Innholdsfortegnelse for July 18-31, 2022 i New York Magazine

DEEP IN THE SWAMPLAND suburbs of Charleston, South Carolina, is a road that winds through the palmetto trees and culminates at an unmarked industrial complex wedged between distribution centers for Budweiser and Walmart. Inside is a 50,000-square-foot production studio with museum-quality galleries where more than a dozen employees tinker with doodads and dark hallways are illuminated by almost 150 television monitors. Ambient music pipes through the speakers as the boss, Mike Winkelmann, a.k.a. Beeple, sits in his office with his back to six cable-news channels playing on mute. The adjacent wall is decorated with a framed portrait of the video-game character Mario undergoing a bloody Cesarean section with a green 1-UP mushroom emerging from his womb. “It’s one of my favorites,” the artist says, patting the plumber’s bare chest. This…

IN EARLY APRIL, CHRIS SMALLS DROVE down Canal Street, a blunt in his left hand and an iPhone in his right. He somehow juggled the steering wheel, too, guiding his boat-size Chevy Suburban through Saturday-evening traffic, glancing every so often over the wheel before looking back at the YouTube video playing on his phone. As the leader of the Amazon Labor Union, the first group in the country to successfully unionize an Amazon facility, he had been busy. He had already given two interviews that day, talked to a potential donor, and discussed renting an 11,000-square-foot space for the union’s headquarters. In recent days, he had fielded dozens of messages from workers across the country seeking advice about organizing their own Amazon warehouses as well as media requests from places…

WHEN SUMNER FREEMAN bought this 1960s A-frame house in Fire Island Pines in 1980, the property it sat on was so obscured by poison ivy, catbrier, and Virginia creeper that he couldn’t even see it, and yet it called to him. “It was charming, and I could see the possibilities, and it suited me,” Freeman says. In the 1990s, he bought the house next door and then, in the aughts, with his partner Roy Yeager, added a third. They rent out all but the A-frame, but they had room to expand the garden. It’s a short walk to the beach; when you come upon it, it feels like another world. Freeman is a retired physician and Yeager is a retired dentist. Travels near and far have inspired different elements, including…

THOUGH HE WAS born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Leonard Bernstein was always a New Yorker, from his first cigarette of the morning to his last dying day. More than 30 years after his death, he’s ambling through Central Park in the person of Bradley Cooper, who is playing him in the forthcoming film Maestro. This term suggests an aloof European mandarin, but Bernstein invented a character that had barely existed before: the American conductor—pious, possessed, profane, political, histrionic, and defensive. He was most famous for composing West Side Story, for conducting the New York Philharmonic, and for lecturing kids about sonata form on TV, but none of these was the key to his celebrity. A public figure from earliest adulthood, he bore the spotlight with casual ease. He was cool, with…

WHEN I PLUGGED IN MY NEW 4K ultrahigh-definition television for the first time, I expected more than an upgraded picture. With four times as many pixels as my old TV, plus a high-dynamic color range, I was hoping for a consciousness-expanding experience—something that felt like filling a new eyeglasses prescription while doing peyote. And at first, it delivered. On a 4K Blu-ray disc, 2001: A Space Odyssey revealed details I’d never spotted in any previous home viewing, down to the razor burn on Keir Dullea’s neck. The darkened earth tones of Back to the Future Part III made it feel less like a cartoon and more like a real western. The Blues Brothers might as well have been painted by Botticelli. I could see the texture of the film grain,…

BACK IN MAY, WHEN Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked opinion draft confirmed that Roe v. Wade was on its last legs, a fundraising video from 2020 titled Traffic Stop started to recirculate on social media. The one-minute short depicts a mother and her teenage daughter being pulled over by the cops. After a brief interrogation, it is revealed that the girl is pregnant and seeking an out-of-state abortion, which leads the officers to drag her screaming out of the car. In real life, the impending crackdown on abortion will probably involve more snitching and surveillance than militarized border checkpoints. People looking to terminate their pregnancies will be suspected of crimes, while providers, for now, will bear the brunt of the legal consequences. The liberal PAC MeidasTouch, which made the video, seemed…

SINCE TISHMAN SPEYER FIRST embarked on its audacious plan to overhaul the restaurants within Rockefeller Center, hoping to turn the complex into a dining hub, one question has hung over the project: Will New Yorkers ever actually want to go there for dinner? Estela chef Ignacio Mattos arrived first, transforming the former Bouchon Bakery into the Italian café, bakery, and aperitivo bar Lodi. Also in the works are Five Acres, an all-day restaurant from Olmsted chef Greg Baxtrom that will have a farm-to-table slant; Naro, a modern Korean restaurant from Junghyun and Ellia Park; and Jupiter, a pasta restaurant from Annie Shi, Jess Shadbolt, and Clare de Boer, the trio who run the trattoria King on the edge of Soho. Viewed as a whole, the Tishman Speyer plan seems to…

