the unvaccinated,…

ARMY OF THE DEAD premieres in select theaters May 14 and on Netflix May 21. DURING THE WEEKS Tig No-taro spent working on Army of the Dead, Zack Snyder’s new zombie-heist movie, one thought kept running through her head: How on earth did telling jokes lead me to this moment? It was Notaro’s first action gig, and the 50-year-old was stepping into a role originally performed by fellow comedian Chris D’Elia, who had recently been accused of pursuing multiple teenage girls. The allegations against D’Elia had surfaced in June 2020 and within weeks, his agency, CAA, had dropped him and Netflix canceled his deal for an unscripted prank show. (D’Elia continues to deny the allegations.) By that time, Snyder was deep into postproduction on Army of the Dead, which follows…

ANIMATED FILMS often try to reflect the aesthetics of our culture. That can be a dodgy endeavor: For every Ralph Breaks the Internet, we usually get several Emoji Movie–style disasters. Which makes the cluttered, go-for-broke distract-a-thon of The Mitchells vs. the Machines that much more impressive. Here is a picture whose mixed-media cacophony leaves every other movie in the pixelated dust. It is filled with Instagram filters and GIFs and emoji and memes and freeze-frames and flying blocks of text, and at times it can’t seem to stick to a single story thread for more than a minute. But its emotional design and trajectory are crystal clear, and the chaos feels like part of a grand plan. Even the plot is cobbled together from a number of other popular movies,…