YOU’VE LIKELY SEEN the image floating around your feeds: Jeremy Allen White, hair rakishly disheveled, raising a tattooed forearm in brooding frustration. This still, from The Bear, has quickly sent an admirably loud faction of Twitter tumbling down a rabbit hole of tortured lust for White’s character—a fine-dining chef named Carmy who returns to Chicago to take over the family sandwich shop after his brother’s suicide—despite all better judgment. His face is kryptonite, vacillating between composed stillness and rapid emotional outbursts, eyes perpetually slightly wide regardless of who’s on the receiving end of his gaze. Carmy’s got a smile like an apology and a smirk like an inside joke. White, in his first lead TV role since Shameless, guides the series’ thrilling first season through turns both comedic and dramatic,…

CRITICS Helen Shaw on Richard III … Lewis Gordon on Stray … Kathryn VanArendonk on Bill Burr: Live at Red Rocks. THE ESSENTIAL FEELING of Shakespeare in the Park is a breeze. Maybe it’s a pretty evening in Central Park and the trees dreamily stir their branches; maybe the weather is hot and you fan yourself with your program. No matter the show, there’s always some moment when you feel the night moving against your skin. Lighter pieces are easiest because they sway with the air. It’s therefore already a challenge to get Shakespeare’s Richard III to work at the Delacorte. It’s certainly a funny tragedy, full of snide asides from the sociopath at its center, but it’s about as breezy as a tornado. The English duke Richard, through trickery…

JULY 20—AUGUST 3 MUSIC 1. Listen to Renaissance Beyoncé’s back with her seventh album. Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia, July 29. The light trickle of details we’ve heard about Beyoncé’s new release suggests that the focus will be on dance music—the first single, “Break My Soul,” gestures to Robin S.’s “Show Me Love”—and maybe even a little country. Does the cover art, a shot of Bey atop a sparkling horse, signal a sequel to Lemonade’s country banger “Daddy Lessons?” CRAIG JENKINS MOVIES 2. See Thief A Caan role that’s not Sonny Corleone. Tubi. To honor the life of the late great James Caan, take a look at Michael Mann’s 1981 work-life-balance drama about a professional thief who gets roped into a ruthless crime syndicate right as he’s trying to start a family. BILGE…

ON A RECENT MORNING in Washington Square Park, vendors in the indie weed trade were busy opening shop. They set up card tables to display their offerings, which included pre-rolled joints and candy-colored edibles, and unfolded camp chairs and rainbow beach umbrellas in preparation for the long day ahead. Some mumbled, “Pre-rolls, pre-rolls,” to parkgoers who paused nearby, while others sat back and let their wares speak for themselves. “I was working at Amazon, and, you know, I just had a baby,” said Namiii, 27, who started selling his wares at the park several months ago. “So my friend was just like, ‘Maybe you could try coming out here.’ I made more than I did in two checks at Amazon.” Namiii lost his job the next day; he didn’t mind.…

OPENINGS N HUNG DAO does not remember the first time she ate bún dâu mam tôm; when she was growing up in Vietnam, it was just there. It is, in many ways, an ideal lunch: a spread of proteins, carbs, and vibrant herbs, all dipped in a potent shrimp sauce that invigorates each bite. “People would get some tofu, they’d get some noodles, and they’d bring it all home,” she says. The dish is a specialty of stalls and restaurants around Hanoi, but it remained elusive in New York—until Dao and her husband, Jerald Head, opened Mam (70 Forsyth St., nr. Hester St.), a weekends-only pop-up. The small all-white space is peppered with squat colorful stools, a wooden bar that seats three, and oversize windows that can open to the…

THE SPECTER OF Kowloon Walled City looms large in pop culture. The former Hong Kong enclave’s densely packed buildings, narrow walkways, and gangland self-governance evidently inspired Blade Runner, the slum called the Narrows in Batman Begins, and the claustrophobic streets of Golem City in the 2016 video game Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. But have you ever seen it through the eyes of a cat? This is the tantalizing premise of Stray, the debut video game from the Montpellier, France–based BlueTwelve Studio, published by Annapurna Interactive. You play as a feline protagonist—nimble, curious, playful—transposed in a moment of bad luck onto the labyrinthine, futuristic streets of Walled City 99. As a biological creature, your body is at odds with this cybercity and the robotic inhabitants that call it home. This, of…

Crossword Camp By Matt Gaffney Across 1 Impersonate successfully8 SoCal newspaper11 Litter member14 Italian city for which a famedcheese is named19 “Count me in!”20 Like many rural bridges22 Fleshy plants23 Person who works at a campevery summer for 40 years?25 Ten Commandments word26 Prepare to propose or protest27 Sci-fi great ___ K. Le Guin28 Took no action30 What you’ll do right afterentering this answer31 Chorus syllable32 Director of the canoeing,sailing, and waterskiing staff ?35 Sail holders37 From Aleppo, say38 Hamiltons39 “Give me ___!”43 Good shade tree45 Range seen in “Narcos”47 Two-week periods the campoffice overbooked? 51 Erode56 New England capital57 Ice-cream brand thatbecomes another when youchange its name’s first letter60 Swiftly61 Suffix with “Manhattan”62 “___ but known …”64 Hathaway of “Interstellar”65 Foreordained66 Bunkmates’ demands that youjoin the water-balloon fight?69 Moneybags73…